SageWon SageWon

What gives Cap ship experience?

What gives Cap ship experience?

Best way to level up Cap ship?

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?

23,008 views 47 replies
Reply #26 Top

Squiggle, Destroying a superweapon gives 150 xp.  You'd get the xp of whatever was destroyed by the superweapon, if ur in that grav well when it hits.  (But do superweapons destroy anything, other than planets?)

Reply #27 Top

Sorry.  Double post

Reply #28 Top

Quoting SageWon, reply 22
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 
End of SageWon's quote

Very helpful!

Reply #29 Top

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 

Reply #30 Top

Quoting Cpt_Siddy, reply 11

How do you notice that someone is eating up your tradeships?
End of Cpt_Siddy's quote

in my experience a warning pops up and says something like "one of our ships is being attacked" or something

when u click on that it should bring you to a grav well that u cant see into, where ur ships are dissapearing

idk if they changed that with the update

Reply #31 Top

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. 

Reply #32 Top

(But do superweapons destroy anything, other than planets?)
End of quote

6-7 Kostura strikes in rapid succession will pretty much destroy everything in a gravwell except a Starbase ....maybe a capship.

Reply #33 Top

Quoting Cykur, reply 7

(But do superweapons destroy anything, other than planets?)
6-7 Kostura strikes in rapid succession will pretty much destroy everything in a gravwell except a Starbase ....maybe a capship.
End of Cykur's quote

 

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.

Reply #34 Top

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.
End of quote

Pretty sure they do a percentage...but I have noticed that some structures die before others.  Not sure why it didn't hurt the fleet...either it wasn't there for all the hits, or they came too fast and triggered shield mitigation, or they came too slow and gave the ships time to recover.  Ships recover pretty quickly from a Kostura...structures don't.  I haven't used a Kostura under controlled conditions to see the exact damage, I just keep firing more and more until the target system is minty fresh.

Reply #35 Top

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. 

Reply #36 Top

Sagewon, I witnessed that bombing the planet indeed gives you 300 experience point.

 

But it seems the code is extremely buggy -the experience is given very random manner.

Reply #37 Top

Sagewon, I witnessed that bombing the planet indeed gives you 300
End of quote

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?)

Reply #38 Top

ill let you into a little secret.

 

get some flak ships and let them destroy fighters and bombers.  each little figher (NOT SQUADS) give 2 xp and each bomber gives 3 xp. watch in amazement as you caps level up to lvl 6 in about 2 medium sized battles.

Reply #39 Top

each little figher (NOT SQUADS) give 2 xp and each bomber gives 3 xp.
End of quote

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

Reply #41 Top

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)

Reply #42 Top

I, too, agree that planet bombing yields NO XP.  It should.  Just like diff levels of Caps give diff XP, diff levels of planet health should too.

Any who, my question is... Do level 10 caps continue building experience?  IE - If a level 10 cap and a level 2 cap are in the same grav well, is the XP gained still split between the two ships or does the non-lvl 10 ship get it all?

Reply #43 Top

Quoting SageWon, reply 14

each little figher (NOT SQUADS) give 2 xp and each bomber gives 3 xp.

I had Advent & TEC Bombers with 6 xp, not 3.  And surprisingly, Vasari bombers give 11 xp each (not sqauds).
End of SageWon's quote

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).

Reply #44 Top

Does anyone know if having a level 10 capship in a battle (along with a non-level 10 cap) causes experience to split? I would assume that it would be ignored (since experience no longer applies to it) but am not entirely sure.

Reply #45 Top

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

Reply #46 Top

Sorry to bring this back, but I finally tested my original question, and a level 10 cap will still split your exp (with k lvl 10 ships and n total capital ships, k/n of the exp vanishes!).

Reply #47 Top

Does anyone know if having a level 10 capship in a battle (along with a non-level 10 cap) causes experience to split? I would assume that it would be ignored (since experience no longer applies to it) but am not entirely sure.
End of quote

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