Matrix Games Forums

Platform: Steam
Build version: v1.3.1.0 Beta + Expansion and all DLCs
Severity: Medium
Annoyance factor: HIgh
Confusion for new players: Through the roof
Saved game:
Currently, there are no ships in 2nd Fleet that can be retrofitted. But when it’s selected, the retrofit button in the selection panel is active. So if one then click on the retrofit button, the fleet’s selection panel says that its mission is “Retrofit at Merta Spaceport”, even though there’s nothing to retrofit, and nothing being retrofitted.


But one wouldn’t know that from the interface when the fleet is selected.

An inexperienced player might be totally bamboozled by this, clicking on the retrofit button and not understanding why the fleet still need to be retrofitted after that “retrofit”.

And an experienced player has to jump through hoops to understand what’s going on (ie: that the interface is lying by saying that the fleet can/shold be retrofitted).

Looking at the save - I see one of your fuel tankers Bold Partisan using an older design. The retrofit button is likely active, because in this case you had at least this fuel tanker that needed to upgrade, so this is WAD.

Are you seeing something else? Is there other situation that shows this more clearly?

I did miss that Bold Partisan was retrofitting (I just selected the ships one by one and quickly looked whether or not the retrofit button was able or disable for the ship, and it was / is disabled for all ships, including Bold Partisan).

The current retrofit button behavior might be WAD, but if it is, I contend that the design should be modified.

Here's why: the fleet's retrofit button should be enabled ONLY when there's a necessity to do a retrofit, NOT when there's already one occurring. When one or more ships of a fleet is/are retrofitting, then the fleet's mission should reflect that, but the retrofit button should be disabled, indicating that there are no more "retrofitting actions" required.

Imagine a new user, clicking on a fleet retrofit button, and the button staying "enabled" because of the retrofit taking place. Would be very confusing to that player, the thought process being something akin to "Why doesn't it retrofit when I order it to?", because after ordering the fleet to retrofit, the interface still says that a retrofit is needed.

Certainly, there's room for improvement here. We'll consider this when we decide to revisit this area.