Tell us about SHIP LEVELs, please.

Two questions:
1) how they are obtained
2) what they are good for

I see the levels going up, apparently adding points equal to the sum of (late, unmourned) defender AF+DF. But while I thought the level was a multiple of the ship's HPs, it doesn't seem to be so. How are points applied to determine Level?

What's the effect of a Level? I don't see the AF, DF, or HP changing. Does it affect combat? Maybe an unseen % to Hit modifier?

:notsure:

~SDC~
367 views 5 replies
Reply #1 Top
The changes from level 0 to level 1 are neglegable - perhaps +1 to Att, Def or HP if you are lucky or if the ship is powerful enough anyway. The bonuses only start to be significant at the higher levels, such as level 5 or higher, but that tends to be difficult to achieve for most ships.

As the ship's level increases, so do the Attack and Defence atributes. The exact bonuses haven't been recorded yet.

The levels are determined by experience points - when they reach a certain threshold, a level is gained. See the ship information to see how much experience the ship has, and how much it gains per combat.


Reply #2 Top
I found one good way to add levels to a ship:
become technologically advanced and build a well-defendend starbase in a hot sector. Put the ships you want to grow in experience in there.
See the enemy attack fruitlessly.
See your ships' experience shoot up.
I easily got ships at level 7. I'll try to post my stats for different levels for the same ship.
Reply #3 Top
Ok here are some numbers. Only attack and defense values are modified by experience, nothing else.

A corvette in one of my games:
(attack/defense/experience points)

Level 0: 9/6/1 Rookie
Level 1: 9/6/14 Neophyte
Level 7: 12/9/166 Godlike

I also have a BattleAxe at level 8 (Godlike) with 290 experience points.
Level 2 (tactician) is in the 20s
Level 4 (veteran) is in the 70s

So clearly each additional level takes more experience to get to.
The problem in figuring out how much bonus each level gives you is that attack and defense values for a ship are not broken out by bonuses.

For example, if you build a shipyard, you get bonuses to each ship. These bonuses are seen in the base values of attack and defense.
I have BattleAxes at level 0, but some with 7/8 and some with 9/11 values.
I think base values are also modified by location.
So good luck in figuring it all out. Unless the developers give us the equations, it'll be hell to find out what goes on.
Reply #4 Top
If you notice, behind each Level label there is a progress bar. It creeps up whenever you add points; at 100% you add a level and the bar drops back to the % of the next level. By watching carefully it may be able to extrapolate the level values. Eg. it looks like Level 2 is about 50% more points than Level 1, based on the bar.

And levels are definitely class-dependent. 290 point on a Battle Ax is Level 8, but on an Overlord that's just an Avatar snack. I have an Excalibur that's 90% of the way to Level 2, but it has over 2500 points. Never have had a Level 3 (that I noticed.


~SDC~
Reply #5 Top
Some info:
Level 1 on an Overlord 196 pts
Level 2 on an Overlord 700 pts
Level 3 on an Overlord about 1300 pts
Level 1 on an Excalibur about 1000(?) pts
Level 2 on an Excalibur about 2800 pts
Level 1 on a 'Survey Ship' that has been upped to 258 HP by sucking up anomalies will be pretty close to 1000 pts


So it seems to be tied much more to HPs than to ship class.



~SDC~