My survey is my most powerful vessel!

Hehehe same thing happened to me. I protected my last planet, Sol, for about 30 minutes from all the other races allied together against me with just my survery ship. Weird, very weird. The more I killed, the more rewards it got and so the more powerful. I could of gone for another 30 minutes easy if I wanted to. Maybe next time I should invest more in survey ships rather then battle cruisers.

Pretty normal actually. Though the AI survey vessles don't get very powerful in my experience.

~SDC~

Murdoch,
The behavior you describe is by design.

You can only achieve the monster survey ships in larger galaxies but even with a buff survey ship it's not invincible.

If a space shark attacks the survey ship the survey ship will die. If an AI capital ship attacks it can be a real battle.

Depends on how much exploring you do.

I regularly have my first Survey ship running 137 HP with an attack of 40 and Def of 80. Nothing I've seen in the game will touch that.

Just depends. The AI does not like to build new survey ships. So if you manage to pop theirs off early, they generally won't build another one. And your little Survey ship can run around, getting all those interesting item.

Sorry, that's 127 (fat fingered the number). That seems to be the limit...

Hmm, that explains a lot. I haven't bothered looking at my survey ship to see how powerful it gets (will going forward), but I have noticed that the AI has never been able to take it down.

Survey this, buddy boy.

Later game on a Gigantic galaxy I am often able to take out all three of the escaped zoo monsters with my survey ship. They can get quite powerful if the anormality layout is good.

~SDC~

Hehe, what with having 3 military resources, my survey ship is at 55/48. Still not winning though..., very long grind to victory mainly cause some terrorist shot the Altarian dude, while I was already at war. Doh!

the survey ship is not invincible...but still...it's no exageratedly strong...just think of startrek...Jean Bald Piccard and the wonder ship...they allways win..

In my current (huge galaxy game) my survey ship has about 150+ hit points, attack of 13, and defense of 46. While it was on its way back to a planet for repairs, it destroyed a half-dozen or so Drengin battleships (thus requiring more repairs). I need to launch it again to survey some more.

~SDC~

You gotta play Gigantic - Attack 37 def 130-something 150-some HPs The only thing out there that was nastier than it was my Excalibur.

er, my current is gigantic. I had to pull it out of surveyage because it was down to 30 hp from being attacked repeatedly.

Even then, it still destroyed several battleships on its way home.

~SDC~

Yes, even though only in a Huge galaxy, my Survey Ship just single-handedly ended my war with the Drengin. A war I was losing, badly (Carinoids were giving me ships, for heaven's sake!)... until the USS Hero (Attack 13, Defense 22, 83 HP) wandered into the Drengin's assault path. Twenty-three battelcruisers, 12 starfighters, and five frigates later, the Drengin gave me all their techs (1), their trade good, and 460bc for 20 months to make me go away.

Like Phaedyme, the Hero actually destroyed the last several ships while *retreating*, having been eventually knocked down to 20 HP by the frigates...

What level did your Hero end up at?

I sent mine back out to get more anomalies, so it now has a defense of 50+ or so, attack of 20+, and 200+ hit points.

What scares me is that it's not my most powerful ship anymore. My level 3 dreadnought is slightly better.

That's from anomalies, and from me fully mining three military resources, so.

~SDC~

On medium and smaller galaxies, it is my observation that the scout ships gain a reasonable level of upgrades.

However, in the larger maps, my ships (I usually build two) are able to dominate. The typically end up with a defense near 40 and 200 hp. Their attack ranges from 4-20 (there seems to be more defense boosting items).

I then use my beefy surveys as roadblocks when I go to war. The AI throws themselves against the rock that is my ship. They are also escorts for my weaker defense battleships/dreadnaughts.

/ds

Well i was tooling around in my neat survey ship the SS Foobar and all of a sudden (not really) the drengin decided i needed to attend their dinner party (as a sided dish ) A well placed missile took out the fubar and captain picard was last seen in an escape pod with a pretty altarian girl from wardell.

And depending on the militrary improvements where a ship was built, a battleship built on an omega shipyard, with 2 starbases maxed out on military rescources could give your mega survey ship a run for it's money.

yours in TUNA
the cat


~SDC~

Of course, the starbases also boost your survey ship, so...

I won't be building any more military ships until I get avatar tech, and that only to maintain my "parity" (by which I mean overwhelming superiority) with the Arceans.

~SDC~

Still seems a bit unbalanced to have a scout ship which outweighs the typical dreadnought. My vote would be to limit the maximum's on the scout ship, or alternatively, change the anamolies to produce limited bonuses that effect your fleet versus a single ship.

-Anxiety

What I have been doing is sending warships out with the survey ships so that they also gain attack,defense and HP. Then I end up with 10 or more super ships. I never send a ship out alone unless it is a sensor drone.

~SDC~

Wait, ships stacked with the survey ship also get the anomaly benefits?

Anxiety: You usually don't have more than one or two survey ships that get any significant strength. They're nice, but they're not all-conquering.

(and for the record, I actually like it - it's something different in GalCiv).

~SDC~

In my last game, my survey ship USS Villain became obscenely powerful. I had secured several military resources, and I had over 130 defence.

I was able to take out undamaged 15 defence starbases with no problem at all, and dreadnoughts proved to be easy prey for my evil flagship. However, I had hoovered up a huge amount of anomalies by this point and in some early wars I got the impression that the AI lost all their survey ships.

I have never seen the AI build more survey ships, which might need to be addressed. However I do enjoy having a monopoly on anomalies, so im not sure if thats a change a necessarily want implemented!

One other note; I dont think your survey ship is meant to represent some scout ship. It more represents the first "Enterprise" sent out on a science mission (Just like the series 'Enterprise' you dont start with guns either!).

However, after decades of investigating anomalies and tweaking your ship, it more represents the future Enterprise from the Next Generation series (you know, the one where Riker was Captain, and it had that insta-kill cannon strapped to it!).

Being able to upgrade your flagship is actually one of the unique things I like most about GalCiv. The fact that you can name your ships makes it that much more personal, and I feel a real protectiveness for my flagship.

If you could not upgrade your ship to make it comparable or better than generic warships, there would be no point to having it around any more. Once you had all the anomalies, you would just decomission it.

I'd really like the option to REMOVE SHIP IMPROVING ANOMALIES from the game. It gets silly fast, and I'd prefer to improve my civ as a whole. Or at least give us the option to CHOOSE THE SHIP the anomaly benefits. That could be useful.

As a compromise, why not have some Anomalies *not* investigatable by a standard Survey Ship? These anomalies might provide more bonuses, but can only be investigated by a Star Hawk... (otherwise, why build a Star Hawk?)

Excellent idea Thelon. No point building Starhawks and Rangers if your piddly Survey Ship would crush them anyway. Now you just have to spam this idea everywhere so someone from Stardock sees it LOL