Next Patch Suggestion
 

It would be nice to be able to use emergency propulsion while ships are fleeted together. If all ships have emegency propulsion, it would nice to click the use component button to simultaneously use a pod from each ship, assuming each ship has at least one remaining. It is kind of tedeous removing ships, using pods, and forming new fleets.

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

Nice Idea. It's definitely a drag as it stands.

- Aegis

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Other foo ideas to reduce tedium/repetition:


* Search/(replace | | delete) for construction queues.
For instance, in my current game (255-system galaxy, 5000-point races, otherwise default), being a maintenance-free race I'd built a LOT of shipyard bases, many of which were on Repeat Build for building identical warships.
When I upgraded the design, or moved onto the next hull or whatever, the only way to change them all was manually, one by one. Bugger.

* The skip-damaged-ships option, perhaps, should be changed to "skip ships under repair" -- if a ship has been damaged in deep space, I *do* want to move it (or get a repair ship to it).

* A remote-mining minister might be nice, combined with an option to skip minister-controlled ships.

* An option to speed animation/movement of minister-controlled ships would be nice.

* Minor UI tweak: ability to copy a known enemy design as one of your own. Only buildable if you have the tech, but possibly useful.

* Anywhere there's a slider, there should probably also be an 'type the number' box.

* Perhaps, there should be a way to set how many people should be put into a colony pod by the colonization minister. Not all races at all times need to bother filling 'em.

* In the Facility View from right-clicking from a modify-build-queue window, let me scrap facilities. This would be VERY useful during an atmosphere-conVersion phase. Even more useful, let me enter 'scrap facility' | 'refit ship' | 'launch/jettison cargo' orders in the queue. (Main use: being able to scrap production facilities *one at a time* before replacing each with a Monolith Facility... without having to go through many, many colonies every turn doing this.)

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

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Another thing that would be nice is an empire wide "update facilities." I just spent 20 minutes going to several planets so that I could update storage facilities. Would be nice.

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kimball:
Another thing that would be nice is an empire wide "update facilities." I just spent 20 minutes going to several planets so that I could update storage facilities. Would be nice.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There IS one. Go to the construction queues window (the 'wrench' button on the main menu at the left). One of the buttons on the lower right in that window is the global "Upgrade facilities" button, though I forget the exact text on the button right now.

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Excellent! I had no idea. Would probably pay to read the Online manual, eh? Thank you.

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There's only one problem with the "universal upgrade" button. The best way to explain is by example:

I always use Temporal race tech, which eventually grants "Temporal Space Yards." HOWEVER, you can't just upgrade a normal space yard to a temporal yard, you have to scrap the old yard and build the new one (since they both build ships, you have to scrap one before building the other, even if there's space available on the planet). IN ADDITION, if you continue researching ship sizes and get the upgraded regular space yard, and then use the universal update, any old yards you haven't converted to temporal yards also get upgraded. If you're not paying attention, the system could end up spending your resources (and build time) on upgrading facilities that you're just going to scrap and replace.

The GOOD thing about the universal upgrade is that it also updates all the pending queues (i.e., if you have 15 Research Facility I's in a queue, and use the universal upgrade function, that queue is changed to read 15 Research Facility II's (or III's, if you researched that fast). Which brings up another issue - on long build queues, sometimes you'll research multiple upgrades before finishing a queue; you'll want to delete old upgrade orders when you issue the new upgrade order, especially since the new upgrade order cost was calculated based on the existing facility costs, not the "post-upgrade" cost. In other words, you can have "Upgrade to Research Facility II (x5)" followed by "Upgrade to Research Facility III (x5)" in the queue. The cost associated with the upgrade to RF III is based on upgrading RF I's to RF III's, not RF II's to RF III's. So that intermediate order (upgrading to RF II) is not only useless, it's a waste of time and resources.

Hope this all made sense - I'm just passing on the things I've noticed while playing, and it's much easier to understand when looking at the queues themselves...

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
The cost associated with the upgrade to RF III is based on upgrading RF I's to RF III's, not RF II's to RF III's.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Aren't those costs the same? I thought all upgrade costs were 50% of the cost to build the new facility from scratch.

-Drake

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I'm curious.

Even after I get Mineral Miner III's, I prefer to continue building Mineral Miner II's because they finish building in a single turn. Thus, I get the added production immediately instead of getting just 100 more per turn two turns later. Later, after I've maxed out my facilities, I'll upgrade them all en masse. It doesn't seem that I lose any production while I'm upgrading.

Does anyone else keep building Miner II's after they've researched Miner III's?

