Alittle bit frustrating

When you started your game, what "tech cost" setting did you use? Low is 1/2 of Medium, while High is twice Medium... you might be interested in trying the High tech cost if you want tech to progress a bit slower. If even that's not slow enough, you can always mod research centers to provide fewer research points, or mod the tech cost formulas in Formulas.txt...

To get intelligence points, you have to research Intelligence Services and then build Intelligence Centers on your planets.

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The power of the ancients is now yours to command. You are truly the Master... of the obvious

There is a strategy to this also.

I find it advantageous to alternate between military and support technology.
Research fleet related technology (ie ship sizes, weapons, armor, etc...) and hold off until you have a number of goodies before you upgrade your ships. Then once you begin building them start researching other technology like facility upgrades, cultural achievements, intelligence, etc... until they reach good levels then upgrade the facilities.

Also, if you're in an active war (and you have plenty of resources) you can send your current outdated fleet into combat until they are run into the ground and meanwhile have a newly built fleet in production and/or on it's way to sweep up the mess.

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I've always found this issue strange.. I've never needed to upgrade my ships.. they die in Battle! and are replaced by the new model fresh out of the factory.. and it dies in battle.. etc, etc....

I suppose my way may not be the most efficient....

Javaslinger

Thats a good idea Java, because then you don't have to worry about it being "Just another ship" it did something while it was out dated =P

I find that you can use outdated ships as cannon fodder. If you have a few old ships, drive them in range first, this will get alot of weapons fired at it, then you can run in your other ships or your troop transport (nice easy way to drop a bunch of units on a planet without having to kill all the planets defenses.

If you play with the Balance MOD, you will find that the tech costs have been adjusted so it becomes manageable. IMHO it's a lot better this way. But you have to try it to make your own opinion about it.

This is largely a personal taste matter. Some like to keep their ships on the bleeding edge of their research. Some, like Javaslinger, don't worry about it and instead use the older ships as extra logs for the fire (and if you think about it, having an old piece of near scrap taking the hits while your shiny new ships blast away with impunity is tactically useful), well, losing old ships and not even losing paint from your new ships, it's a good thing!

And if it's not the middle of a big war, you can take time to actually upgrade what you can. All around, whatever floats yer boat. You can always just scrap old ships for the extra resources if you need a boost too.

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and will always long to return." ~Leonardo DaVinci

Given what happened recently I think this might be right

Thats what i normally do if i dont retro-fit it.
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WHY SHOULD I FEAR WHAT WRONG I HAD NOT DONE?

~Ardius (me)

The BalanceMOD addresses your problem fairly well. Cuts back on the tech steps, so each new level's more powerful but takes a good deal longer to research.

Intelligence operations are absolutely worth your time, but you should get started on it as early as possible. Counterintelligence points accumulate, so both you and the AIs can become all but impervious to enemy spies with practically no effort. 1 or 2 un-upgraded intelligence facilities early on, and all points reserved for counter intelligence, will keep you quite safe from all but the most determined subversion.
Sabotaging, while not needed, can seriously cripple opponents, as well as yield you ships to analyse, which'll give you free tech (if they use any you don't know). And if you don't want to update or lose those old boats of yours, sabotaging enemy fleets and planets might just be enough to keep them safe.

But like I said; start early with the spying. Punching through 25+ turns worth of counter intelligence points isn't worth the trouble.

Ideally, it'd be nice if obsolete'ing a design gave us the choice to call back and upgrade all ships of that design. Maybe an idea for a patch?

Incidentally, didn't SEIII have that feature, or am I imagining things?

there is a refit minister which will do this over time taking ships of obselete design back to a space yard to be refited to a more modern type. This is not a fast process but you can just let it get on with it quite safely