Is there a list or info on how older ships upgrade ? to what powers and such?

Ships don't upgrade hence there is no list.

then what did Citizen Blue Ocean mean by this post in another thread...

#38 by Citizen Blue Ocean - 6/16/2003 1:28:38 AM

It is SO not obvious that ships heal up to the newer tech automatically . . .

But, it actually is -relatively- obvious, after once through the game. Otherwise, how would you explain corvettes that had five attack and four defense that you'd had around for a while? Or how would you explain that new ships you were building of any given class had the same power as ships that had been out for a while, even though the ones that had been out had never been retrofitted?

You are confusing upgrades based on technological and manufacturing improvements, and upgrades based on new units being available.

In GalCiv, you don't get upgrade paths for your units. In Civ III for example, you get among others:
pikeman -> rifleman -> infantry -> MechInf

In GalCiv, a BattleAxe remains a BattleAxe. You can't upgrade a battleship to a dreadnought.

However, your ships can actually increase in performance due to a number of factors:
- new technologies (any weapon or shield technology will boost all your current and future ships' stats)
- new manufacturing facilities (a shipyard boost stats of future ships built on that planet)
- presence of starbases in the sector (military starbase improvements modify the stats of all ships within a sector)
- experience (higher level ships get better stats. levels are gained through fighting)

and probably many more that I'm missing.

So GalCiv has experience, location, improvement and technology modifiers to your ships. What it doesn't have is cheaper upgrade paths to better units.

gotcha.

Doug

Military resources. Maxxed out, they give +68% attack/defense to every ship in your empire, which can be a big help taking all the other resources. ;}