refiting an existing ship

[oleg]

Originally posted by Slynky:
And, I'll add a comment that happened to me. I don't know if it was a bug but just be aware of it.

Lots of times, when you get a new colonizing ability, you need to create new ships. If you do it the way I do it, then you click on the existing colony design, click copy, delete the existing colony module, and add the new colony module. And, DUH!, save with a new name.

Then, for exisitng colony ships sitting over a yard, you do a retrofit to the new colony design. And here is the problem I experienced: It came back with a strange message saying the refit failed. I thought was because the module was too big of an item to retrofit. What I DID learn, though, was that if the new design had the new colony module in the exact position as the old colony module (and not at the end...where it goes when you just add it), the retrofit worked perfectly.

So, remember that little quirk. Of course, it may have just been something wrong with my patch level but I can tell you for sure...I always build my new colony ships so they look exactly like the older colony ship except for the colony module in "slot" #1.

I think it is related to the latest patch option : retrofit add colony module := true/false
It was introduced to remove cheating with building cheap ships with no colony module and then add one through retrofit. In you case, if you simply replace one module with another in exactly same spot, SE thinks it is OK and let you do this. But if you put into new slot, and thinks you are doing some old trick

[Slynky]

Ahhhh, that should explain it, oleg. THANKS!

As to the "cheap" colony-module-less ship, I never even tried that.

[Pocus]

I thought about that too. Is it a good strategy to make half ships and then retrofit them to the full Version? Perhaps it is perceived as an exploit?

[Slick]

Originally posted by Pocus:
I thought about that too. Is it a good strategy to make half ships and then retrofit them to the full Version? Perhaps it is perceived as an exploit?

It is not an exploit. This thread covers the subject rather well:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...038;p=3#000031

Slick.

[dominictus]

On a similiar note, here's an expensive little trick I used in a solo game. I play a psychic race so I capture a lot of enemy ships, but I always refit them to my own designs. One of my enemies had a very dissimiliar dreadnought that was more than a 50% difference on cost, and I couldn't refit. As a solution, I created a design that was about 1/2 way between it's cost and the cost of my own dreadnought. I then did a refit to my "middle" cost ship, then immediately refit again to my design.
I favor dedicated "scrapyards" where I build 2-3 repair bases (with 4 repair bays each) so I can refit and completely repair a dozen or so ships in one turn, then send them back out to the fight.

Dominictus

[Pocus]

Slick :

I'm unsure if i'm really that devious, but the first time I saw retrofit, the idea of finishing ships by refiting appeared almost immediatly in my mind... I dont like the idea of spending two turns on a ship because my SY produce 3000 minerals of working power and my ship costs 3100.

Anyway I'm speaking of solo play here, so no big deal. In MP I doubt you can spot a player doing that (not that I will do this if I ever goes MP).

[Fyron]

Retroseries building is a widely accepted strategy in MP games. Most people I have talked to about it (and that is quite a few people ) do it themselves from time to time.