It does not stack. Each 'tier' of drive technology provides a flat percentage bonus to the base speed of the ship in question.
Combustion provides 10% speed bonus
Impulse drive provides 20%
Hyperspace drive gives 30%

So, Level 6 Combustion Drives will mean that all ships which utilize Combustion Drives will travel 60% faster than their Base Speed. When you reach Impulse Drive level 5, Small Cargoes get Impulse Drives fitted - so instead of their 10% per level of Combustion Drive, their speed is now modified at 20% per level of Impulse Drive. The result is that with a base speed of 10,000 - as soon as you reach Impulse 5, you'll get 20,000 actual speed. Making Small Cargoes faster than Large Cargoes, since Large Cargoes only have 7,500 base speed.

Bombers are another example. They use Impulse Drives until you research Hyperspace Drives to level 8. Their base speed is 4000, so with level 8 Impulse Drives they go at 10400 (I think), whereas with Level 8 Hyperspace Drives, they go at 13600.

This is relatively important since your fleet can only move as fast as the slowest ship with in it.

So level 8 Hyperspace doesn't refit Combustion drives with Hyperspace. This makes me sadpanda, but it was expected.

EDIT: Also, if you think about it, send some ships so I can get a debris field, will return the favor

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 11 2011, 3:29 pm by poison_us.

@DevliN
Sent! xD

If someone's willing to build 20 fighters and send them my way, I'd be pretty grateful

Awesome! Thank you so much.

I could provide another 40k metals. Who wants?

Wow, what level is you Metal Mine?

EDIT:
Or is that all metal you've recovered?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 12 2011, 7:15 am by DevliN.

I farm other people. I rake in around 100k metals a run, so...

I just remembered about this tool: http://ogame.gamestats.org/org/108/. It is invaluable. Bookmark it.

Feel sorry for this dude, but feel glad that it wasn't you.
http://ogame.gamestats.org/org/108/details/player/Zolton

http://ogame.gamestats.org/org/108/details/ally/SEN
Our alliance stats. <_<

You guys need moar shipz.

I'm researching Astrophysics finally in a couple hours, and then I'll start pumping out ships. This will also give me some free ships as part of the tutorial thing, which will be nice.

EDIT:
The lack of Deuterium on my planet is really annoying. I'm at level 7 and only getting 162 per hour. At the high cost of energy, it just seems annoying having to keep leveling it. /rant

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 12 2011, 2:26 pm by DevliN.

I didn't even notice tutorial thing until you mentioned this <_<...

Yeah, I started out by following it for the perks, and then stopped to try to build up other stuff. I'm just now going back to it as I need to start gearing up my fleet.

Well, you don't really need much gear to do farming. Just check with your probe if it is armed or unarmed, and rake in unprotected resources. 90% of the time, inactives generate unprotected resources constantly until they are deleted. Now I need to arm up my fleet in order to make active players inactive and in essence, my farms

@BeDazed: We need more mine levels and more colonies before we can start making ships.

Constructions on a planet are one thing that the other players can never damage. Once built you're constantly going to be getting resources at a certain rate. I personally aim to get:

Level 22 Metal
Level 18 Crystal
Level 10 Deuterium
Level 22 Solar Plant

Meaning each colony at this level will give me
~130,000 Metal each day
~50,000 Crystal each day
~12,000 Deuterium each day
Which all equates to: 2 Battleships or 1 Battle Cruiser each day - per colony.

And only takes up 72 fields per colony. Which means I have on average, a spare 100 fields to devote to Robotics/Shipyards/Nanites and Research Labs. Or, indeed more Metal/Crystal/Deut.

This at least is my strategy. It gives you well-rounded research, ship construction and planet locations on top of decent income. Constantly raiding inactives helps you get your mine levels up, and then as your fleet increases you can start looking for meatier targets. The main milestones to overcome are obviously Computer Tech level 10, Hyperspace Tech level 8, and a Robotic Facility level 10, which all lead to your first Nanite Factory and the Intergalactic Research tech - which makes your research a hell of a lot faster.

I love Electra. I'm already at 10/10/8/14 mining, 2/2/1 storage, 5/0/2 facilities, and no research. I'm planning on having a shitton of resources but nothing to raise my score, then I'm going to churn out the ships like no tomorrow. I'm prioritizing the Robotics Factory so that I take almost no time to upgrade mines...and it's phenomenal how fast they upgrade.

EDIT: Also, just wondering, is it bad that on Hydra I can make Ion cannons before Heavy Lazars?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 12 2011, 6:07 pm by poison_us.

errmm, are you called Poison on Electra?

Wanting to trade 10,000 Deuterium for Crystal and Metal (preferably Crystal) at a 3:2:1 ratio. I'm at 2:197:12.

(This means that for 10,000 Deuterium, I want either 30,000 Metal or 20,000 Crystal - or a combination thereof). I'll be willing to settle at 2.5:1.5:1 since it's alliance trade - but easy come, easy go. PM me in game.

I'm willing to trade. <_< 30k metals for 10k deuterium.

I'm also willing to trade 40k metals for 20k crystals too, me wanting the crystals- of course.

Quote from name:Cardinal

errmm, are you called Poison on Electra?

No, that name was taken