Because I do things this way, I really hate it when I tell it to 'Upgrade Facilities', and it changes all my Miner II's in production to Miner III's. The same goes for farms and research labs.

Edit-&gt;

Hmm... I really, really wonder now. It *always* seemed I was getting a better deal by building 25 Miner II's and then spending 25 turns probably upgrading them all to Miner III's. It just didn't seem worth it to wait an extra turn for each facility just for 100 more minerals per turn. But if it turns out that I'm spending 2000 resources per turn for 25 turns to upgrade it to a Miner III, then maybe I'm not coming out ahead after all.

Where is mathematically minded Zanthis? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 08 February 2001).]

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Does anyone else keep building Miner II's after they've researched Miner III's?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Nope. Though I'll be interested to see the numbers if anyone calculates them as requested, if it is better to build the #2 and then upgrade to #3.

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Drake:
Aren't those costs the same? I thought all upgrade costs were 50% of the cost to build the new facility from scratch.

-Drake<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You may be right about that; however, the comment is still mostly valid - why pay the same cost twice if you only have to pay it once?

raynor - it shouldn't take 25 turns to upgrade 25 Miner II's to Miner III's; it takes (25*0.5*[cost of Miner III])/build rate. Obviously, I'm using drake's formula for cost. But you're still probably paying more overall, since you've essentially payed for the entire Miner II, plus half of a Miner III, and only have a Miner III at the end. Which probably negates mining 100 extra minerals for a few extra turns (even when you assume multiple facilities, if you have a net loss per facility, multiple facilities just compound the problem).

EDIT:
I did some checking; a MMF II costs 2000 minerals, while a MMF III costs 2500 minerals. Using drake's formula, it would cost 1250 minerals to upgrade a MMF II (or even a MMF I) to a MMF III. Therefore, if you build a MMF II first, and then upgrade to a MMF III, you'll spend 3250 minerals total for that MMF III. Whereas if you build the MMF III in the first place, you'll only spend 2500 minerals. Which means the upgrade route cost an extra 750 minerals. Now, a MMF II mines 900 minerals per turn; the MMF III mines 1000 minerals per turn. So two turns' worth of production out of the MMF II generates 1800 minerals; the MMF III only got one turn's worth of production (because it took an extra turn to build), and therefore only generates 1000 minerals. In which case, you got a net gain of 50 minerals by using the "build fast, then upgrade" idea. If we extend this idea, taking longer to get around to upgrading, we use the following equations:

(Build fast, then upgrade [BFTU]):
(N * 900) - 750 minerals
(Build best facility slower [BBFS]):
(N-1) * 1000 minerals

For N = 3 (i.e., it takes an extra turn to get around to upgrading), BFTU yields 1950 minerals and BBFS yields 2000 minerals. So it was better to build the MMF III first, even though it took an extra turn.

This gets much more complicated when one considers building 15 MMF II's, then upgrading all of them, rather than building the MMF III's initially. But my instinct is that it's better to build the better facility, even if it takes a little longer. Or, better yet, put a space yard on your planet first and build faster (at least for PSY II's and above).

[This message has been edited by DirectorTsaarx (edited 08 February 2001).]

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
But you're still probably paying more overall, since you've essentially payed for the entire Miner II, plus half of a Miner III, and only have a Miner III at the end. Which probably negates mining 100 extra minerals for a few extra turns (even when you assume multiple facilities, if you have a net loss per facility, multiple facilities just compound the problem).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you build the Miner II one turn before you build the Miner III, doesn't that mean you get 900 extra minerals precisely one turn early? Intuitively, that seems like enough minerals to offset the upgrade cost but I'd have to sit down and do that math.

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DirectorTsaarx:

If the Miner doesn't get any resource production until the next turn after it finishes building, then I show these numbers:

At the end of the second turn, the Miner II upgraded to a Miner III generates this many resources:

900-3250 = -2350

At the end of the second turn, the Miner III generates this many:

-2500

Thus, you are better off building the Miner II and then upgrading.

EDIT:

This math follows from your earlier statement that you are paying 750 more to build the Miner III. But since you are getting 900 minerals a turn earlier, you actually come out ahead by 900-750 = 150 (which is the difference between -2350 and -2500)

So, the real cost of a miner II upgraded to a Miner III is not 750 more, it is actually 150 less. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 08 February 2001).]

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 08 February 2001).]

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Actually, if your planet has a Planetary Space Yard II or better, it will build lvl III facilities in one turn.

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I usually just build the most expensive facility I can that only takes one turn. The difference between the individual resource facilities isn't that much, and I try to fill a planet as fast as I can, and upgrade later.

Since your upgrades are grouped together, you lose MUCH less building time by upgrading many facilities than if you wait an extra turn to get each of the more expensive ones up and running.

