SE IV question on refitting

[Romulus68]

Construction question - Has anyone tried building a ship with just a bridge, life support and crew only, then after its built refitting to a combat role? Since the ship has fewer components it will build much faster, correct? Once built it will be at a planet with a planetary shipyard, two base shipyards and a repair ship. With all that available for repairing. The refited ship should become fully operational in one turn of repairs.

Will that work?

Do you think its more timely building a fully loaded ship versus a shell ship then refitting it?

Last question: Has anyone tried that?

[GuyOfDoom]

Refitting generally only allows you to refit up to a certain cost of the ship and if you have a really cheap model it won't let you update past half of what the ship cost.

[Captain Kwok]

It's called "Retro-Series" building and is a common tactic in PBW games. However, there's a maximum of 50% difference in cost between two designs in order to retrofit, so you'll probably need a few more components or a couple of designs.

[douglas]

I have used it to great effect in multiple PBW games, but it's a bit tedious, requires multiple steps to really take advantage of it thanks to the 50% cost difference limit, and is only really useful if you have more resources than space yard capacity or have an emergency.

[Romulus68]

douglas said:
I have used it to great effect in multiple PBW games, but it's a bit tedious, requires multiple steps to really take advantage of it thanks to the 50% cost difference limit, and is only really useful if you have more resources than space yard capacity or have an emergency.



I'm making 190K minerals a turn more than i can spend or save. I'm a trade race with lots of treaties.

By chain refitting you mean: refit to one class a little bigger then again a little bigger than the second and so on? Sorta scaling up the designs through the 50% limits getting bigger as you go.

I plan to use this on battlecruisers built from Base shipyards. Right now they take FOREVER from the starbase, but with refitting I could shave A LOT of time of them.

[Romulus68]

Captain Kwok said:
It's called "Retro-Series" building and is a common tactic in PBW games. However, there's a maximum of 50% difference in cost between two designs in order to retrofit, so you'll probably need a few more components or a couple of designs.



Oh!! Is that why i couldn't upgrade my Starbase shipyards this turn? It said something about insufficent resources, but I have resources coming out my ears! Its a Level 1 base going from shipyards 1 to shipyards 2 (refitting).

[Fyron]

You could also not use starbases; space stations are much cheaper and allow you to field more SYs.

Unless I'm playing a mod that has huge HW production levels, I usually only use retroseries building (http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.php/Retroseries) for stellar manipulation type ships. Stock rarely calls for retroseries necessity.

[Suicide Junkie]

Romulus68 said:
I'm making 190K minerals a turn more than i can spend or save. I'm a trade race with lots of treaties.

Right there is your problem.

Retrofits use your stored resources.

Build a bunch of resource storage facilities, and your retrofit woes will evaporate.

[Arkcon]

Romulus68 said:

Last question: Has anyone tried that?

Yes {clicky pop} (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB23&Number=303489&Forum= All_Forums&Words=%2Bgandalf%20%2Bretrofit&Searchpa ge=0&Limit=25&Main=303364&Search=true&where=bodysu b&Name=2937&daterange=1&newerval=5&newertype=y&old erval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post303489)

[se5a]

it's an interesting tactic, one you've got to be a bit more carefull of in SEV+BM since the resorces are a tad more balanced.

[Arkcon]

I haven't done this in SE5 as yet. Against the AI, medium size ships are adequate for offense and defense. Battleships and Dreads are just for show. But it may come up again.