Pirates also get no shield mitigation, which makes them pitifully easy to focus fire into oblivion.
BlackMage11
I have problems running this game with my 3DFX cards too.
You have to have the supply to support a capital ship, and the crew research to crew the ship. The capital ship crew research is the top row of the Fleet Logistics research tab, and supply is the bottom row.
If you're gonna post a battle vid, you gotta post this one :http://youtube.com/watch?v=0DCv4Hq0mlM&feature=related.
The industrial capacity slider is not contingent on your tax slider. It is possible to deficit spend with the industrial cap slider. Moving around the sliders under the industrial cap slider lets you have finer control over where the industrial cap money is going. It's limited at 100%, so cranking your research slider up that high will increase your industry spending.