New guy: upgrade & retrofit, why am I so confused? Please read, thank You (Full Version)

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Timotheus -> New guy: upgrade & retrofit, why am I so confused? Please read, thank You (12/13/2013 1:32:53 PM)

Started a first game, full automation, the game played itself.

Watched Larry Monte's TV stuff, turned all automation off.

Designed some ships, did some research, and waited for the ships to update. Nada.

OK, it's because I have the upgrade & retrofit both set to manual. So I set retrofit to automatic.

And waited. Nada.

OK, when I hover my mouse over my ship class name, it says "manual design". OK, manually modernizing ALL my ships would be a pain and will prevent me from playing this, as well as giving me ulcer.

Desperate times call for desperate measures - I set upgrade to automatic also.

Both retrofit and upgrade are automatic.

Nothing happens.

Got an ulcer.

Tearing my hair out.

There is no way this game will make you click on 10 to 200 ships and stations to upgrade each one, one by one.

I experiment.

I click the "Empire settings".

Well, that's new and totally undocumented in the manual feature.

Let's see... clicky here for each class to automatically upgrade/retrofit to a newer design.

I smell victory.

But... then I read that this feature only works for automatically designed stuff.


Meanwhile, I swear that after clicking everything on the Empire Settings menu for each ship class, that my stations all happily upgraded to Energy Collectors and shields and what not.

But my ships do not...


At least I have them in a fleet, so it is a 1-click deal... but what about independents?

Ye gods... [:'(]


So here are my newbie questions:

What exactly does upgrade mean?

What exactly does retrofit mean?


Is it possible to play with fully manual micromanage (yey!) and design a new station by "manual edit" of an existing type and then the comp will upgrade all of them?


Is it possible to play with fully manual micromanage (yey!) and design a new spaceship by "manual edit" of an existing type and then the comp will upgrade all of them?


Or do I have to manually upgrade or retrofit (what do they mean, exactly, and what's the difference?) each fleet, ship and station myself when I don't automate?


Example of what I want to happen:
Click "manual edit" on EX-1 Scout
Add shield.
Save.
Now the new model is EX-1 Scout Mk2, the other one has the obsolete "*" on it.
Cool.
Now the game automatically upgrades all my scouts to the new type once they finish whatever job they are doing (or if they idle, they immediately go to nearest star port to become EX-1 Scout Mk2).



I am 40% sure that I have missed something simple to tweak but...

BUT...

If that is not implemented, that would make me [:@] and [X(] and [8|] and [:-], but mostly [:(].

If that is not implemented, this goes to the top of my wishlist for the next patch, due tomorrow.


Thanks for humoring me, the new guy, oh forum gods and goddesses.

Looking forward to your replies and your help.


PS
Am pretty sure that the adviser suggestion popup to upgrade my ships/stations to incorporate a new design does not work.

Actually, am not sure.

I think it works for stations, and is basically straight swap to better weapon type from an obsolete weapon.

Is that correct?



zenkmander -> RE: New guy: upgrade & retrofit, why am I so confused? Please read, thank You (12/13/2013 3:51:54 PM)

Too many line breaks! [X(] I'll try to answer some of your questions.

What exactly does upgrade mean?
Upgrade refers to the design itself, not the actual ship/base. So if I click the auto-upgrade button on a design (in the design screen) it will scan through the components of that design, and try to replace older components with newer versions that you researched (ie Basic Space Reactor upgraded to Fission Reactor). I tend not to use Auto-Upgrade since the system isn't perfect. I like having precision control over what goes on my ships.

What exactly does retrofit mean?
Retrofit refers to the actual ship/base. This simply means that a ship with an older, obsolete design is ordered to go to the nearest spaceport and undergo construction so that it matches the latest design.

Is it possible to play with fully manual micromanage (yey!) and design a new station by "manual edit" of an existing type and then the comp will upgrade all of them? Or do I have to manually upgrade or retrofit (what do they mean, exactly, and what's the difference?) each fleet, ship and station myself when I don't automate?
I haven't played automated in a very long time so I can't tell you. I manually upgrade/edit every design. This means that I do need to issue retrofit orders myself for any state ship/base. The private sector controls their own ships/bases no matter what, so even if you're not using any automation, the private sector will automatically retrofit their freighters, mining stations, etc.

