What gives Cap ship experience?

Best way to level up Cap ship?

from Sins Forums

In other words, whats the best/fastest way to level up Capital ships?  I know that as you clear planets for colonization, you gain experience and slowly level up.  I often buy the next level (at a reduced cost) before I jump to the next world, to help speed it up.  But later on, as I battle opponents, my leveling up seems to stall out. 

1. Does destroying anything other than ships give experience? (ie: planets or structures, either logistical or tactical)?  Is there anything else that gives experience, or possibly reduces experience?
2. Which ships' (destruction) gives the most experience?  Is there a difference between pirates & opponents?
3. Does having 2 Cap ships present give normal experience, or split it in half?

strategy
23,024 views 47 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

1.  Yes.  Destroying caps gives the best experience, and from there it pretty much scales by ship tier.  Structures give xp.  Not sure on planet infrastructure. 

2.  Faction or race have no bearing on xp delivered.  Heavy Cruisers give the most xp, but each ship's info card will list how much xp is delivered when you have your cursor over a ship. 

3.  Regardless of faction, team, or race, cap ships will split xp within a given grav well as long as the destroyed ship doesn't belong to them. 

I find levelling happens quickest when using one cap only, and keeping it with your main fleet most of the time...In single play, use a bunch of smaller fleets with one or two caps each.  Buying levels can work in single player games, but I wouldn't recommend it in multiplay.

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

To my knowledge, destroying enemy colonies does not give experience points, but everything else is fair game from strike craft to superweapons to trade vessels.

Heavy Cruisers and the Advent Carrier give 100 experience, the highest until you meet a level 4 or greater capital ship. Obviously, higher leveled capital ships are worth more experience, starting with 60 points for a level 1 up to 580 points for a level 10.

Pirates, due to their lack of shielding, give less experience than their buildable counterparts (example, the Pirate Heavy Cruiser, the Corsair, gives 50 experience whereas any other Heavy Cruiser gives 100 experience).

There is actually another way for Advent capitals to gain experience outside of combat experience and training. At Tier 8 Hostility, there is the Mass Transcendence tech which allows low level capital ships to continuously gain experience up to a predetermined limit (level 2 at one level of MT researched, level 4 when MT is maxed). This tech also allows existing capitals to gain extra experience from combat (25% at level 1 of MT, 50% when MT is maxed).

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

From the "gameplay.constants" file:

        allegiance 0.20
        planetCultureTakeOverPercWarning 0.1
        experienceGainedForDestroying 400.0
        scuttleTime 60.0
End of quote

 

apparently killing a planet gives 400

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

OK - hover over an enemy ship/strcture and you will how many points are on offer

These are shared between any caps you have (I think between allies even - not 100% on how this works exactly)

Lvl 1 caps are useless for exp - HCs and seige frigates give more.

But the higher the level of the cap you blow up, the more you get....

All races can buy up to Lvl 4. Advent have a tech that gives free exp over time up to lvl 4 and a bonus thereafter...

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Sitting on an empty plasma storm for hours end, killing abaut 1000 enemy's tradeships :D

 

5 exp and free redits /pop :D

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

And that works in MP games???

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Hack78, reply 6
And that works in MP games???
End of Hack78's quote

 

yestuday i got 50k creds from "other" sources

IE trade ship gankking

 

i was sitting in a empty roid that was no ones intrest in middle of two of my enemys main trade paths with 4 carriers, 10 lrms and caps killing every single tradeship.

 

I culd afford new fleet thanks to that :D

 

And got my marza to lvl 6 ^^

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

After reading this thread I'm convinced capital ships need to give more XP when destroyed and non-combat ships shouldn't hand out any XP at all.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

After reading this thread I'm convinced capital ships need to give more XP when destroyed and non-combat ships shouldn't hand out any XP at all.
End of quote

Why should a Lvl 1 cap give out more?

A Lvl 10 gives out a HUGE amount of experience when it goes BOOM. It is proportional to how hard it is to kill. Non-combat give out very little. I find is surprising Cpt_Siddy can afford to leave one like that without needing it for so long, or that no one noticed it ever...

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

I don't find it that hard to believe. If I remember correctly, your trade ships don't grant sight to grav wells that you don't have any bigger ships or buildings on. So no one would even know what he was doing unless they scouted it out.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Hack78, reply 9

After reading this thread I'm convinced capital ships need to give more XP when destroyed and non-combat ships shouldn't hand out any XP at all.
Why should a Lvl 1 cap give out more?

A Lvl 10 gives out a HUGE amount of experience when it goes BOOM. It is proportional to how hard it is to kill. Non-combat give out very little. I find is surprising Cpt_Siddy can afford to leave one like that without needing it for so long, or that no one noticed it ever...
End of Hack78's quote

 

How do you notice that someone is eating up your tradeships?

 

i mean, i killed like 20 tradeships/minute, and thats was like 1/10th of all enemy trade ships in action.

