yea i have my own colony ships and constructors and things that work fine where my designs are better just like you described, putting on engines etc. Was just noticing my issue on combat ships, maybe your right about the miniturization thing but i guess its weird i'd still be able to build them without the advanced miniturization and they're still over capacity.

All warships have weapons, but they do not have propulsion, and only basic sensors and support.

I cannot speak for TA, but I have not seen this in DA.

Have you ever selected a "core" design and then hit the upgrade button while in the "shipyard" screen?  (The one where you design ships)

If you do that, then toggle the display option which shows only functional pieces.

Next, look at each of the revealed components and compare them to what you can put on a design-your-own ship.  Are they the same?  Are there any components there that you cannot select for your own ship?  If not, then there is no problem.  If yes, then can you actually build the ship which has the components you have not researched?  To the best of my knowledge (in DA), the only anomalous ship is the Empire Flagship, which has survey sensors in a medium hull, both of which you cannot replicate in a new ship until you research those technologies.

The core or design have the same attributes.  Tailor FTW.

Ah i know that problem! When ships are upgraded and saved, using the same name, often the ship will not update its appearance, also old active components can remain as visible components on the ship but they are not actually there! Also as an added weirdness bonus, you will see the visual effects of the old weapons fire in the combat screen even though there not really there!!

What you have to do to solve this problem is save all your ship designs without any active components when you first design them. and use some booring name for them that you won't need for combat ships. Once you have saved that design template you can then upgrade it, add weapons etc and save under a different name.

Because of this idiotic upgrading nonsense, you will end up with a huge pile of similar ships with different weapons loadouts as you advance along the tech tree, then you cannot delete any if you still have active ships of that version in play.... it is seriously irritating! you just have to put up with it until you get to the end of the game and then delete them all so they won't come along and croud up your ship list in the next game!

Think I'm beginning to understand your question.  I have noticted some core ship components are not functional.  Doing a upgrade...deleting some components has no effect...they weren't really there.  This may be what your'e experiencing.

If not, you can test using cheats.  If you still don't have the answer, let me know.  I'll do some tests.

jacklv and Mystikmind i think you guys have it right. Gonna play some a lil later and mess with it but per the pics i posted i think your both correct in that the deflector and plasma cannon component on the phoenix m6 arent really there.

As for the effectiveness of core ships in play, there are none that i would use! You need to build your own ships so you can specialize against what the AI is using. You need to combine two weapon types in each fleet but all ships using the same defence type. Then you need two kinds of fleet with different defence types.

If i want a colony ship, i throw a colony pod on a small hull, thats it! gets built much quicker than the standard one which makes up for it being half the speed. The first things i research in the game are early engine upgrades until i can build a cargo hull colony ship at speed 3, then i switch to those from the small hulled ones.

If i want a ship to guarrison my planet, i throw the cheapest weapon i can find on a tiny hull. Lets face it, any ship i build to guarrason a planet is dead anyway if attacked by a fleet, so it may as well be the cheapest possible ship.

My first combat fleets are same as above too, i never bother using small hulls at all except for those early colony ships and sometimes early constructors if i don't have enough miniturisation to use tiny hulls. Lets face it, there is no early combat ship i can build that can compete with the AI, so then we come back to the cheap as possible rule. Only when i have some miniturisation will i throw a cheap as possible defence module on my tiny hulled fighters, then i can send them off to my military starbases. Military starbase ship defence bonuses all become active against all weapon types just because you have one little tiny defence module on your fighter..... with a number of military starbases together in one spot, this makes a tiny hulled cheap as possible fleet into the most powerful force in the game, even right towards the end of the game! Yes thats rite, 1st level cheapest possible tiny hulled ships being the most powerful force right tthrough the game!

Core ships will only become available after you have researched all the necessary techs to built them.  However, you may be exceeded in your research in one or more areas beyond what was needed to build that core ship.  A well designed custom ship should be better than a core ship because it will use all the latest techs at that point plus can be tailored to its mission (e.g., a cheap colony/constructor ship, a fast colony/constructor ship with extra range, a fast survey ship with extra sensors, a combat ship tailored to the enemy's weapons and defenses, etc.)  I'll build a fast constructor with extra range to claim a distant resource before the AI players; after I have claimed it I then build it up using cheap constructors (just a constructor module on a tiny hull if a have the necessary miniturization techs otherwise a smal hull).

Yea, obviously you need primary fleets that can operate away from the protection of your military starbases.

In that instance, i won't even bother trying to form a primary fleet until i have at least medium hulls and some worth while techs to go with it. I play with Drengin set to Godlike, so i know it is totally pointless trying to build an early primary fleet with just small hulled ships.... and sometimes it remains pointless even with medium hulls! In many of my games, i go streight from building tinies to large hulled ships, thats how long it takes me to gather some techs that stand any chance in combat. Remember there is no point to building things that are just going to die, unless you can build them as cheap as possible!, IE, tiny hulled ships!!

The advantage of tiny ships lies with military starbases, since the multiplyer effect draws much more power from the starbase! and fleets of tiny hulled ships cost much less to support if they have cheapest weapon and defence possible, and lame assed planets that take hundreds of years to build decent ships, can be set to build those cheap tinies in just a few turns!!

I forgot one other big advantage of tiny hulled ships....

Later in the game when maximum weapons technology is in play, hitpoints and defences become totally irrelevant.

so i stop building large vessels that are only going to die anyway and only build tiny hulled ships again! Maximum tech tinies pack quite a punch and will kill AI large vessels just as quick as they can kill my tinies. So while the AI is loosing large expensive vessels, i am loosing less expensive tinies!