Should I scrap my out-dated-but-experienced ships?

[contributor]

I'm still pretty new to this game but I feel like I'm rocking Hard difficulty on my first major attempt. I'm in year 9 and have almost defeated one xeno race that had 19 colonies. All of my ships in that campaign are getting pretty outdated though and I'm wondering if it would be better to basically scrap that whole fleet when the campaign is over and build a new one, or should I fly them all the way across the map to start dealing with the other xeno. The fleet is at various levels of tech and I still actually have all of my original ships. The oldest ships have around 40 xp and my transports have probably 10 max. I thought they would have more since I think I've only ever lost one. Anyways what are other players thoughts? I'll be going from fighting the Nyktos to fighting the Bollish. To give you an idea of where I'm at tech-wise, I'm working my way up adv. fleet operations/adv. cap. ships.

[Officer Genious]

Yeah the battles in Hard aren't the problem. The politics, however...

I kept my fleet to protect from flank attacks, but you may have to seriously trim them down before you have five old fighters doing what one new fighter can do cheaper. I think that was part of what sank my economy so much...

[En1gma]

I would pick an EXP cutoff, scrap everything below it, and begin again. If your highest EXP ships have major sentimental value, but are no longer effective, bring them back to guard their respective primes, or protect a light flank...

[CdrPlatypus]

With the exception of invasion ships I would scrap. Exp is very valuable on invasion ships

[johndramey]

I generally do what En1gma suggested, pick an xp threshold, for example 15, and try to keep things above that level. I usually don't scrap ships though, and usually form them into small raiding fleets to thin down the xeno or use them as front line defenders to absorb shots. If they survive past the threshold, I'll usually pull them back and keep them as memorial ships.

In my last brutal game I had a level 2 cruiser with 50+ xp named "Verdant Fields" which had survived all the way to the end of my game, seeing everything from the start of the map to the elimination of both xenos. Really cool, and all that xp actually made the Verdant Fields a pretty big threat to the Xeno even though they were up at level 4.

[contributor]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

I polished off the Nyktos and started moving my fleet to the other frontier while I made up my mind. The nearest Bollish planet is 15 tiles away from any of my planets and they have never sent any ships across the gap to attack me. I sent a new top-notch missile boat into their territory to check things out and see what level they were at. I was a little disappointed to see that all his ships were level 1. I destroyed 3 of them while retreating without taking any damage. If that's where he is at tech-wise then I'm tempted to scrap this game because the outcome is already predetermined and there's little point in playing it out. I'm wondering though, does the enemy not scrap old ships and build to his highest level? If that's the case, after I destroy his old ships he might start building some that are a little more of a challenge.

At any rate, I think I'll make my first incursion to capture a first planet with my existing fleet and see how it goes. If better ships start showing up, or his planets are harder to capture, then I guess I'll build my top-tech fleet.

[Cory Trese]

Keep in mind that the Xeno do not destroy their old ships in the AI routine.

You found they had a level 1 ship, you killed it. They might have replaced it with level 6.