yes i agree this new update bites balls. but it can still work in our favour for small ship builds. we just have to change tactics slightly. for example it only goes up by decks or levels so SLOW LEVEL! also don't waste rank points on decks. you should as a small build get enough artifact points to pick up a ship bot here and there i personally have 33 stashed as i felt bad scrapping them. every second level use one and utilize the damage cap. to its full opportunity. as long as you slow level and stay at the max capacity of your personal damage cap you'll be fine. plus if you have no honest idea how you will cope simply add new hull with the space gained under the cap.

Exactly.

I too had to store away shipbots like nuts in a treehole... . . .

Did you get that one 'just me?' LoL So what the new cap does is basically tell everyone you can add decks up to the same value of the new formula without incurring any extra damage. I just broke rank 100, So my new damage is 60 (boooo) Whereas before it was only 33, and I had 2 nexus hulls which gave me around 1200 hull after racials and such. Now I get shot down in 10 less hits, thats a current savings to my enemy of 50 energy. (BTW, as I've said, The Trust's first policy is the exchange of knowledge and we will gladly share with everyone) So I have to compensate these next few ranks.

Now you can either, continue to avoid decks, and still maximize tactical officers, or increase deck size to match the formula. I'm choosing the latter. So in my 100 rank plus 19 means 119/2 rounded up to 60. So right now, im safe to have up to 120 decks because then the caps are identical. What you can do instead, because the hull to size ratios are so mathematically eloquent, (Dan, a certifiable genius) and since there was no advantage to having more than 2 hulls on a ship until now, is increase decks to match the formula, and install 4 hulls. Mysterious! Granted, based on tech levels youll need to focus more on balancing hull fittings vs your rank, but just start diverting tech elsewhere when your hulls exceed the new formula. LIKE SCANNERS!!! Woohoo! We'll be able to start fitting scanners! By the time I rebalance, which should be in about 12 ranks, i will be able to mitigate damage just like before...

Sorry enemies!! Save those energy cubes!!!

So cheers to an ever-evolving game everyone. Yeah, my scout beast days are over and we're talking about more work for what should just be an awesome game, but if you want to be the best, you'll have to be just a little more vigilant. And I still think small ship tactics is a viable gameplay strategy, even if folks out there think were hiding behind a 'cheap trick'

Good luck folks!

Ejjakai
The Trust

This build has been worthless for a long time.. now Dan has just made it very unattractive and worthless. I have thought long on scout/frigates in this game.. and they fall apart at rank anyway. There is no hacking, no taking really good planets, there is no disabling true high rank ships... with maybe 2500 atk and very limited energy there is no taking out a rank 350 massive star destoyer. With flexibility that same SD can crush you in energy and swap to full defense.. full hulls.. full shields.. you'd be throwing rocks at a wall.. wasting the small amount of energy saved up... hack you mercilessly and kill you at will. The best a small ship can be is an slight pain to a well setup large ship, and that was before the change. Hopefully now more players will not make this mistake.

The only real issue with playing the small card (as i have done) is lack of being able to grow. i love the pvp aspect of the scout build but at the same time the loss of scanning new planets, the ability to exchange mods to ungrey missions just to become Lazuili has an ungrey requirement of 1000 cloak... small ships are fun if the game allowed 2 accounts i would make myself a scout just to drop population on planets and pick on big players but overall i believe after spending my first 100 ranks as a scout ship with 49 decks its not worth it.