refiting an existing ship

[Pocus]

Damn I feel shameful to ask such a question. Is it possible? You can upgrade a design, but I have not found how to convert an existing ship from model A to B.

[Slick]

From the Newbie FAQ (very good to read the whole thing):

5.5.6.1 Q: How exactly do I retrofit?
A: a) Create your new design and ensure that the total resources (minerals + organics + rads) is not greater than 150% of the total resources of the original ship. If you want to retrofit to a more expensive design, you need to make multiple steps, each with no more than 150% increase.
b) Move your ship to a sector with a spaceyard, either planet based or on a ship/base works fine.
c) Click on any one of the ships in that sector then click the green triangle (retrofit, scrap, analyze, etc) (Hotkey G) for a new window.
d) Select the ship you want to retrofit, then click the retrofit button.
e) A new window pops up with all available designs that you can retrofit to. select your desired upgrade ship.
f) Click OK.
g) Your ship is now retrofitted and any new components must be repaired by the spaceyard. Once repaired you are good to go. Note that if you retrofit engines and you don't have a Resupply Depot on the planet, you could end up with a ship with 0 supplies because retrofitted engines come with no supplies.

Slick.

[Pocus]

you know what? I knew that it existed, it appeared so mandatory. But when you hover the mouse on the recycle triangle icon, it says:

'scrap/analyze/mothball'

no clue about retrofit. My wrong anyway. I will read the faq.

thx

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Slick:

g) ... Note that if you retrofit engines and you don't have a Resupply Depot on the planet, you could end up with a ship with 0 supplies because retrofitted engines come with no supplies.

Slick.

Is that true? Every ship that I've retrofitted on planets with only SY's gets fully supplied. Sending ships low on supplies to a planet with a SY - ditto.

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Elowan:
Is that true? Every ship that I've retrofitted on planets with only SY's gets fully supplied. Sending ships low on supplies to a planet with a SY - ditto.

Yes, it is true. I've gotten gigged by this more than once. The key is if you retrofit engines, where most of your supplies are stored to begin with. After screwing this up a couple of times, I learned to always put Resupply Depots on every planet with a Space Yard... just to be safe. Besides, you can never have too many Resupply Depots...

[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.

[Grandpa Kim]

Originally posted by Elowan:
Is that true? Every ship that I've retrofitted on planets with only SY's gets fully supplied. Sending ships low on supplies to a planet with a SY - ditto.

Er... And you did this by modding your space yards to have the resupply ability, maybe??

[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?