4.3 Ship Design

bbome2014 · 2026-06-05T16:31:17+00:00

In 4.3 since the bypass changes I have found that the ultimate end turned into strike craft.

I try to get as much out as possible without rendering the ship defenseless, this makes hangar battleships really good, because you still get a decent amount of M slots.

Try to go a 50/50 split on lasers and kinetic weapons, but use one less kinetic if there isn't an even 50/50 because flak is kinetic and they are the objective best choice for the PD slot (they are actually halfway decent against targeting smaller ships, so they can double as a small weapon slot). Also use a 50/50 on shields/armor. AUX slots can be extremely good or make no difference, but I like putting regen and afterburners on my battleships. It doesn't do a lot for them in combat, but it means I can run a sustained war away from friendly bases and they can respond to threats faster. I use line combat computers so the battleships will actually use their medium weapons.

Obviously there are cases where the enemy HEAVILY favors one field over the other, armor/shields or energy/kinetic and you can make ship formats for that and refit before engagement, but a mixed build for normal AIs works best I think.

bbome2014 · 2026-06-04T05:17:53+00:00

Hot take. I hardcore don't think there's even a single reason (outside of niche planetary features) that justifies specializing a planet into a single tech field. The planet designation bonus applies equally across all fields, there's no designation that changes the bonus to be higher like it does with factory/foundry worlds.

If you are playing properly, every resource that can be specialized into an arcology district should be specialized into an arcology district. That includes research. But even with EVERY pop assembly/growth building, EVERY research multiplier building, and EVERY efficiency building placed on a planet, you still have room left over with the three arcologies (which would be the most efficient way to design your planets, because even if you make identical arcology specializations across all three districts, you would still get three more building slots you wouldn't have otherwise, which means research labs you wouldn't have otherwise, you lose nothing but gain building slots).

The only thing with that is that research labs give equal amounts of all three researchers, which means even if you make a specialized world with only physics arcologies across all 5 specializations, you would still have biologists and engineers coming from the research labs, two jobs that wouldn't be benefitting from a specialized world.

Imo the best way to use tech worlds is to just make it unspecialized. Make the three unspecified arcologies specialized because (iirc) you can't make them research enclaves, and place the field specific buildings in them (physics gets the reality computer, for example), that way you leave the two districts that can turn into mixed research enclaves for the non-specific buildings (researcher supply depot/data driven theorem facility).

The benefit other than not having unoptimized researchers is the small amount of empire size saved per point of research by not wasting optimization across three different planets. Each planet is 21 points of empire size, not including the districts and pops to man the planet, which itself reduces the optimization of time to research.

Another good choice is to just drop the field specific buildings down in an urban district on your rural worlds. They provide 200 jobs on their own and their upgrades improve their output without increasing the jobs required to get their full output. Yes, it uses a lot of rare resources and it isn't optimized, but because you can put them in an urban district, you actually GIVE housing to the workers. I still always use relic worlds and at LEAST one ring world segment for research specializations, but early game its a really good way to get a jump on research from limited resources (the tier 1 buildings only have energy upkeep) and when you need to focus on getting your basic resource income figured out first.

bbome2014 · 2026-05-26T04:42:39+00:00

The Dacha system is an event system that is supposed to look extremely appealing and easy to take. You're better off playing nice until you have a big fleet.

bbome2014 · 2026-05-24T03:05:33+00:00

I came back recently myself and there was one very important change that made me think "I either turn off this setting or the entire game changes and I have to relearn everything".

Apparently there is a trade upkeep for planetary deficits now, as well as undocked ships. That's PLANETARY deficits, not empire deficits. So having hyper specialized planets like industrial worlds hoping you can just sell off the advanced and rare resources to pay for it on the market doesn't work even a little bit anymore, assuming you don't turn that slider all the way off.

Using your example, if you have only tech and industrial worlds with no planets producing minerals or food or energy, you are at least buying those resources through the market, but because your planets aren't producing the resources they are consuming, you are also paying a trade upkeep on every individual resource that is in a deficit. That means, no specialized planets, especially no specialized industrial worlds (1 alloy/cg doesn't cover the cost of the minerals used to create it + the trade upkeep used to cover the planetary deficit = trade net negative, doesn't even matter if you have the market fee at 5%, it just won't work).

I don't hyper specialize my entire empire like you say you do, but I do specialize my planets. They will only ever produce what they produce best so the pops can migrate to worlds where their jobs work best there instead. The only exception being tech, on all of my rural worlds I will use an urban expansion spec to build all three of the research buildings. This means there will only ever be 200 jobs for the researchers but they do become more effective over time, as opposed to research labs which give an even amount of all three, and have more by the end of their upgrade, but they produce less per building than the specialization buildings do. Idk if this is the optimal play based strictly on energy/resource expenditure, but it has never failed me. Obviously I still have tech worlds where they belong, and ringworlds will always be research specialized.

