Couple of Questions

[Rich.h (OP)]

Just wondering firstly how the NPR react to ship designs, if I were to design total missile ships will they react and bring out more anti missile designs thereby forces a redesign on my part and so on?

Also is there a way of finding out detailed information regarding NPR designs? Obviously salvaging a wreck will give me lots of info, and when in close contact I can get information about TCS, observed speeds etc. But is there anything I can do to either scan deeply the ship and find out components, or some form of espionage that doesn't require dropping a team on a planet? If the team is the only way does this mean a very stealthy ship is needed for hostile races or is there any other way to get teams to the surface?

[Theodidactus]

We're not sure how the NPR reacts to everything. It's one of the great mysteries about the game...

Another mystery is how an particular NPR's ship is put together. There is no way to tell ship-to-ship without blowing up the ship and then salvaging it.
Espionage as you mentioned it will turn stuff up, but it takes a long time. The design of particular ships may remain slightly mysterious.

This means that the NPR probably doesn't react to your particular ship designs, since it can't figure out if you've designed a total missile ship.

You don't actually need to ship teams manually. If you have a colony on a particular world, you can create a team there (There's a tab for it on the economics page for that colony)
...and you can create a colony on pretty much any world you want...so you can always be spying.

[ZimRathbone]

Just wondering firstly how the NPR react to ship designs, if I were to design total missile ships will they react and bring out more anti missile designs thereby forces a redesign on my part and so on?

Also is there a way of finding out detailed information regarding NPR designs? Obviously salvaging a wreck will give me lots of info, and when in close contact I can get information about TCS, observed speeds etc. But is there anything I can do to either scan deeply the ship and find out components, or some form of espionage that doesn't require dropping a team on a planet? If the team is the only way does this mean a very stealthy ship is needed for hostile races or is there any other way to get teams to the surface?

Actually salvaging a wreck gives very little info. You find out some of the minerals used to build the ship, and sometimes some (but not all) of the components, which may give information on tech that you haven't yet researched.

You DONT get the ship design.  You can get this by boarding & sucessfully capturing the ship.

I have occasionaly discovered designs (mainly components including missiles, but I think I remember at least one ship design) from interrogating recovered enemy crew (POWs) but this is fairly rare, and of course if you capture the home planet then there is a wealth of info on any existing units that surrender or stockpiled components that are captured.

[alex_brunius]

...and you can create a colony on pretty much any world you want...so you can always be spying.

Be careful when creating colonies on habitable worlds within 4 jump of your main world...

Shipping lines just looove  to send all of their colony ships of to a no-return trip to some hostile aliens homeworld, only once a few of them have been blow up will they stop sending ships for a while

[Rich.h (OP)]

Be careful when creating colonies on habitable worlds within 4 jump of your main world...

Shipping lines just looove  to send all of their colony ships of to a no-return trip to some hostile aliens homeworld, only once a few of them have been blow up will they stop sending ships for a while

Do civilian ships cross jump points? I was under the impression that shipping lines only worked inside single systems.

[Theodidactus]

oh, they'll cross jump points.
Civilians will draw their own routes out to 4 jumps away, making for some pretty cool traffic.

[ZimRathbone]

Do civilian ships cross jump points? I was under the impression that shipping lines only worked inside single systems.

There does need to be a pair of Jump Gates to allow transit in both directions, but otherwise, as long as the system has not had recent combat or there is sufficient freindly force (in PPV)  there to escort the civs if there has been combat, then they will happily deliver stuff and/or people within four jumps of your capital.

[MarcAFK]

So they do need gates? That's good to know so I can herd them into systems I want them in, but I may have started with gates on all jump points in this game.