Fleet upgrade paths

[talentless]

On latest beta 1.1.0.6.

I have a fleet design with a single frigate role set to Latest Design for hull "Heavy Frigate".
The actual frigates on the fleet have the basic Frigate hull on a design that is set to upgrade to a "Fleet Frigate" design.
The actual frigates on the fleet are being retrofitted to the "Fleet Frigate" design where I expected them to be retrofitted to the "Heavy Frigate" as per the fleet design.

I recall on some patch notes reading that the ship design ultimately determines the ship upgrade path so this might be working as expected but if so, how are we supposed to controle the fleet design composition if the same design cannot upgrade to a different design depending on the fleet it is in?

[AKicebear]

The fleet will eventually order entirely new ships of the proper hull type and disband those earlier ships of the wrong hull type, resulting in more "ships not in a fleet".

[talentless]

Right, but that is a bit of a waste, isn't it?

[AKicebear]

Absolutely, it is not the optimal action. I'd prefer if the fleet manager AI was able to sidegrade from a heavy to patrol escort (for example) to fit it's template, even if the heavy escorts individual design setting was to only upgrade to a newer heavy escorts design. IMO the fleet templates should supercede the retrofitting path that a ship would individually follow.

[Arthanis]

Absolutely, it is not the optimal action. I'd prefer if the fleet manager AI was able to sidegrade from a heavy to patrol escort (for example) to fit it's template, even if the heavy escorts individual design setting was to only upgrade to a newer heavy escorts design. IMO the fleet templates should supercede the retrofitting path that a ship would individually follow.

You can actually do that. You need to find the heavy escort specific design name, find it in the ship designer and set it to upgrade to the desired patrol Escort design. Then just set the unwanted design as Obsolete. Its a bit clunky to learn currently but the ship designer can manage most transitions from one design to another.

[StormingKiwi]

Absolutely, it is not the optimal action. I'd prefer if the fleet manager AI was able to sidegrade from a heavy to patrol escort (for example) to fit it's template, even if the heavy escorts individual design setting was to only upgrade to a newer heavy escorts design. IMO the fleet templates should supercede the retrofitting path that a ship would individually follow.

You can actually do that. You need to find the heavy escort specific design name, find it in the ship designer and set it to upgrade to the desired patrol Escort design. Then just set the unwanted design as Obsolete. Its a bit clunky to learn currently but the ship designer can manage most transitions from one design to another.

But what you have said it can do is not what AKicebear said it should be able to do.

[Erik Rutins]

Absolutely, it is not the optimal action. I'd prefer if the fleet manager AI was able to sidegrade from a heavy to patrol escort (for example) to fit it's template, even if the heavy escorts individual design setting was to only upgrade to a newer heavy escorts design. IMO the fleet templates should supercede the retrofitting path that a ship would individually follow.

We considered that, but decided that it was much more logical to have the ship designs as the authoritative definition of upgrade paths. Having the ships define upgrade paths and then potentially other definitions in the fleet templates was likely to cause much more confusion and bugs. As long as you understand that ship designs are the key place for upgrade paths, I haven't had any issues personally keeping my fleets using the ships I would like.

We're always open to further improvements, but we don't want ship designs and fleet templates fighting with each other over upgrade paths.

Regards,

- Erik

[Arthanis]

Absolutely, it is not the optimal action. I'd prefer if the fleet manager AI was able to sidegrade from a heavy to patrol escort (for example) to fit it's template, even if the heavy escorts individual design setting was to only upgrade to a newer heavy escorts design. IMO the fleet templates should supercede the retrofitting path that a ship would individually follow.

You can actually do that. You need to find the heavy escort specific design name, find it in the ship designer and set it to upgrade to the desired patrol Escort design. Then just set the unwanted design as Obsolete. Its a bit clunky to learn currently but the ship designer can manage most transitions from one design to another.

But what you have said it can do is not what AKicebear said it should be able to do.

On second read my bad yeah. Sidegrading between different hull types straight from the fleet manager is not currently possible. You can sort of achieve it by messing with the ship designer but as I said its clunky.

If you had to do that with multiple fleet templates and designs (say you want heavy escort to sidegrade to your patrol escort only in your defense fleets) its probably doable if you disable automatic retrofit and mess with upgrade paths but it quickly becomes overly complex.

EDIT: To add onto that now that I've seen Erik answering above me. Part of my initial confusing with the way the system is currently set up is that if the fleet manager allows the player to pick a distinct named design for a ship role but when you go and check your fleets you are left with the previous design and no option to upgrade.

Its only after I pressed the fleet top up button and saw said named design being queried for construction at the shipyards that I realized how the system is set up.

It's partially my mistake for Instinctively assuming it works like Stellaris fleet manager but I see how especially a new player could be fooled into thinking something is not working as it should.