It seems that Miniaturization is bugged.
The game scales weapons/components for each hull size, so a Class IV shield on a 30 space hull takes 4 units, while a Class IV shield on a 160 hull takes 11 units (made up numbers). From what I've seen, the game scales up all components that are placed on a hull dynamically, so if you have 100% miniaturization, your 30 hull has 60 space, but all your components are larger when placed into that hull...Kinda defeats the point and is *very* counter-intiutive.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I hadn't noticed, but I will check. Even if this is the case, it is still worth putting in the research, in the same way as it's worth getting the bigger hulls. Having said that you aren't getting quite as much as you would expect. Also I totally agree on one point: it's very counter-intuitive.
Thanks for checking, it should be easy to confirm. I started up a game, saved and then played till I won, building the Hyperion Shrinker, playing as the Yor and and researched all the Miniaturization techs except for supreme. (I won before the 75 turns passed...damn influence!). The result was that a Size 6 device in a small ship at the start of the game became a size 11 device at the end of the game. Its still somewhat useful to research miniaturization, just not till you get to very high levels.
Just from what I found though. Numbers might vary between components.
Yeah, I think they will vary between components. I noticed that a couple of lifesupport techs which started off at the same size differed in a larger hull. My guess is that the mechanism is the same for minaturisation, but I've not sat down and checked.
Final point is that I don't know if this is a rounding issue or a deliberate design choice. Sorry I couldn't be more concrete..