No Ship Refit Not Such A Bad Thing

[Sikander]

Originally posted by BigBopper
Political Prisoners to the front!
The feint always has, and will be, a proven military tactic. Who says they have to fight to the death anyways? You could have your old fleet retreat once they start to lose. Some ships may be lost, but that’s the cost of war. We’ll have to see what kind of sensors, etc. the game will have before we know if this will work. It may be as simple as scanning a system, or sending a lone scout ship, to “see” the capabilities of the enemy fleet.

"They Were Expendable"

[Boban]

The problem of refitting in MOO2 was due fast tech research. After 2-3 turns there is a new tech and a need to refit ships. So, you ended up constantly refitting ships (one by one in a row) and then again and again.

Sid Meiers' games had an option to slow down research and that feature is also needed here (I guess). Because the end-game is very likely to bring more micromanagement, even though it is said it's been reduced in MOO3.

My two cents - refitting is OK, but in a much slower tempo. But if the game is really slower than MOO2, it may not be necessary, with an option to scrap old ships and retreive some of the resources from it.

Boban

[Kc7mxo]

Kc7mxo, we've also got a certain battleship sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

I think that the Arizona can safely be considered "out of action." So I don't know that we'd bother upgrading refitting her.

But seriously, the USofA has many mothballed hulls, and yet new hulls are laid down. It is always better to design a new ship from the keel up, it is usually cheaper to retrofit an existing vessel, with the compromise being various inefficiencies that wouldn't exist in a new design.

Thats because, induystrially speaking, we're rich. We can afford to spend more on a single plain, than some countries spend on battalions of soldiers. Its not cost effective to build a new ship, but its combat effective. And we concentrate on having an army that is as effective as possible, and takes the fewest casualties.

Vessels refitted with entirely different weapon systems from the original design should have some penalty. For example, BB62 New Jersey was refitted with cruise missile batteries. A new ship design of the same tonnage would have more efficient storage and loading arrangements, or the refit would sacrifice storage capacity to eliminate an efficiency penalty.

yes, well, I wasn't saying that we should retrofit every ship in the navy. I certainly don't think we ought to stick the new AEGIS systems on the Constitution.

But I do think that when we invent a new type of missle system, we shouldn't have to start over on the Leviathan we just spent 80 cycles building if we want to stick em on.

Anyway, I agree with Harry except with regard to computer/control systems. The only reason for upgrading is to keep crew experience, given higher costs for removing and replacing old systems with new. However, control systems should be easily upgraded unless your race chooses the "really short-sighted about making allowances for exponential growth of computer abilities" option.

The only reason to upgrade is NOT to keep crew expereince. Crew experience, IMO, is a silly idea that should be dropped. The reason we should be able to refit systems is because if I just spent 80 cycles building a leviathan with more metal in it than most of my cities, I should be able to stick it in spacedock and slap the newest missles on it. It is saving time on HULL constrution that I'm interested in.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Nightingale
Well, the beta testers don't seem too unhappy about it, remember one of them saying something like: "At first I was sad it wasn't possible, but now I don't know what I'd do WITH it."

Beta testers are not there to evaluate whether a game is to their liking or not. Their job is to find bugs.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Epistax
That's like taking an already used diesel submarine, and making it nuclear. Sure it's possible, but the cost is tremendous.

Not as much as building a new one.

Originally posted by Epistax
Now imagine changing the structure too!

Structure can never be changed, armour can, which makes a lot of sense.

[Imperator Max]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
But I do think that when we invent a new type of missle system, we shouldn't have to start over on the Leviathan we just spent 80 cycles building if we want to stick em on.

Hi there

I think the problem here is you're thinking in terms of missiles when you imagine weapons refits. Upgrading/replacing a missile isn't that difficult. The launcher isn't much more than a tube, so all you're really doing is changing the ammunition.

But think of something like a battleship's heavy guns, in heavily armoured turrets and with all their associated workings. That's a much bigger deal to modify in any way, let alone replace.

Perhaps in an ideal refit system in a game, every item/system would have some kind of rating to reflect how integrated it is into the ships structure and thus how hard/expensive it would be to tamper with/replace.

It may be adding complexity, but this is a moot point we're discussing here anyway!

And, (incidentally) why shouldn't you be able to change armour?

Jon...

[CharlesBHoff]

I live in than town that once brought than out of bussien
department store to be it new bigger library for ten million dollar. It would have cost twenty to 40 million dollar to refit the old builting built in the 1890's without total tearing the whole builting apart and it would have taken 3 or 4 year to refit the old builting.

[Daveybaby]

Refit in Moo2 was unrealistic, ridiculous and BORING. The unlimited ability to change EVERY part of the ship at a whim is just too stupid for words. Plus, it brings out the anal-retentive boring **** in people, and is a bad thing for that reason if for no other.

I can understand the desire for a *limited* refit ability in Moo3 e.g:

* can upgrade missiles and fighters to a maximum of (say) 4 levels of advancement greater than the ones originally installed at design time.
* can upgrade beam weapons to a maximum of 2 levels of advancement.
* can upgrade shields and engines by a maximum of one level only. This should also be VERY expensive to achieve.
* cannot upgrade armour or hull at all (well, maybe armour, but this again should be prohibitively expensive, as in 'real life', whatever that is).

This would mirror the fact that in reality you can upgrade systems, but there comes a point where you just cant fit the new tech to the hull because its just no longer feasible. i.e. we can upgrade cruisers to add better missiles, radar and countermeasures, but we CANT upgrade wooden sailing ships to become guided missile destroyers, if for no other reason than the ship would blow itself to pieces and/or catch fire every time it fired.

However, I DONT want the above system in Moo3 - because its FAR too complicated and anal - and thus BOOOORRRINNGGG - and it sounds like i'll be having far too much fun blowing stuff up to worry about that sort of thing. I'd much rather the programmers spent time adding more fun stuff to the game than rehashing things that didnt work in the first place.

And I DEFINITELY dont want the Moo2 style of refitting put back in. Its stupid and it sucks and if it goes in a patch i will sulk. So there.

[Bagman]

... What I found interesting in MOO2, which nobody has mentioned, is that all the engine upgrades were done immediately and for free. I figure that it was done for simplicity's sake, but when you think about it, the degree of change from a fusion drive to an antimatter drive may be the equivalent of going from a steam-powered vessel like the Carthage to a nuclear powered vessel like the Santiago.

That being said, I don't think engine issues will be brought into moo3, because it would add an extra degree of complexity in managing ship fleets. Of course, I've been wrong before.

Reading these threads, I came up with an idea for a limited refit option that would not bog down into micromanagement hell.

- When ships are placed into the reserves, they can be automatically upgraded to the best weapon modifications made available thanks to miniturization research. Your giant laser-lugging 40 turret close range ship could benefit, say, from an armor-peircing laser modification. You have nuclear-launched missile ships? They could now launch fast missiles. You may not be able to add that brand-new mass-driver you just researched to this laser ship - You would require a new ship design.

Perhaps the computer could do these refits for you behind the scenes (like a military viceroy) so you wouldn't have to worry about it. The same could be done for computers and some other small systems.
And if you REALLY wanted to add all the custom mods to your new ships, then you would have to design a new one. This would help to prevent ships from becoming completely obsolete.

I couldn't imagine scrapping the old "TCS Endurance" after it returned time and time again from a military conflict, which none of its peers survived.