Core Ships - Only Beam Ships and even then not all

(and engine troubles)

So I have been playing around with game, even played an AI game to get a better handle on the tech tree and the ship improvement process on cakewalk levels. I researched all the weapon techs but for some reason no ships other than beam weapons based ships get built out, for example once I research the small hulls, only the phoenix and defender gets built out despite I have completed the prerequisites for the missile (so no cruisers) and mass driver (and no thunders). I also noticed that not all beam ships get built out too for the other hull classes.

The other thing is that even if I add an engine, I see no improvement in the distance being travelled.

I am wondering if this is because I am playing a customized race and/or I am playing a cakewalk level game.

Any advice you give would be greatly appreciated.

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MottiKhan

Join Date 04/2007

+152

You can add any weapon you've researched to any ship as long as it fits. I wouldn't recommend building any core ship designs. You can design much better ships from the very beginning.

Engines only increase speed. You'll need life support to extend range.

Good hunting.

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Illauna

Join Date 09/2006

+84

The other thing is that even if I add an engine, I see no improvement in the distance being travelled.

There are two types of engine upgrades. Smaller engines and faster engines. Most of the upgrades are for smaller engines. Smaller engines take up less space therefor some designs will allow you to add more engines increasing your speed. Faster engines allow you to move faster.

If the name changes it generally is faster. If it's another engine with the same name then it's smaller. If the game is a cake walk turn up the difficulty. The AI can get quite good at the higher levels.

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Thanks to you both for the clarification. I am going to play the campaign for awhile so this definitely helps. But now I have two new questions.

For custom ships, do components ie weapons auto-upgrade as it does for the core ships?

I should clarify about the engines, what I mean is that I don't see my speed improving as I add or improve engines. It seems that the same distance is being generally covered each turn is the same no matter the engine specs.

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