Starbase upgrades

[Captain Kwok]

This is a common technique referred to as "retroseries" building. It's more costly overall, but does save time.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I never thought of applying it to starbases, though.

Idea - If you have repair bays on there from the start, the construction ship doesn't have to hang around past the retrofit.

[Fyron]

The Space Yard handles that nicely, as it repairs as well.

Another thing you can do with retroseries builds towards very expensive ships (such as stellar manipulation ships or RW bases) is to pad early designs with components that have high cost per kiloton, such as plague bombs and null space projectors. Plague bombs work especially well because they cost mostly organics. They help to get the most total overall cost with the lowest cost in any particular resource. NSPs have a high radioactives cost, which helps with this as well. Master Computers are possibly the most expensive (non-SM) component per kiloton.

[AngleWyrm]

Been trying to figure out the price difference. I can minimize the cost difference by having little or no parts that need replacement -- the ship just grows bigger through the series. It does make the series a bit longer, having to retrofit several times.

Is there a charge for the hull?

[Fyron]

The cost of the hull is included in each ship design. When you make a new ship design and select the hull, there is an intial cost. This is the cost of the hull itself.

[Ragnarok-X]

Nice suggestion with the Plague Bombs, Fyron. Really good !

[Frederick_d_Ohlmann]

As far as I remind, the shields générator are the most expensive per kT. I use them to retrofit sphereworld's components. (about 9-10 retrofits)