Although I must admit I rarely upgrade the individual resource facilities. If I'm being pressed I build quick and cheap and use construction time for ships. If things are quiet, I switch to monolith IIIs as soon as possible...

Does anyone else find the individual resource techs a little expensive for their value?

-Drake

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Drake I did it the way you said for the tournament but normally I don't bother with monilith facilities because I don't usually use an organic race so my consumption of anything other than minerals is very low. It gets me more minerals to build mineral miner III's so I go that way until I can research the resource converter at least. I very rarely run out of minerals before I have conquered the galaxy. But after the patch I might have a few longer games and need the extra minerals.

Also I have shipyards on 99% of my planets in a normal game so mineral miners III only take one turn to build normally. Once I research level III facilities a shipyard is the first thing I build on the planet. The 5 turns it takes to build are paid for after building the first 5 facilities then no upgrades are needed.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 09 February 2001).]

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Good point. I've always taken organic, and I often get temporal too, so my resource need is a little more balanced. Mineral usage is still predominate, just not as much perhaps.

-Drake

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tomgs:
Also I have shipyards on 99% of my planets in a normal game so mineral miners III only take one turn to build normally. Once I research level III facilities a shipyard is the first thing I build on the planet. The 5 turns it takes to build are paid for after building the first 5 facilities then no upgrades are needed.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you are going to leave the space yard on the planet, you *almost* break even by building the space yard first. But if you plan on scrapping it after you've built most of your mining facilities, then you will definitely lose resources along the way.

You just don't get enough resources from the Miner III vs. the Miner II facility.

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I always leave the space yards on the planets. What use is a planet with nothing to build? Why not use those planets to pump out ships to use. Producing a lot of resources is useless if it just gets wasted (except in the tournament http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif ).

And on a large or huge world you will definately more than break even. You get 100 per facility then when you add up the population and happiness bonus and any facility bonuses you come out a lot ahead.

Another point if you have minerals going into storage, or even worse being wasted, every turn anyway the expense of what you are building really "costs" you nothing.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 09 February 2001).]

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Warning: you asked for a numerical analysis, so here it is...

First, the assumptions:
2000/2000/2000 Min/Org/Rad build rate
No population bonuses
No happiness bonuses
Upgrade costs 50% of new facility

Next, the simple part of the analysis: building the Mineral Miner Facility III's (MMF3's) directly, without mucking around in building lower-tech facilities first (and faster) and upgrading later.

We build N MMF3's, at two turns per facility (cost=2500 minerals, just a bit higher than the build rate), we get:

1000*[(2N-1)+(2N-3)+(2N-5)+...+5 + 3 + 1] minerals produced, from the time building starts until the turn the Last facility starts producing. This simplifies to:

1000*N*N

(standard mathematical formula: the sum of a series of numbers is equal to (n/2)(a+m), where n is the number of elements in the series, a is the value of the first element and m is the value of the Last element).

We then subtract the cost of the facilities (2500*N) to get the net gain. Pretty straightforward; net gain from beginning of build cycle through the end of the first turn all facilities can produce is:

N*N*1000 - N*2500.

Now, if we instead build N Mineral Miner Facility II's (MMF2's), at one turn per facility (cost=2000 minerals, exactly the build rate), we get (N-1)*900 + (N-2)*900 +... + 1*900 minerals produced, from the time building starts until the Last building turn; note that at this point, the Last facility has not started producing. I'll explain why in a moment. This simplifies to:

900*N*(N-1)/2

We then subtract the cost of the facilities (2000*N) to get the net gain so far. Now, if we upgrade those facilities (to MMF3's), it costs (1250*N) for the upgrade. Everyone still with me?

Obviously, we still produce minerals during the upgrade cycle; this amounts to:

1250*N/2000 [cost divided by build rate]

Technically, that number should be rounded up to the nearest integer to get actual number of turns, but we'll ignore that for a moment. In addition, this figure includes that first turn of production for the Last facility; that's why I didn't include it in the previous formula.

Now that the upgrade is finished, we can produce at MMF3 rates. In order to compare the "upgrade" strategy to the "build once" strategy, we include enough turns of production to equal the amount of time it takes to finish building the MMF3s from scratch. This amounts to:

[(2*N)+1] - N - (1250/2000)*N

Obviously, (2*N)+1 is the number of turns required to build the MMF3's; N is the number of turns required to build the MMF2's; and (1250/2000)*N is the number of turns required to upgrade MMF2's to MMF3's. Again, that Last number should be rounded up; however, in the interest of simplifying the algebra, I've avoiding the rounding. Which really gives a slight overestimate in the amount of minerals produced in the "upgrade" strategy, since we're now calculating mineral production as 900/turn for part of a turn, and 1000/turn for the rest of that turn. After combining the above formulas and doing some algebra, we come up with the following calculation for the upgrade strategy:

450*N*N - 2762.5*N + 1000

for net gain. In the same amount of time, the "build once" strategy gets:

N*N*1000 - N*2500

for net gain.

