Manually upgrading ships?

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [Science Fiction] >> Starships Unlimited v3 >> Manually upgrading ships?

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Manually upgrading ships? - 3/22/2002 11:38:34 PM

zorach

Posts: 17
Joined: 1/8/2002
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It seems I have two choices for upgrading my ships:
1) Ignore captain's upgrade requests: the ship is never upgraded or repaired, even if I change the configuration (I discovered this when I was in the Singularity Age and still using Atomic Age weapons, despite what I had in the ship configuration)

2) Honor captain's upgrade requests: the ship will run to spacedock if it's in a system with a world and there's a new technology available, and if new tech becomes available when docked it will continue to sit there.

In scenario #1 my ships are never upgraded and fall apart; in #2 they spend all their time docked and perform wasteful upgrades (e.g. if a ship has fusion torpedoes already equipped I'd rather they waited until antimatter were available instead of upgrading to adv fusion; I'd just put adv fusion on ships with really old tech).

Is there something in between, where I can have *actual control* over what goes on the ship? Tell it what to repair, what to upgrade, etc? Right now I'm leaving ships on Ignore until I decide it's time for them to upgrade, at which point I switch to honor. This gives me some control, although not perfect.

Furthermore, when a whole bunch of ships return to spacedock, could the AI "scatter" a bit? If there's a world 5 parsecs away and one 6 parsecs away, sending half the fleet to the world 6 parsecs away is preferable to having them all stack up at one spacedock.

One of my bigger gripes from what is otherwise an excellent game.

Post #: 1

- 3/23/2002 5:17:12 AM

madmax88

Posts: 143
Joined: 1/14/2002
From: Montreal, Canada
Status: offline

I've never had any problems with upgrading my ships. If i want one of my ship to have a specific configuration, i choose it using the config button then hit return to homeworld(Sol, etc.) and it'll upgrade. Even though it's on "ignore captain's upgrade".

If you have no use for "advanced" weapons, don't research them. They waste your advanced research artifacts when you do.

As for queues at spacedocks, by default i think, a ship that needs repairs or retocking returns to the nearest planet with a spacedock. It will, i think, go to a planet(with a spacedock) that's further away if the one nearest is occupied. But It won't go to a planet(without spacedock) that's further away even when the one nearest is occupied.

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Post #: 2

- 3/23/2002 11:07:04 PM

Andrew Ewanchyna

Posts: 229
Joined: 8/24/2001
Status: offline

Madmax88 is right. The "ignore captain's upgrade" was really added to allow faster attacks, when lots of ships are involved. Starships will go to other worlds with spacedocks if the current world has lots of starships queued up. But it won't do it if the other world has very low production (due to low pop) as it's not worth the trip. The next patch includes a bug fix that should improve the starship distribution with respect to upgrades. It was not considering worlds that didn't have much built on them. With space ports, this in no longer relavent.

If you want to speed up ship upgrades, research better space docks. You could also manually send ships to other worlds via the 'return to world' mission.

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- 3/29/2002 12:12:59 PM

zorach

Posts: 17
Joined: 1/8/2002
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by madmax88
[B]I've never had any problems with upgrading my ships. If i want one of my ship to have a specific configuration, i choose it using the config button then hit return to homeworld(Sol, etc.) and it'll upgrade. Even though it's on "ignore captain's upgrade"[/B][/QUOTE]
That's just not the case OMM. I pick the config, click "return to world," and as soon as arriving in-system (spending zero time at the spacedock) it's asking for a mission again. Config is how I set it up, but if I put the cursor over the unit the actual setup on-ship is not. I wound up with atomic-age weaponry in the singularity age this way.

I did figure out my problem with piles at worlds--with an explicit "return to world" mission, all ships in a fleet return to one world. Gotta scatter them manually.

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Post #: 4

- 3/29/2002 3:22:35 PM

madmax88

Posts: 143
Joined: 1/14/2002
From: Montreal, Canada
Status: offline

Uhm,
Well i see only one explanation to your problem and it's happen to me when first playing the game. When you choose a configuration for your ship via the config window, you HAVE to click "use this configuration" at the bottom of the window or the config wont be noted at all. ;)

And yes, all missions in the game can be assigned either to a single ship (single ship mission) or to an entire predefined fleet (fleet mission).

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- 3/30/2002 11:32:17 PM

zorach

Posts: 17
Joined: 1/8/2002
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by madmax88
[B]Uhm,
Well i see only one explanation to your problem and it's happen to me when first playing the game. When you choose a configuration for your ship via the config window, you HAVE to click "use this configuration" at the bottom of the window or the config wont be noted at all. ;)
[/B][/QUOTE]

Nope, I'm doing that. I tried it again. A ship will *not* build new componentry unless it's set to honour upgrade requests. Whatever is *supposed* to happen, that's the way it in on OMM.

As far as not researching advanced weapons tech, you missed my point :) If I'm building a new ship, I like to put, say, advanced nuclear torpedoes on it, but if a ship already has nuclear torpedoes, I see no sense in wasting time and money to upgrade a small step when something bigger will be coming along soon anyhow.

Would be nice to have a "scatter fleet across worlds" mission or something like that. It just seems awkward that when you have a whole fleet that needs repairs you have to scatter manually, since they *don't* move on to the next world if a spacedock's occupied (I'm not sure if that would be a good idea, anyhow).

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Post #: 6

- 3/31/2002 5:41:21 AM

madmax88

Posts: 143
Joined: 1/14/2002
From: Montreal, Canada
Status: offline

You're right for that, when on "ignore captain's upgrades" , the ship never goes back to spacedock for refitting.
So whenever you want to upgrade a ship switch to "Honor captain's upgrades". That way you won't have to deal with your ships constantly upgrading whenever a new technology is available.

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Post #: 7

- 4/5/2002 2:39:09 AM

lnielsen

Posts: 5
Joined: 4/5/2002
Status: offline

It would also be nice to be able to order a ship/fleet to reload (pre attack retrofit)

While I am wishing... I would like to asign a fleet to anti-pirate duty and keep the ships together at all times. I find it is much safer to send a pair of ships against pirates especially newbe ships that are gaining experience.

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Post #: 8

- 4/5/2002 8:04:12 AM

madmax88

Posts: 143
Joined: 1/14/2002
From: Montreal, Canada
Status: offline

You can.
You can assign the ships you want (single starship action or fleet action ) to "return to world" with "honor captain's upgrade" on. They'll then refit whatever needs repairs or reload. They'll even do that if you assign a fleet to attack a world.

As for pirate duty, isn't it faster to send your ships separately?

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Post #: 9