method for ship refit

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be tweaked so that the time to travel to a facility, get refitted, and travel back to where you were, is not longer than it would take to just build a new ship at the same facility and fly it out there.

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I like (C) and (Y) with the possibility of (Z). I'm use to this feature from MOO2 and in my opinion, its the best one.

nd this by allowing the instant upgrade but as mentioned by others the cheese possibilities are endless unless some form of withdrawal from front line is required.

Paul.

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I tihink it's clear that, regardless of what system is implemented, upgrades should only be possible in the player's own space. Otherwise, the cheese factor simply breaks the game.

fit.

so refitting a specific ship should be no different.

heese tactics with a global refit. But the argument mentioned above just doesn't seem to make that much sense to me. Of course there's always the possibility that I simply misunderstood it.

the Paradox game, Hearts of Iron 2 (ww2 sim) keeps track of which ships were killed and by who. Its pretty nice

earlier, if there were fewer ships, that would help alleviate any perceived tediousness.

(double post)

o make, fewer ships but more personal attachment and enjoyable experience, versus strategic gameplay with hundreds of ships and no attachment. Whichever choice they make will have a serious impact on the refit option chosen.

paul.

nly build 12 "interesting/useful" ships ever in GC, the whole game would need to be changed. From epic to fly-speck... I'm not sure how many players would think that is an improvement.

(Double Post)

Maybe upgrades can be done in the field, and redesigns at starbases and planets. I think that adds to the strategic value of having starbases at your borders. Plus as an extra idea everytime ships are upgraded in the field there should be a chance that any race paying for spies could pick off the tech. Spy finds out which ship is being refitted and where and hijacks the upgrade supplies. So if you were in a close science race with a slight advantage you would have to weigh the risks of field upgrades against losing your edge. Also it should be more expensive to do field upgrades, time and money. Maybe have the stats temporarily reduced during upgrade? Just make it so its not a no brainer to just upgrade all your ships at once.

Having manual refit of ships is only worth doing if there a very few ships to begin with, otherwise its a pain in the ass. I personally like the "predesigned model" system of GC1 ships. it really took the pain out of things.

Man, I worry about the laziness of our society sometimes. We do not even play our own games anymore. We want the computer to play for us. We have automated this and computer controled that. Maybe it should be a pain in the ass to upgrade ships. If it is too much hassle just build new ones. I agree micromanagement is a drag sometimes, but don't you ever worry about having remote controls for your remote controls? Well off my soapbox. In certain places, a little micromanagement can go a long way. I think it can be eased by having upgrade controls in the ship list, so you do not need to search out each ship.

Micromanagement can be justified sometimes, for gameplay or stategic reasons. However most micromagement is due to bad design or worse, bad UI.

One of the things I liked most about the original GC was the relatively low levels of inconsequential micromanagement. I'm actually moderately worried about having to manage planet screens and design ships. These are all decent ideas, but may turn out to be a drag once things get too large.

i'm into strategic ship design, but am not personally into the bling element as I'm easily pleased by basic designs - tend to use the base generic hulls and just fill 'em with goodies. I'm wondering whether the bling should be seperated from the strategic, perhaps by having a hull design screen, where you can bling up your small, medium, large, cargo etc hulls and have them saved as your generic hulls for strategic ship design. this would mean, perhaps, that the starport screen is for stategic ship design and build, and the ship design screen becomes a pure bling screen.... just a thought.

In real life, upgrading and refitting usually happens during peace times. Doing so uses logistics that simply aren't available in a war, as they are needed for directing the war. If you go to war with someone, and in the middle, design a ship/plane/tank to counter a threat, do you recall all of your similar troops to upgrade them to this new design? No, you wouldn't even recall one of them, instead you would build the new design and send it to support the troops already in the field. If your troops were "plug and play" as Brad said, imagine the encumberance of the new parts. Now imagine how many supplies like food, and fuel, and parts (for field repairs) would have to be displaced across the field to accomidate these upgrades. How big is a laser cannon? Multiply that times the number of cannons in your fleet. A new engine? That's a good chunk of a ship right there. Don't try to say you'll only need a few parts and the fleet will "McGuyver" it. (as in use the parts to rebuild the whole weapon) That would take training across your empire on how the weapon is supposed to work, and during a war it wouldn't be feasable. Simply put, to send wartime upgrades would cost a fortune, many times more than simply building new ships, as you would have to build a fleet just to transport the parts.