If we set the two formulas equal to each other, N comes out to slightly more than 1. Solving both equations for values of N ranging from 1 to 25 shows that the upgrade strategy is better if we build 1 facility and upgrade it. The "build once" strategy is better if we build more than 1 facility. The attached spreadsheet shows the calculations (if anyone's interested).

Comments are welcome - especially if someone finds an error in the math...

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What, no analysis of building MMF1's and upgrading to MMF3!? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

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DirectorTsaarx:

Your numbers are off by so much, I can only assume that you do statistics for a living.

'nuf said.

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raynor:

By all means - correct my numbers...

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Well, I didn't look at the spreadsheet, but, his forumlae (and theory) look ok....what descrepancies did you see, Raynor?

Paul E. Mason
Senior VMS Systems Administrator

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The calc for the upgrade path is off big time. Your problem starts when you hold off counting production for the upgrade stage - you're also not counting every other facility already built, it appears. Just plug some hard numbers in and take a look...

-Drake

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You don't appear to be multiplying the resources generated during and after the upgrade process at all, actually. I see the turns to upgrade part, but nothing taking that and multiplying 900.

I also don't see you multiplying 1000 by the turns remaining while waiting for the MMF IIIs to catch up.

-Drake

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Okay. Don't know if I did the attachment right. It's an Excel 95 spreadsheet.

Check the number and let me know what you think.

I probably made a mistake since the upgrade path generates 100,000 resources more than
building Miner III's first.

Edit-&gt; Oh, the embarrassment. Really goofed up the loss statement. I wrote that Miner II cost 900 instead of 2000. So, subtract 15*1100 =16,500 off the bottom of the upgrade one. Many apologies!


[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 09 February 2001).]

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Well, I've prob forgotten more statistics than I care to admit that I knew http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif but:

=========================================
1000*[(2N-1)+(2N-3)+(2N-5)+...+5 + 3 + 1] minerals produced, from the time building starts until the turn the Last facility starts producing....
=========================================

this part of his note specifically addresses production during building.

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All right - there are two problems; one, I missed a couple things in the explanation here on the forum, because it's much easier to draw formulas by hand than it is to enter via a text format. So, while my hand-written stuff included the "multiply by 900 (or 1000)" in the appropriate places, my stuff here didn't include the multiplier. The final equation did include the multipliers, but you'll have to take my word for that.

The other problem is my handwritten notes were slightly off, because I dropped an "N" someplace. I've corrected the error; text is here, spreadsheet (Excel '97) attached again, and the conclusion is essentially reversed (i.e., upgrade does turn out better than build better facilities slower).

Text for upgrade process:

Now, if we instead build N Mineral Miner Facility II's (MMF2's), at one turn per facility (cost=2000 minerals, exactly the build rate), we get (N-1)*900 + (N-2)*900 +... +1*900 minerals produced, from the time building starts until the Last building turn; note that at this point, the Last facility has not started producing. I'll explain why in a moment. This simplifies to:

900*N*(N-1)/2

We then subtract the cost of the facilities (2000*N) to get the net gain so far. Now, if we upgrade those facilities (to MMF3's), it costs (1250*N) for the upgrade. Everyone still with me?

Obviously, we still produce minerals during the upgrade cycle; this amounts to:

(1250*N/2000)*900
[cost divided by build rate, times number of facilities, times 900]

Technically, that number should be rounded up to the nearest integer to get actual number of turns, but we'll ignore that for a moment. In addition, this figure includes that first turn of production for the Last facility; that's why I didn't include it in the previous formula.

Now that the upgrade is finished, we can produce at MMF3 rates. In order to compare the "upgrade" strategy to the "build once" strategy, we include enough turns of production to equal the amount of time it takes to finish building the MMF3s from scratch. This amounts to:

{[(2*N)+1] - N - (1250/2000)*N}*N*1000

Obviously, (2*N)+1 is the number of turns required to build the MMF3's; N is the number
of turns required to build the MMF2's; and (1250/2000)*N is the number of turns required
to upgrade MMF2's to MMF3's. Again, that Last number should be rounded up; however, in the interest of simplifying the algebra, I've avoiding the rounding. Which really gives a slight overestimate in the amount of minerals produced in the "upgrade" strategy, since we're now calculating mineral production as 900/turn for part of a turn, and 1000/turn for the rest of that turn. After combining the above formulas and doing some algebra, we
come up with the following calculation for the upgrade strategy:

1450*N*N - 2762.5*N

Unfortunately, once I found the "dropped" N, it changed things drastically; it actually comes out better to build the lower tech facilities & then upgrade. (assuming you can't build the better facility in a single turn; by the time I've researched MMF3's, I usually have at least a PSY2, so I can build MMF3's in a single turn & the whole set of equations is useless).