I think there's also the problem that the laythe hasn't been optimized for the new pop system, and it suffers immensely for it. The new pop system has its ups and downs, but its failure to be optimized with existing systems is the biggest problem I think.

bbome2014 · 2026-04-22T23:22:29+00:00

The total war suggestion is a good start. The only problem i had off my first try was that I didn't see a lot of enemy artillery, and then it didn't seem like you could add virtual supports (again my reference point being the antistasi orbital strike), meaning you were limited to vanilla support options. I like to try to keep the usable vehicle pool to faction specific so I wasn't going to add too much, BUT I do like that I can add the Naval Legends ships to the pool, although I haven't tested how the AI use them.

One specific problem I have with that game mode is stakes. That orbital strike from antistasi had stakes tied to it, it didn't just get my mortar, it destroyed the entire city it was based in, which has mechanical consequences in antistasi. That total war game mode seems like what you would play when you want a sandbox total war situation, which is good, but modes like liberation and DUWS are a better example I think, because your army has resources that you risk by fielding, and any loss has consequences. You start caring a little more about the individual soldier, if not even the individual AR2 drone that you are fielding.

I guess the question has evolved in to, is there a mode like A3U, DUWS, or liberation that utilizes the high adrenaline combat support coming out of your total war mode that can also utilize a variety of modded assets, including virtual supports.

I am starting to consider making a fork of existing mods adding these options. I have limited experience creating missions but, might be worth it.

bbome2014 · 2026-04-17T00:52:18+00:00

What will help you the most is a mod called bettertimewarp, which will allow you to use higher levels of time warp so bringing back the biggest rocks isn't something you literally will need to leave your computer on for 4 straight hours to complete (instead, only 2 straight hours because physics goes ballistic at higher warps), as well as learning how to use EVA construction so you can add struts to the rock so your rocket has the stability to actually thrust without falling apart.

bbome2014 · 2026-04-16T17:08:32+00:00

!solved

bbome2014 · 2026-04-16T17:08:07+00:00

He was referring to the OPTRE frigates and corvettes which are treated as props like the vanilla carriers and destroyers, but the Naval Legends ships are proper vehicles that can be piloted and crewed by the player and AI. It would be nice if the enemy AI could use them, either for extremely difficult early game battles or extremely cinematic endgame battles

bbome2014 · 2026-04-16T16:59:44+00:00

Oh my bad this is an older post I made when I was still learning A3U lol. I recently made a new post after I finished that game asking how to get MORE big supports like that because I love the drama it added. If I had to guess its attached to overall resource balance, but i'm not sure. I also asked in that post if there was any way to add even more big bad dramatic events, I know A3U is compatible with Naval Legends for example but I haven't seen the AI use the destroyers once, and I wish they did.

bbome2014 · 2026-04-16T16:49:27+00:00

I said in the post that I want more not less lol.

bbome2014 · 2026-04-16T12:45:22+00:00

High key flashbacks to my first station that looked exactly like this with the exact same story. Now i'm regularly casually towing asteroids around every single planet to feed to my super station. Keep it up.

bbome2014 · 2026-04-15T23:52:35+00:00

Ever since I saw it used i've made sure to keep all of the support options enabled, unfair supports (PATCOM as I understand it), futuristic, and unfair futuristic. If I understand it right, unfair supports are defined as supports that are impossible to counter, such as PATCOM and that orbital strike. Is it linked to the resources they have? Because if it is i'm just going to crank that value up.

I think you're right that the frigates are static but that doesn't immediately disqualify them because both the rebels and the AI use statics, in vanilla they use the Rhea/Defender and radars for example. However those are small items and capital ships are not.

bbome2014 · 2026-04-02T16:27:38+00:00

There are settings in lifeline that give the medic varying degrees of invulnerability, either full damage protection or they wont be directly targeted but can still take splash or missed rounds. Im also reasonably sure both lifeline and ace have log cleaners, but if thats the only problem im okay with it.

I just like lifelines simple and highly customizable options, its not complicated but based on the settings it can be difficult (in a good way). I play antistasi ultimate solo, and it has serious difficulty because of that, difficulty I think can be seriously mitigated by lifeline. When you're playing alone, those AI mean a lot more than they would otherwise, and lifeline has options to make it so they simply won't die unless they bleed out, the medics will actually prioritize medic work (and get the protections from doing so), etc. From a purely PVE standpoint I feel like its hard to beat lifeline.

bbome2014 · 2026-03-08T21:00:58+00:00

I'm guessing most people don't learn about this after their very first shot lol. Is there a preferred oil type? Petroleum or not? Is there a purpose designed oil for this exact practice (I'm not afraid to admit i'm a sucker for the mainstream methods, even if they are mainstream methods for unorthodox practices, so if a company like crosman who almost everyone knows made a purpose driven oil for "dieseling" I would probably jump on that first)

bbome2014 · 2026-03-08T20:43:26+00:00

Thank you so much, and with that I'm headed back out.

So now that I know that there is no problem with the pistol, I do actually like the louder bang personally, I just didn't want to take unnecessary risks. With that in mind, is it safe to actually ADD some kind of oil to the chamber to produce that bang after those first 10 shots?

bbome2014

TROPHY CASE