Saying that, I don't think that you should have to send your ships back to the planets either. Limit the range on upgrading your ships. Maybe to 1/4 or 1/3 of their maximum range to allow for the space in supplies the upgrade will need. This will eliminate most of the exploits in refiting an invading army. Give the continuing option to upgrade all ships in range. (i.e. don't make it disappear after you use it once) Anytime there is a ship that could be upgraded in range, alert the player, or give a count of X models that could be upgraded to Y model on the ship logistics screen. Once upgrading has been chosen, the ships in question should either A) be limited to the reduced supply range until refit completes, or become immobile till refit completes. In this way you would also limit the abuse of refitting as a defensive tactic. You might even include both A and B, like switching to B on the last turn of refit, or only using B when doing engine upgrades. I'm just throwing out ideas that might be a suitable compramise between micromanagement, realism, and gameplay.

Finally, unless whatever is finally settled upon is poorly implemented, I doubt this topic would be a gamebreaker for anyone, or at the very most, few. Also, everything I know about the game I know from the forum. I don't have the money yet to preorder my copy so I can't beta test yet, and I never heard of GC1. So if anything I've suggested won't work with your model, I'm not gonna hold it against you if you don't use it. Just remember, often it is better to find a suitable comprimise than simply picking an extreme and sticking with it. I'm interested in this game myself because I've been wanting a good Space Strategy to play online, and I was disappointed with MOO3, and how the developers there had great ideas, but did not prioritize, so when the game was forced gold, much of the good features weren't there yet, and some of the features included did not work, or didn't work well. I wish the design team luck on this one. I hope that when I get this game, it doesn't end up with the other, on the shelf, collecting dust.

I think the option to refit existing ships should be available... Woes be to the empire that pulls out front line troops in order to "refit" them, but such a choice "should" be available...

For the sake of numbers… I think refitting should be relatively “simple”.

Subtract the “cost” of the hull build, and any non-changed equipment, from the new design and add a surcharge depending on the empires technology level. Anywhere from 5-15% would suffice for balance reasons.

Example:

A ship cost 100 points to build.
- Hull 60 Points
- Weapons 20 Points
- Engines 10 points
- Armor 2 Points
- Support 3 Points
- Sensors 5 Points

A new design costs 120 Points.
- Hull 60 Points
- Weapons 30 Points
- Engines 15 points
- Armor 5 Points
- Support 5 Points
- Sensors 5 Points

Refit Costs are 55 points (+10% due to tech level, rounded down) or 60 Points total.
- Hull 0 Points (No-Change)
- Weapons 30 Points
- Engines 15 points
- Armor 5 Points
- Support 5 Points
- Sensors 0 Points (No-Change)

This way there is a substantial benefit to refitting a ship, versus replacing it, but not enough to allow an empire to “instantly” refit their entire armada without some kind of substantial cost. Refitting should be tedious enough to deter constant re-fitting, giving preference to pre-planned periodic overhauls.

Pre-planning can also be encouraged by implementing a refit-dock colony tile that assists in the refit of ships at a reduced cost. However, I think that both inside and outside empire space refits should be allowed. Simply create a ship module that can be placed on a ship design that allows “repairs” of ships outside of empire space. For a premium (+50-75% or so depending on tech level), these repair ships can also perform “refits” on obsolete ships in the field for a lump cash sum.


Woops, forgot to clarify… As if it is not obvious, I am for option C and Both Y&Z together… Players should be allowed to both buy upgrades instantly (at a dock, station, or repair barge), or dock a ship at a space dock and have them refitted in time, as if “building” it.