From: Ian Whitchurch

> At TL15, military ships of the same specs are at least twice as effective than at TL12.

Well over twice.

> Therefore, TL12 shipyards should build lower tech but good enough cargo ships, selling for enough Imperial
> Credits to buy the high-tech warships that TL15 shipyards will specialise in.

Actually, TL12 shipyards should build all parts of a merchant ship *except* the power plant, and have the power plant built at TL 15, because the entire difference in cost is that 1 EP of TL 12 power plant is 3T and 9MCr, and 1 EP of TL 15 power plant is 1T and 3 MCr. For unarmored military ships, do the same thing but also install weapons, screens, and computers at TL 15. Armored military ships are more of a problem because you likely can't retrofit armor, so what you do is have the TL 12 planet produce a J-drive and an M-drive, then transport it to the TL 15 planet.

Or, you can fix stupid rules. For example, if you changed it so a TL 13-14 power plant was MCr 1 per ton (2 tons, 2 MCr per EP) and a TL 10-12 was MCr 0.5 per ton (3 tons, 1.5 MCr per EP), straight-up TL 12 merchant ships make sense.