How to prompt specific retrofits

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How to prompt specific retrofits - 1/21/2017 12:23:34 AM

Gorde

Posts: 14
Joined: 1/7/2017
Status: offline

For example, say I just redesigned all my small bases, and I have a bunch out there. Must I hunt them all down and select "retrofit" or is there some way to say, in effect, "hey, here's a new design all you small bases--make it so"? Or certain ship designs, but not all of them.

I don't see much practical difference between the "Edit" and "Manual Upgrade" buttons on the design screen, so it'd sure be spiffy if the prompt option were there (where I could highlight the design and select to update all of that design).

And of course I don't want to turn on automation to upgrade my entire empire at once (which is baffoonery). All the same, rolling upgrades is one of those tedious things that I'm hoping for a more elegant solution to.

Post #: 1

RE: How to prompt specific retrofits - 1/21/2017 3:48:23 AM

Aeson

Posts: 784
Joined: 8/30/2013
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You can turn on "advisors suggest retrofits." Whenever you see the retrofit suggestion pop up, pause the game, redesign everything you want to be upgraded, and then accept the suggestion and resume playing. All ships and stations will be ordered to retrofit to the most recent nonobsolete design in the appropriate role when the advisor suggestion is accepted. Ships or stations which are already of the most recent nonobsolete design will not be ordered to retrofit. Be warned that this can screw things up if you're trying to run multiple designs within a single role, as this form of mass retrofit will upgrade all ships or stations of the same role to the same design.

Assuming the Retrofit column in the design menu shows "automated" in the line for that particular design, the computer will (eventually) order stations and automated ships to retrofit to the most recent design, but these retrofits tend to be staggered (most likely to minimize the instantaneous impact on cash on hand) and may be postponed if the computer feels that your empire does not have enough cashflow to afford the upgraded station.

Go into the Ships and Bases menu to order mass retrofits. Filter using the drop-down menu and sort by clicking on one of the column headers (clicking the blank header on the far left and then changing filters restores the list to default sort, which appears to be by how recently the ship or station was ordered) to make finding things easier. You can select multiple things simultaneously here with shift-clicking and cntrl-clicking to issue orders for mass retrofits to nonobsolete class of your choice in the role of the things selected, if you want everything selected to upgrade to the same class and have only selected vessels of a single role (I don't recall how it works when you have ships or stations of more than one role selected).

quote:

I don't see much practical difference between the "Edit" and "Manual Upgrade" buttons on the design screen, so it'd sure be spiffy if the prompt option were there (where I could highlight the design and select to update all of that design).

"Edit" is there for checking what's on current designs which you do not want to upgrade or for making changes to a current design which is not yet in service without changing the mark number, "Manual Upgrade" is for when you want to upgrade a class which is currently in service.

For example, on a prewarp start, you might ensure that all Generation 2 (Mk2) ships have Gerax Hyperdrives, Fission Reactors, Standard Armor, Corvidian Shields, and Tier 1 weaponry (Maxos Blasters, Epsilon Torpedoes, Concussion Missiles, Rail Guns), all Generation 3 (Mk3) warships have swapped Ion and Directional Thrusters for Proton Thrusters and Thrust Vectors, Generation 4 (Mk4) warships have assault pods, etc. This can be useful for bookkeeping.

(in reply to Gorde)

Post #: 2

RE: How to prompt specific retrofits - 1/21/2017 9:14:01 PM

Gorde

Posts: 14
Joined: 1/7/2017
Status: offline

Well I can do your "Edit" function with the Upgrade button (by just cancelling it when I'm done checking), and other than that, I see one button advances the design name while the other doesn't. So I still contend that it's a redundant feature (whereas, a "Retrofit all of this design" button would have more use on the same screen where the designing is controlled).

All silliness aside, I did think of a better way to manage my rolling upgrades (I've been burned by the automation so many times that I'm trying to not use it until my empire is so large that I must, and by then the "helpful" AI cannot do much damage to my already thriving empire). Since I tend to pay attention to the system names, I should be able to use the spreadsheet-like "ship" screen to highlight multiple items and retrofit them from there; that screen can sort by the pertinent categories, sort by system or other defining factor, and accept shift/control-select commands. Here's to hoping that works well.

By the way, Aeson, I still never found a satisfactory way to keep my ships on their defensive target other than to know about the flaw (the unchangeable auto-fuel/repair function) and take that into account in the planning stage. My current game has shown no glitches in this plan so far. *fingers crossed*

(in reply to Aeson)

Post #: 3

RE: How to prompt specific retrofits - 1/22/2017 7:10:01 PM

RemoteLeg

Posts: 153
Joined: 4/21/2015
From: Canada
Status: offline

The simplest way is to automate retrofitting for the specific design.
I prefer to go into the "Ships and Bases" screen, sort by role, then select all the ships of the type I want to retrofit. Provided you select all ships of the same design, the retrofit button will provide the option to retrofit to the newer design.

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(in reply to Gorde)

Post #: 4

RE: How to prompt specific retrofits - 1/22/2017 9:48:01 PM

Gorde

Posts: 14
Joined: 1/7/2017
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: RemoteLeg

The simplest way is to automate retrofitting for the specific design.

Thanks for confirming this, RemoteLeg; I bet this can be an effective way to manage a fairly complicated "rolling" refit.

(in reply to RemoteLeg)

Post #: 5

RE: How to prompt specific retrofits - 1/30/2017 5:44:16 PM

Edmesa

Posts: 15
Joined: 1/12/2016
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: RemoteLeg

The simplest way is to automate retrofitting for the specific design.
I prefer to go into the "Ships and Bases" screen, sort by role, then select all the ships of the type I want to retrofit. Provided you select all ships of the same design, the retrofit button will provide the option to retrofit to the newer design.

This way i retrofit bases and individual ships, fleets i retrofit through the fleets screen.

The only annoyance of mass retrofit is that the game will not actively tell you that not all selected units accepted the selected retrofit because its already retrofitting and the game doenst allow to queue multiple retrofits. So you have keep check on this.

(in reply to RemoteLeg)

Post #: 6