Cool tactic: Retrofitting on the Fly

[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.

[minipol]

Thanks. Most of the times, i only build 1 shipyard on the main planet of a system and 1 in the spacestation protecting the planet. I really don't see a point in building much shipyard vessels. I have a few but i use them to build stations on warppoints mainly and sometimes around planets. They are very expensive and since i play with limited resources i don't like vessels very much that are resource hungry

[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

[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. )