Nublet upgrade / automation frustrations

[scratchshc]

Hi all,

I'm really struggling to get my head around how upgrades / retrofits work, so would welcome some advice. To set the scene:-

* I design ships and bases myself.
* I never use the "retrofit adviser", having seen it simply ignore my designs in the past.
* I have "retrofit" set to automatic for all my ship classes.

What I see is a) ships not automatically retrofitting to new designs, and b) when I go through every single ship individually (which is quite a painful process) and order them to retrofit some do, and.... some don't. I don't think it's a question of resources, because I have them coming out the wazoo, and no "production halted due to shortages of x" messages.

Can anybody shed some light on what is happening, and how I might change things to get it to work more effectively?

Thanks,


scratch

[Modest]

I can not answer Your questions regardles automation, but I can give You tip that will make retrofiting a lot easier and less painfull. Hope it will be helpfull.

On top of screen You have many icons. One will be about "Military Ships". There You can just check every ship You have (Shift Click on top ship, and than Shift Click on bottom ship) and give them order to retrofit to the newest design. I hope it will make Your life a bit easier

[Bingeling]

Not that I mess much with manual designs...

The retrofit setting should be about being retrofitted when you accept the retrofit all suggestion, or tell a fleet to retrofit. You want to set this to "no" if you for some reason don't want it be caught in normal retrofit orders. This is the case for "Alien ships" found, for instance. They are also probably ignored if you "multi select" and retrofit in the ship list, but I would check what order they get when doing this to be sure.

If not automated, a ship will not retrofit unless you tell it to (accepting the AI suggestion is "telling it to", though). When doing a normal "Retrofit" order, the latest, unobsolete design is used. What probably did happen to you was that you had not disabled the AI designer, and there was a newer AI design. Or that your design was not buildable (too large?).

If you retrofit in the ship list, you can pick what design to retrofit to, if you ever decide you want 5 different cruiser designs in use...

[scratchshc]

Thanks guys, the shift-click will certainly help. What's weird (or at least what I am not getting), is why ships I manually tell to retrofit (choosing the latest design), don't actually retrofit....

[Bingeling]

Reasons for not retrofitting that I can think of:

1: There is no newer, buildable design of its class.

2: You can not afford the retrofit.

There should be an active retrofit button below the selection panel (the lower left one) if there is a newer design.

It is also possible that something could block most ways of retrofitting if the retrofit is set to manual. I am not sure about that.

[scratchshc]

1. Definitely a newer design, if you focus on the ship it has the little "up arrow upgrade icon".
2. Over a million in the bank, with the retrofit costing ~1000.

So it's something else. I am probably doing something stupid, I just don't know what .

[Bingeling]

What kind of ship is it? Is the new design that you expect shown in the build order screen?

If you tell it to retrofit, what happens to the order shown in the selection panel?

[Sirian]

Do you have enough materials for the retrofit?

[scratchshc]

Any military design, so say I had ten escorts, ten frigates, ten destroyers, ten cruisers and ten capital ships. I researched, for example, Shaterforce lasers, and updated all designs to replace the old blasters. At the point in the game I was I had about 30 colonies (with only seven odd spaceports). I ordered each ship to retrofit into the latest version (yes, the new design was shown), and yes, I had enough materials - I had no problems building new ships of those designs.

When I left the "ship screen", all ships had orders to retrofit. Some did, some just seemed to ignore the order.

As I said above, I think I am doing something wrong / not understanding something properly, I just can't figure it out. Anyway, thanks for the continued thoughts .

[Bingeling]

Are you sure the ones ignoring the order did not have the latest design already?

And retrofitting a lot of ships can be quite expensive, but you appear to have enough cash, anyways.

[scratchshc]

Yep, if they have the latest design no design is selectable in the drop down so you can't actually give them the order to retrofit.

[feelotraveller]

How long did you wait (and did they continue to have the retrofit order showing)?

Just wondering if they are waiting for a vacant construction yard before carrying out the order.

[Airpower]

I have found that if you place a military ship in a fleet, automate that fleet, then order that ship to retrofit from the F11 screen, it will simply ignore the request.

I would recommend trying one of three things:
1) Either remove the ship(s) from fleets and order them to retrofit from the F11 screen
2) Turn off automation to your fleet then order the ships to retrofit from the F11 screen
3) Go to the F12 screen, click on the fleet, and click "Retrofit to latest designs". This will make the fleet retrofit even if it's automated.

I hope I read your question right!

[Tcby]

Airpower is correct. Automated fleets will cancel the retrofit order and continue on their merry way. I think this is new behavior, as of .4.5 or .5.
If that isn't the case for you, upload a save and someone can quickly have a look.

Edit: Regarding Airpower's advice to order the retrofit through the F12 Fleets screen, I've found that those orders can also be cancelled by automated fleets..

[Airpower]

Weeeeird.... maybe my experience has been different because I don't use automation extensively. Good to know.

[DeadlyShoe]

Edit: Regarding Airpower's advice to order the retrofit through the F12 Fleets screen, I've found that those orders can also be cancelled by automated fleets..

AFAIK fleet retrofits count as a normal fleet order. They'll only be canceled in the case of a priority interrupt, such as low fuel or high damage.

Note this means that a fleet will be 'stuck' if a ship cannot complete a retrofit owing to insufficient resources! Manual orders would be required in this case.

Also note there's two layers of fleet automation: the fleet formation AI and the fleet-level AI. They do different things.

[scratchshc]

Thank you guys, this I can work with. At least I am not going mad .