Cool tactic: Retrofitting on the Fly

[LGM]

Originally posted by jimbob:
Not to reply for Geo, but I would use his method of a "mothballed construction center" as the back up in case things go wrong (like one of the front lines collapses, etc.). The mothballed bases would be located in a backwater area, unlikely to be probed by others, and so it's whereabouts would be unknown (the only change I'd make is to have 10 - 15 in a storm, with two unmothballed).

The majority of construction would still happen on my front lines and out of my home planets, but woe to those whose front lines collapse with no recourse! (it's always easier to reinforce from a central position than around the perimeter).

As to mothballing the ships that are constructed... I'd do this in a high cost research game, but in normal and low cost games the ships are improving to rapidly, and I couldn't be bothered to retrofit hundreds of ships every 10 turns. If they're old, scrap them for the resources (or mothball with the intention of scrapping them later) and only retrofit the experienced ships.

IMO

I thought retrofitting removes ship experience.

[geoschmo]

[quote]Originally posted by LGM:

Watch how often you do that. Taking ships in and out of mothball is something like a 30% cost in resources. If your Maintenance is 5%, you need to mothball them for over 6 turns before you have really saved anything.

True enough, but getting you maint down to 5% is pretty expensive I believe. I don't often do it. By default it's 25%. The absolute minimum you can have is 5% and that takes a LOT of racial points.

And yes, mothballing ships does cause them to lose their experience.

Geoschmo

[jimbob]

And retrofitting does not affect experience

[Wardad]

Yea so if I build some basic hulls, I can train them cheaply and then start to retrofit in the expensive stuff.

[jimbob]

except that you can only retrofit a certain % of the cost of the ship. Otherwise you get a message saying "...can't doit, yer tryin' to build a new ship bub..."

[Wardad]

Yes, only 50% of all resource costs above the current cost. I sometimes do a refit series. There are some service charges added to the refit, so I find it easier to only do 45% of the cost. Thats what they make hand calulators for.

I generally refit to save a build turn or 2, or to benifit from a local training facility.

In one game, I'm upgrading many minning facilities and adding bonus facilities. So the refit series will keep me in ships while my space yards are busy expanding my resource base.

[Krsqk]

Don't forget that retrofitting designs with new engines eats supplies, and can be disastrous if you don't have a QR ship or a lot of supply ships in the fleet. (Sorry to refer to the original topic. )