[Suicide Junkie]

Having just pulled out SE4 for some empirical testing, I can confidently say that it costs you 10% of the original price to remove a component, and 70% of the normal price of the component you are installing.

A retroseries is a completely valid method of rush building a big expensive item.

Take a 100,000 resource SM design.
Start with a 9,000 resource ship (3000/3000/3000 of M/O/R) which can be built in 1 turn.
9,000 resources are spent building the starting ship in one turn.
retroseries to a 13500 point ship.
Cost: 9000-900+9450 = 17,550
retroseries to a 20,250 point ship.
Cost: 17550 -1350 +14175 =30k
retroseries to a 30k point ship
Cost: 30k-2k+21k = 49k
retroseries to a 45k point ship
Cost: 49k-3k +32k = 78k
retroseries to a 67k point ship
Cost: 78k -5K + 47K = 120k
retro to a 100k point ship (final)
Cost: 120k -7k +70k = 183k

So in order to build that 100K resource cost planet creator in two turns with a retroseries, you pay twice the cost in resources.

Unless you have lots of spare resources, that extra 100k minerals on the price tag are going to hurt your empire.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 01 June 2001).]