Cool tactic: Retrofitting on the Fly

[CW]

Geo, I don't know why you would want to mothball the yards. My prefered strategy is almost centred around construction bases and I gain the edge by having LOTS of yards and out-producing everybody else. In fact the very first item on my "end turn check list" is to make sure that every yard is building something, and they only go on hold when I run out of resources.

[Elowan]

Aren't you better off mothballing the ships themselves?

[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

[LGM]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
A nice thing to do with bases is mothball them. Build 10 or 15 over a huge planet with a land based space yard that is in a quiet part of your empire and mothball them. Then if the situation changes and the enemy starts harrasing that area you can quickly unmothball them and have them cranking out units or ships to fill the holes in your defenses. Just In Time Inventory, SEIV style.

Geoschmo

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.

[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