How does ship level and experience work?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I can't seem to find any information on this.  Is there any explanation on how ship experience and level work?

I'm wondering because my flagship now has 140HP as a medium sized survey ship with some rudimentary weapons and defenses.  It's also listed as level 53 with 166 experience.

It seemed that for a while the flagship's max hit points would increase after every combat, but now it seems to have completely stopped growing.  I've tried using saved games to isolate factors, but I can't figure out what's going on @_@

Is this some sort of a bug?
5,920 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
IIRC, the amount of experience a ship gains is based on how tough the fight was, and a 140 HP ship might be having a hard time finding challenging opponents. I don't believe there's a hard cap, but maybe there is and you found it.

The subject comes up occasionally around here. Try running "experience site:forums.galciv2.com" at your favorite search engine. I just got about 1,700 hits, several of which look like they might have interesting info.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There's a lot of rumors and conjectures, but very little effort in clarifying this mechanic.

I've found something even more bizarre through experimentation.

If I upgrade the ship, it stops gaining hit points after battles.
And no it's not because the ship became more powerful because it was actually an _identical_ ship design saved under another name!
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If I upgrade the ship, it stops gaining hit points after battles.
End of quote


I've never gotten a medium hull anywhere near 140 HP, and I've never reproduced the blocking point you describe even though I tend to choose my most experienced ships for upgrades.

Maybe the underlying mechanics are more like one of those RPGs where stats and/or classes have a maximum (D&Ds) than they are like ones with an open-ended scale (Hero System/Champions).

I'd be interested to know if the math and/or code folks have answers.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd be curious about this too.

Knowing how "expensive" a full-scale war can get once you start sending in the top-notch elements from everywhere, it could be more efficient to forecast the odds of any given ship or even, fleets against potentially stronger enemy targets.
I'd say the mathematics of experience are key to good warfare tactics as they are to a certain extent for fair results during combat.

I'd sure wouldn't want to loose HUNDREDS of small fighters to a simple BIG-Ai defender with huge experience rather than standing a fair chance with an almost lucky shot at it using the best evaluated combo ship IF i'd know what the real facts are upon analysis of the numbers.

So coders? Any daring volunteers, overthere?

- Zyxpsilon.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Settings:
Tiny galaxy, fast tech, Terran

Cheats used:
technology cheat
money cheat

Flagship: medium hull, 4x laser V, Warp V

Acting alone, raiding defenseless vessels, could not gain xp

Flagship fleeted with another identical vessel, begin to gain experience
at experience 5 or 6, became level 1
afterwhich it's one combat per level, versus
- planetary defenders (0/0/0)
- planetary defenders (2/0/0)
- open space ships (0/0/0) constructors, mining ships, freighters, colony ships
- open space ships (1/0/0)

I have let this run for 40 levels thus far.
Will add more details for possible refinement later.

A possible conjecture at this point is a discrepancy between design and implementation of ship leveling mechanics. The total ship experience is confused with experience per level, so:
level 1: 5 xp
level 2: 6 xp
level 3: 7 xp
and so on...