Quote Originally Posted by PBI View Post
There seem to be a lot of people using 2nd rates. Am I missing something here? I thought 3rd rates were meant to represent the best balance of cost and firepower, and the 1st rates the way to go if money is no object, so why build 2nd rates?

Campaignwise you can get to the 2nd rates decades before the Steam Docks depending on your tech crawl. It's possible to have Hospital Docks in the 1720s, but unless you play a stellar reseach/theft game getting to Steams Docks that early is impossible or impractical.