Ship type / Size limit?

[Miyuki]

Hello!

I am not seeing any benefit to having larger ship types when the build size limit is the same for all ships. I could design a Destroyer with 500 size just the same as I could do so with a Capital.

Am I missing something here?

[Bingeling]

The only minor thing is that pirates steal the ship designs of the empires, and destroyers and smaller are the ones usually picked. Cruisers may be taken by pirates that do well too.

So any ill effect of the 500 size escort, is that you could meet it as a pirate.

[Ardilus]

It's really about role assignments and maintenance costs. I would want escorts light, fast, and cheap, for example. Since each role can be assigned different behavior and be organized independently, you want to design what is optimal for your fleet strategies. Larger ships are cheaper firepower, lots of smaller ships are tougher targets, you get the idea.

[Bloodly]

Bah, I go the Palpatine route. He wanted Star Destroyers to do EVERYTHING. Putting fighters bays and jacking up a supposed Escort is close enough.

...Now if only I could tell the auto-design and 'advisors' that.

[Plant]

You aren't missing anything. The ship types are just there for the automated ai to create an interesting looking universe. How it works is that, the ai decides to make a proportion of different ship types. Different ship types then have a different chance to be assigned different automated roles in patrolling/escort/fleet.

None of which matters if you turned off ship automaton.

Ship design ai is a definate weakpoint of the game in terms of making sense. Underpowered and nonsensical, it's easy to make ship designs for every role that completely blows the static ai designs out of the water.