 

It gives me huge proffit but it dont realy eat up my enemys wallet, just lessern his total income... so no way to realy notice unless you are smart enought to figure why my small battletachment is hanging out at strategically unremarkable plase... and you need to scout it too.

 

Regardles, the income it gives to you by blocking enemy tradeships is well worth leaving some sort of force to block it.

I was able to build army of HC's out of that 50k creds and win. Its the little quirks like this that sepparate the best from the good ^__^

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Hack78, reply 9

After reading this thread I'm convinced capital ships need to give more XP when destroyed and non-combat ships shouldn't hand out any XP at all.
Why should a Lvl 1 cap give out more?

A Lvl 10 gives out a HUGE amount of experience when it goes BOOM. It is proportional to how hard it is to kill. Non-combat give out very little. I find is surprising Cpt_Siddy can afford to leave one like that without needing it for so long, or that no one noticed it ever...
End of Hack78's quote

A heavy cruiser being worth more to kill than a level 1 capital ship is what is not in proportion.

And leveling a cap ship to level 6+ killing only helpless trade ships is ridiculous. They need to be in actual battles or have advent mind tricks to get experience.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

well...

 

a trade ship is worth 5 exp.

 

so unless you sit in middle of silkroad of sins and rape every ship at the rate of 10 - 20 ship a minute, you wont be getting to lvl 6 anytime soon...

 

 

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for the replies.  Some great info.

apparently killing a planet gives 400
End of quote

I tested killing planets for experience points, and never got any!  Maybe its a bug!?  Anyone else have insights?

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

yeah i tested too. wierd it's in the code. no exp

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

You do get exp when bombing a planet - I checked on my egg as it was bombing (well, since it was vassari, actually lasering - I wanted to get it to Lvl 6 for suck :) ). Anyway, with no other objects in the system, its exp was increasing slightly over time. So unless I missed my fighters killing trade ships I didn't notice, there was some exp from the planet bombing....

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Trade ships do have the tendency to continue jumping into the grav well of the planet you are actively burning for some time, though they do eventually stop coming.

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

yes.  In my game, I took a planet, waited till I could colonize it (culture) and took it, built a phase stabilizer and a kostura cannon, and took and colonized two other worlds, and chased their fleet through three other worlds and their trade ships are still going to the first planet of theirs i took.

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Of course, if you took a planet that is in between two other planets that belong to them, and they have trade ports at both planets, you will see trade ships regularly entering the gravity well since they use the shortest route possible regardless of who controls the gravity wells along the way.

Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

finally got it to load the reply box.  anyway, the planet I was at was linke to two of their planets, one uncolonizeable, and another planet I took.  there was a route shorter, but it had to go through one of my planets too.  (the two that were attached to it were also attached to each other)  it could go through the two friendly planets and then skip through another of my hostile planets.  it was odd (though they were going thru planet 2 as well, but that was straight across)

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top

You do get exp when bombing a planet - I checked on my egg as it was bombing (well, since it was vassari, actually lasering - I wanted to get it to Lvl 6 for suck ). Anyway, with no other objects in the system, its exp was increasing slightly over time. So unless I missed my fighters killing trade ships I didn't notice, there was some exp from the planet bombing....
End of quote

I tested this some more (again).  No. You do not get exp when bombing a planet.  It must have been your fighters killing trade ships.  Maybe you've selected/clicked off the Interface Option to "Show Cargo Ship Icons".  (I have, because they were annoying).  And that's why you didn't notice the trade ships.

Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

Again, thanks for all the replies.  I did a little more research into my questions, and the following summarizes the responses and my observations:

Destroying high level caps gives the most experience points (xp), and from there it pretty much scales by ship tier.  Structures also 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. 

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 6 = 260xp, lvl 2 = 80xp)

  --- Ships---          --Pirates---       --Structures--
HCs .............100 .. Corsair......50
Adv Carrier...100
TEC Carrier....80  .. Cutthroat..35  .. Hanger.....75
Siege.............65  .. Pillager.....30
Flak...............50  .. Reaper.....25  .. Def. Plat...50 
LRF, Supp.......30 
L Frigate.........30  .. Rouge......15  .. Labs, etc..25 (Factories/Refineries/Trade/Culture)
Colony, Scout.20                          .. Extractor..20
Constructor....10
Bomber...........6
Trade/Cargo....5
Fighter............3 

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top

I should point out that the Advent Hangar gives 100 xp and superweapons give 150 xp.

Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top

THE SISNS CAPITAL SHIP DOtA!

 

Gather EXP, buy new, beter abilities!

 

Vi sitta här i ventte, och spela litte DOtA!

 

*** SWEDISH HOMO WARNING***

*** push on your own volition... homo***

Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top

InfinateVoid - I should point out that the Advent Hanger gives 100 xp and superwepons give 150 xp
End of quote

 

 

does your cap have to be in the grav well of the enemy planet when the super wepon hits?