Something’s wrong with the retrofit paths in the ship designer

[100thMonkey]

Platform: Steam
Build version: v1.2.6.2 Beta (started with 1.2.1.2)
Severity: Medium
Annoyance factor: Medium
Confusion for new players: High
Saved game:

The Culture - Ackdarian - 2849-09-03.7z

(8.86 MiB) Downloaded 9 times

This is not a new problem with the current beta. I’ve been seeing this for a while.

When a spaceport design is opened in the ship designer, and the retrofit path is set to “Latest Design for Largest Hull for Role”, the said path will not be set to any available spaceport design using a bigger hull.

That happens with small spaceport designs when medium spaceport designs are available. And also with medium spaceport designs when large spaceport designs are available.

On the other hand, when a spaceport is selected in the selection panel, and a spaceport design using a bigger hull than the one selected exists in the game, the selection panel’s retrofit button WILL allow to retrofit to that bigger design.

Here’s an example from my current game (attached):

The MSP2 v7 is a design that uses the Medium Space Port v2 hull. It’s retrofit path is set to “Latest Design for Largest Hull for Role”, which is the LSP-1 auto-generated design that uses the Large Space Port hull. So that’s what should be shown in the retrofit path window. But instead, under “This Design Upgrades To”, you can see that it shows “(MSP2 v7)”. In other words: it will upgrade to itself, not to the design it should retrofit to!

MSP2 v7 in ship designer.png (380.26 KiB) Viewed 298 times

But, as mentioned, there is a more recent design available (LSP-1), using a bigger hull. It’s the one highlighted in the screenshot below:

Available bigger and more recent design.png (133.13 KiB) Viewed 298 times

Now for the selection panel: if I select a spaceport using the design shown in the first screenshot above (MSP2 v7), its selection panel will allow to retrofit to the bigger spaceport hull / later design (LSP-1):

Retrofit available from selection panel.png (225.57 KiB) Viewed 298 times

Not only is there an issue with the retrofit path interface, but there’s also some inconsistency in relation to the selection panel's behavior, which "understands" that the design can be retrofitted to the bigger hull.

[iancmtaylor]

Small medium and large space stations are each their own role.

[100thMonkey]

Yes. But as the last screenshot in the first post shows, the game allows retrofitting from a medium spaceport to a large one. So if such a retrofit (from medium spaceport "role" to large spaceport "role") can be done from the selection panel, the retrofit path window / functionality should also allow to specify a retrofit to a large hull, even if it's another role.

Either retrofitting to a larger hull is allowed in all parts of the interface, or it isn't in all parts of the interface. The former is my preferred option, because it makes managing retrofits easier, less tedious.

For instance, in my current game, I have to go through all my spaceports (all 96 of them!), one by one, and for those using the medium spaceport hull / design, manually order a retrofit order through the selection panel. Not my idea of fun! Being able to specify the desired retrofit path to the large hull / design from the retrofit path functionality would get rid of that tedious task.

@the Devs:
In Control Center, being able to filter on roles, hulls or designs, and to multi-select spaceports, would also greatly help.

[MaximKI]

In terms of your policy settings - what do you have them set as?

[100thMonkey]

The ones related to automated ships and fleets retrofits are all set to manual. But I'm not sure how they relate to this retrofit path problem (as far as I know, the retrofit paths apply to both manual and automated retrofits). Also, I don't see any policy related to bases retrofits (my report is about spaceports retrofit paths, not ships or fleets).

If those are not the policies you were referring to, let me know which ones you're interested in, and I'll post my settings for them.

[MaximKI]

Spaceports are a bit of a strange case in terms of retrofits and its possible that there's an issue here. We'll investigate.

Thanks for the additional info.