It's actually better being able to issue orders individually (micromanage) since your economy can vary. For example, I wouldn't want to retrofit a spaceport I built in the middle of nowhere, since it will probably get stuck retrofitting due to resource shortages. Similarly, if one of my colonies is being attacked, I wouldn't order the ships there to start retrofitting until it's safe.

However if you'd like to issue retrofit orders en masse, open the 'Ships & Bases' screen. Select the type of ship/base from the dropdown menu, then sort it by the role of the ship/base, and then you can use regular Windows shortcuts (ie Ctrl+A to select all, Shift+LMB to select a range) to select ships. If you then hit the Retrofit button with those ships selected, they will all be ordered to retrofit to the design you chose (if multiple newer designs are available that is).

EDIT: Also make sure you're using the new beta patch (1.9.0.12) as it apparently fixes a problem where some bases had the Retrofit button greyed out.



Timotheus -> RE: New guy: upgrade & retrofit, why am I so confused? Please read, thank You (12/13/2013 10:13:01 PM)

Thank You for your reply; it was a great help.

So basically all I need to do: "if you'd like to issue retrofit orders en masse, open the 'Ships & Bases' screen. Select the type of ship/base from the dropdown menu, then sort it by the role of the ship/base, and then you can use regular Windows shortcuts (ie Ctrl+A to select all, Shift+LMB to select a range) to select ships. If you then hit the Retrofit button with those ships selected, they will all be ordered to retrofit to the design you chose (if multiple newer designs are available that is)."


Edit: where the heck is the patch area for this game?

Awesome.



zenkmander -> RE: New guy: upgrade & retrofit, why am I so confused? Please read, thank You (12/13/2013 10:36:11 PM)

Yes, explore all of the menus and you'll learn the best ways to accomplish things like that. For example, instead of selecting an idle construction ship and zooming in on planets to see their resources, use the Resource Planner to find the resource in question and send an idle constructor straight from that menu.

The beta patch is a sticky thread in this section.



Timotheus -> RE: New guy: upgrade & retrofit, why am I so confused? Please read, thank You (12/13/2013 10:56:57 PM)

"For example, instead of selecting an idle construction ship and zooming in on planets to see their resources, use the Resource Planner to find the resource in question and send an idle constructor straight from that menu."

Yes, found that feature after watching Larry Monte's awesome "micromanage" lets play.

The planet colonization feature is there too, and the resource planner sorts it by your empire's need, which cuts down on tediousness.



Spidey -> RE: New guy: upgrade & retrofit, why am I so confused? Please read, thank You (12/16/2013 3:44:41 AM)

I believe the mining bases will retrofit themselves over time. Looking through the list of mines in my current game, I'm not seeing any of the early base designs floating about anymore.

Pretty much everything probably has to be done manually unless you're willing to put the AI in charge of running your ships. Personally I'm not that brave but to each their own. This sounds like a lot of micro but it's not actually all that bad, as long as you pay attention to the ship and bases window, which can be opened by pressing F11.

In order to retrofit the entire 32 ships in fleet "Old Junk", simply open the ship window, pick "military ships" from the drop-down menu, sort by fleet, scroll down to "Old Junk", click on the first ship in the fleet, hold shift and click on the last ship, and then click on the retrofit button in the window. This way, you can easily send tremendous amounts of ships off to get retrofitted but you should be a little careful, since bulk actions can potentially add up to a heck of a lot of resources.

Retrofitting colony-based bases is pretty much the same story. Select the proper colony type in the window, select the bases you wish to retrofit, click retrofit. Not really all that micro intensive and certainly not something that will wear down your mouse buttons, and it's reasonably fast too.

Just make life easier on yourself and use fleets with descriptive names as well as design names that aren't too abstract. It really sucks to tell all the Dauntless cruisers of 22nd fleet to retrofit to the Victorius class only to realise that the Vics are defensive carrier versions, the 22nd was actually pretty up to date anyway, and what you really wanted was to upgrade Defiant cruisers in the 24th fleet to Valiants.



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