Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

I recently captured two dreadnoughts which had psychic weapons. The weapons had been destroyed in battle. I then designed a new ship which had the same components as the captured ships and subbed in different weapons. Then I retrofitted the captured ships to the new design. The question is, is this cost effective? Would I be better off scrapping the captured ships and building new ones from hull up? Thanks.

G

Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

You probably saved some resources and some time the way you did it, depending partly on how damaged the ship was, and what you added to it.

It often comes out pretty close though - there are many factors influencing the costs involved.

PvK

Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

If you did it on the front line, then it was almost certainly worth it - one of the great things about retrofitting is that it is just as effective in a fleet in the middle of enemy space with only a mobile space yard I and a few repair bays than it is at your homeworld with planetary spaceyard III and population bonuses.

Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">IMHO, what you did was a better deal. I don't know what scrapping returns, but the Ultra Recycler I is needed to get 40 % return (maybe it's 30 % return by default?)

I often don't even build dreads, a shipyard 1 can take 7 months for an advanced design. But retrofiting a captured ship can be done in two turns or less.

Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

Yeah, in terms of speed (not necessarily resources), retrofitting with a few repair bays in the same sector is faster, especially with DN's or other large ships, than building from scratch. Smaller ships can many times be built from scratch faster if you have no repair bays handy and you're replacing / upgrading lots of components. It's purely a function of the build / repair model: build time(s) is based on required resources and SY output and repair is based on numbers of components (disreguards resource amounts).

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Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

In terms of retrofit resource costs, you have to consider:
- the build price of the new ship
- the retrofit cost for swapping components
- the maintenance costs while repairs are conducted
- the unmothball costs if you use it to save money on maintenance.

Some other questions:
- Is it worth tying up a yard's queue to rebuild a ship if it can be retrofitted instead? If resources are not critically low, two ships are better than one.

Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This question doesn't make sense to me. Retrofitting doesn't tie up a yard's construction queue; the yard continues building whatever's in its queue. Retrofit/repair is a separate function and capacity.

Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

Precisely:

Option A:
Scrap the ship and build a brand new one at the ship yard.

Option B:
Refit the ship while building a brand new one at the ship yard.

Even if refitting costs more than rebuilding, you may be willing to pay that price in order to end up with two ships instead of one after tha same amount of time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

New/changed components cost 120%
Old/removed components cost 30%

You're paying to take out the old stuff, and then paying 20% over cost to install the new stuff.

Re: Retrofitting Captured Ships
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif Oops, I thought you got that 30% for removal. Heh. At least there's no cost for hull -- or is that wrong too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif . For dreadnought sized ships, that could be a significant savings -- or not. Oh well, still faster.