Q on experience

[brianeyci]

Okay.

ECM and Combat Sensors are a MUST. ECM III and Combat Sensors III are among the most critical technologies, along with ship construction, shields/armor, and weapons research.

So is ship training. Both ship and fleet training in this regard. Getting advanced military science early means you can also detect those people who rush for stealth/scattering armor.

So is 25% attack and 25% defense (or 20% defense 20% attack depending on the starting points).

Brian

[tja]

Well, as I wrote, I have my ships maxed for "to hit" and "defense" components. It must be something else.
I have to admit that most of my fleets do not exceed 10% experience. Is that crucial?

I don't get your third point.

So is 25% attack and 25% defense

what gives those boni?

[brianeyci]

Racial modifiers. When you create your race, set aggressiveness and defensive to 125% or 120%. If you do not, your opponent has a huge advantage in terms of direct-fire weapons, which means you'll probably lose.

Also, pick bezerkers.

If you haven't done so yet, read Fyron's max/min guide hosted on spaceempires.net, teaches you how to max/min your race.

Brian

[brianeyci]

Also crucial for you to TRAIN your ships. They should not need to "gain" experience for anything. Research advanced military science, and build fleet/ship training facilities. It only takes three extra turns to train your fleet on a 2 moon planet, and then you have +20% to attack and defense.

Brian

[Alneyan]

20% offence/defence refers to the specific characteristics in the Empire setup. There is also the Berserker culture, giving another +10% offence/defence for cheap.

You should train your fleets to 20%, as fleet training is very easy to do, and does not require the fleet to be actually present at the facility. Instead, you can train your fleet with a single vessel somewhere, and add the actual fleet later on. I guess it is more like "learning proper strategy" than anything else.

You could have been unlucky in that particular battle. It might also be that you do not see all the hits, as weapon fire is usually very fast, and damage does not appear clearly in the screen. If you are really annoyed with your vessels, the Talisman is always a nice buy: it allows all your weapons to never miss their target.

Now that was a nice example of cross-posting if I ever saw one. Neural Combat Nets are amazingly useful, as experienced vessels in the fleet (30% or more) would give their bonus to the whole fleet. You will need to be lucky enough to get one such ship however, as few ships tend to live long enough to score enough kills.