[Suicide Junkie]

- Slow down technology advancement, or at least automatically/freely component upgrade of same family. I don't want to see my ship on battle carrying PPB-II when I already developed PPB-V.

That would be like a battleship getting automatic upgrades from 14" main guns to 16" main guns while cruising solo on the open sea.

You should alter your strategies, and regularily swap out the front-line warships with the brand new ships, and retrofit the old ones.
Another good option is to include a SpaceYardShip in with your fleets, so you can do on-the-spot retrofits.
If you're just swapping out 2 or 3 guns, that can be done easily.

Even with all the tech, the weapons, ship sizes, offensive and defensive components, space combat in SE4 feels like salvos with nuclear weapons. Many times the first strike wins the battle. I am not sure how it came to be, but in spite of all the gadgets, combat is won before it begins.

Have you tried any mods to reduce damage (and thus the advantage of first-strike?)
The B5 and Trek Mods should give you a good, complex battle, too:
With leaky armor and shields, everyone takes some amount of permanent damage from each hit.
Plus, firing until the ship is vaporized will mean a lot of wasted firepower into a hunk of scrap armor with perhaps only a single tiny weapon still active.
If your strategy tells the ship to switch targets too early, though, you could be leaving a deadly opponent firing broadsides into your fleet.

Playing a Pirate or Nomadic race in P&N might be good for you, too. Fleets remain small, tactical combat lets you run complex combat strategies, and there is always a hint of danger as you hide from the large AI fleets and try to sneak in and ambush the small convoys.

[ March 13, 2003, 16:57: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]