Sorry.  Double post

Now that Entrenchment has provided a juicy new target for experience points (especially if you hit the SB while its still building), I thot I'd update my post on experience points available for Capital Ships.

Also, I learned a new secret for gaining experience points:  Send a scout into the pirate base to run round and round, and while they chase him, come in with your Cap ship and Carriers, to pick off all the easy targets preoccupied with the scout, and gain a ton of experience in one riskless foray.

Again, In Summary (updated):

Destroying high level caps gives the most experience points (xp), and from there it pretty much scales by ship tier.  Starbases give a nice 400 pt pop.  Other structures give relatively small xp.  Destroying planets does NOT give xp.  Each item's info card will list how much xp is delivered when you hover your cursor over it.  Nothing else gives, or takes away xp.  If 2 Cap ships are present, they will share, or split xp in half (3=thirds, etc). 

Planet Militia give the same xp as TEC counterparts. Pirates, due to their lack of shielding, give about half the xp of their buildable counterparts.

Destroying Capital ships gives: up to 580 points for a level 10, down to 60 points for a level 1.  (lvl 2=80xp, 3=110, 4=150, 5=200, 6=260, 7=310, 8=390, 9=480).

  --- Ships---             --Pirates---          --Structures--
Lvl 10 Cap ....580
Lvl 9 Cap ......490
StarBase..............................................................400
Lvl 8 Cap .....390
Lvl 7 Cap .....310
Lvl 6 Cap .....260
Lvl 5 Cap .....200
Lvl 4 Cap .....150
Superweapon........................................................150
Lvl 3 Cap .....110
HCs .............100 ..... Corsair......50
Adv Carrier...100 .....  ..................  ..... Adv Hanger100
Lvl 2 Cap........80
TEC Carrier.....80 ..... Cutthroat..35  ..... Hanger........75
Siege..............65 ..... Pillager.....30
Lvl 1 Cap .......60
Flak................50 ..... Reaper.....25  ..... Turret...........50 (Pirates too)
LRF, Support....30 
L Frigate..........30 ..... Rouge......15  ..... Labs, etc......25 (Factories/Refineries/Trade/Culture)
Colony, Scout...20                           ..... Extractor......20
Vas Bomber.....11
Constructor......10   
Bomber.............6
Trade/Cargo......5
TEC Fighter........3
Adv Fighter........2 

Something I've noticed in single player games is that the exp given is based on objects destroyed regardless of who or what destroyed them.  At one point I had a fleet sitting at a planet where two AI players were fighting each other.  At the time, I had a peace treaty with one and a cease fire with the other so my ships were totally idle while they fought.  Despite being totally uninvolved, my caps still gained exp every time something died. 

How much dmg does a kostura strike do anyway?  I haven't had a chance to build more than 4 kosturas since I was playing 1.05.  Last time I used 5+ kosturas on a single planet, I had destroyed or critically damaged all structures but hadn't even taken off all the shields off the fleet in the grav well.

I'm not saying the fleet didnt get damaged, only that the damage it suffered was quite minimal.  I'll try it again sometime with 10+ kosturas when I get a chance.  Although the new AI doesn't hoard a large fleet together like it used to. 

Wow.  I trust you, but find that hard to believe.  I've since tested it a fourth & fifth time, and have yet to witness experience gains from bombing a planet.  In fact, I noted that in both, vanilla 1.15 and Entrenchment, the planet info cards have been corrected.   They no longer say:  400 experience points!

I wonder, was it a gradual gain of 300 experience, or an immediate gain at death?  Because in all of the xp gains I've seen, it comes in all at once, at destruction.   Otherwise, I suspect its unseen tradeship 'ganking'.

Regarding the Kostura's damage:  I too have been unable to determine how much damage is generally applied, and I swear that, in previous versions, it was none or minimal damage, with abilities disabled for a few minutes.  But ofcourse I can't find those old posts discussing Superweapons and the darn search feature won't work. 

I noted around -500 damage against structures (and about double that in Entrenchment) for each shot, but it varied by structure, and wasn't percentage based.  For example, extractors are especially hard hit (in entrenchment -1063 against 2500hp)!  So 5 cannon blasts would destroy them (3 blasts in Entrenchment).   Labs & Factories took -523 (or -981*E) damage with each shot.  Constructor ships only -239 dmg!?  But that was 25% of their total health, so 4 shots could kill them?  So who knows? 

At any rate (in entrenchment), jumping a level 6 Marauder through its phase gate, and the one formed by a Kostura cannon shot, with continued cannon blasts, was/is a nice way to gain experience, and screw your enemy!  (And... with only 8 mil labs needed, and no prerequisite research required, I suspect that particular SuperTech is going to get abused... and need a nerf?  Did the changelogs or features lists mention anything about Kostura phase stabilizer creation, or damage upgrades?)

I had Advent & TEC Bombers with 6 xp, not 3.  And surprisingly, Vasari bombers give 11 xp each (not sqauds).

Whoops, 400, not 300.... (serious typo...)

And yes, it is very rare incident and I think I saw this like 3~4 times out of 200+ games.

...let me check my replay section in the game if I can find the replay to prove this (I keep auto-record)

Vasari bombers (as with pretty much all of their ships) have higher hull and DPS, in addition to phase missiles. The counterbalance is fewer per squad (like 3 for Vasari, 4 or 5 for TEC and 6 for Advent, off the top of my head).

I am just assuming that the ship that doesn't have 10 gets all of the exp, the exp just bounces of the ships and the other ships catch it rofl

xp is still split even though no more levels can be attained.