Procedure to patch on PBW?

[Dogboy]

I gave a fleet of fighters the order to go to a space yard and become mothballed. They went to the space station and I got a message saying they were successfully mothballed, but they are there at the station, with no symbol indicating they are mothballed. I can give them an order to move, which they seem to accept. And, if I break the fighter groups out of the fleet I can order each group. However, the "mothball" order is grayed out. Am I missing something obvious? Thanks for any help.

[Captain Kwok]

Is this an SE4 question or SE5?

[Fyron]

You cannot mothball units in SE4. In SE5, no units (in stock) have the "Can Be Mothballed" capability, so the same applies.

[capnq]

In SEIV, units don't have a maintenance cost, and (except for drones) do not use supplies if they don't move, so mothballing them would be pointless anyway.

[Dogboy]

We're playing
SE5 v1.71 with Balance Mod v1.14a
So, it sounds like I'm stuck with the maintenance costs of all my units. Darn....!

[Captain Kwok]

Note that there is also a "Can't Unmothball" bug in v1.71, so that any ships you mothball you won't be able to use again - save upgraded to v1.74 and BM v1.14b.

[Dogboy]

Thank you CK. What is the sequence to upgrade? That is, when do players apply these patches, and when do I as host alter the host patch level to v1.74 and BM v1.14b?

[Captain Kwok]

If you're the host, once you've received all the .plr files then update your version of SE5 to v1.74 and your BM to v1.14b. Run the turn, this will convert it to the v1.74/v1.14b. All the players will now need to be running v1.74 and v1.14b of the BM to open their turns.

[Dogboy]

Thank you for your reply. Just to be sure I understand:

I should NOW set the host to v1.74 and v1.14b of the BM, and they should upload using the older version we've been using (SE5 v1.71 with Balance Mod v1.14a). The host will run despite the fact that it is a different version from what they used (???).

Then, in order to open the files, they need to upgrade to v1.74 and v1.14b of the BM.

Is that correct?? It seems strange that the newer version of the host won't choke on file created using an earlier version of the game. Am I misunderstanding? Sorry if I'm being overcautious: I just don't want to have a crash that interrupts the game...!

Thanks!

[Fyron]

Dogboy said:
It seems strange that the newer version of the host won't choke on file created using an earlier version of the game.

Why does that seem strange? Its how 99.99% of games work, making every effort to maintain savegame compatibility with new versions.