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Do facilities produce while they are upgrading?

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
Do facilities produce while they are upgrading?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes. At least we're all pretty sure they do... although I've obviously been proven wrong at least once in this thread alone... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Spyder:
Well, I've prob forgotten more statistics than I care to admit that I knew http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif but:

=========================================
1000*[(2N-1)+(2N-3)+(2N-5)+...+5 + 3 + 1] minerals produced, from the time building starts until the turn the Last facility starts producing....
=========================================

this part of his note specifically addresses production during building.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, the MMF3 part was fine, which is what that refers to.

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Um. minor patch suggestion...

Make the construction column title buttons actually sort the list.
In the colonies view you can sort the list by any of the columns by clicking the top of the column (picture, production etc.) but it doesn't appear to work in the construction list.

It may already be fixed, I'm not sure I've tried it since 1.19

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

So, since it looks like you all finally came to an agreement, how about posting a one sentence no formulas included summary for those of us who got headaches trying to follow this stuff?

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

I second that statement.

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nyx:
So, since it looks like you all finally came to an agreement, how about posting a one sentence no formulas included summary for those of us who got headaches trying to follow this stuff?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If your planet builds at a rate of 2000-2499 minerals per turn, it's better to build Mineral Miners II and then upgrade them to Mineral Miners III later. Because you can build an MM2 in one turn, but it takes two turns to build an MM3.

If your planet builds at a rate equal to or greater than 2500 minerals per turn, start with the Mineral Miner IIIs. Because it takes one turn to build either the MM3 or the MM2.

BTW - if you're building at a rate of 1250 - 1999 minerals per turn, you'll also get better results building the Mineral Miner III's. Because it would take two turns to build either an MM3 or an MM2.

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Drake:
I usually just build the most expensive facility I can that only takes one turn. The difference between the individual resource facilities isn't that much, and I try to fill a planet as fast as I can, and upgrade later.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think it bears repeating. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Although if you want to be picky, replace the one turn bit with whatever is quickest.

-Drake

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 10 February 2001).]

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
BTW - if you're building at a rate of 1250 - 1999 minerals per turn, you'll also get better results building the Mineral Miner III's. Because it would take two turns to build either an MM3 or an MM2.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'd build an MM1 if you had 1500-1999 per turn. The upgrade to a MM3 later is the same as if you'd built an MM2, hence the MM1 is even more economical.

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(The Last few Posts should probably all be in their own message thread, but oh well...)

Just so y'all know, I found a couple minor errors in the calculations; it doesn't change the final conclusion, it just means the spreadsheet is a tad inaccurate. I also did some tweaking for production and/or construction bonuses; nothing really changes until you can build the better facility in a single turn.

The corrected equation would be:

Upgrade plan net gain: 1387*N*N - 2700*N

where N=number of Mineral Miner Facilities being built.

Oh - minor point on build rates of 1250-1999; if the rate is 1500-1999, it's better to build the MMF1's and upgrade to MMF3's later. If your build rate is 1250-1500, it takes two turns to build any of the three MMF facilities, so it would be best to build the MMF3.

In case anyone missed it, the above information only applies if you have all three tech levels available; if you only have access to MMF1's or MMF2's, by all means, build them and don't worry about upgrading until you get the right tech level. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

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Look the bottom line is wasted construction.

If a miner II takes 2 turns to build (who cares why, maybe a race has lower production) and a minter II takes 3 turns. It may make sense to build the M-2 and upgrade to M-3 later because the upgrades can be grouped and you'll get to all M-3s faster (less wasted construction). However it depends on why they each take that many turns. If the M-2 takes 2 turns because it's really 1.1 and the M-3 takes 3 turns because it 2.95. Then the M-3s may be a better build.

All this ignores intermediate output and only considers fastest time to maximum output. It works better with ship design. If you have a ship design that takes 1.02 and thus 2 turns to build. Redesign an intermediate design (which differs by less 3 components) which can be build in 1 turn and then retrofit. Your first ship still takes 2 turns to full operation status, but you get 1 ship a turn after that instead of every other turn.