Upgrade Ships

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Iceman
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

Hi SonOfMogh, I remember you, maybe from the old forums?

I totally agree with you, this would be the best way to deal with this.
But I think this would only have a marginal use, and probably would be a fluff thing, cool for the Federation but largely ignored for any other civ?
It would basically require duplicating the empires' ship lists, which is a tremendous amount of work. That work would probably be best spent duplicating the minor races' ship lists, so that their ships would be more useful not only for them but also for empires that member them.

If we ever implement ship upgrading, I think this should be the way to go. :up:
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SonOfMogh
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by SonOfMogh »

That’s me, I was posting in BotF forums 15 years ago, I’m amazed this is still going strong!

That makes sense re the upgrades. I guess it’s a lot of micromanagement too. I suppose my main issue is one ship being transformed into another like in the original. If an old Excelsior is decommissioned, and an Intrepid is built for example, those are two completely separate things. And I guess whether you decide to decommission older ships when you build new ones should come down to how large your empire is and how much ground you have to cover.

I always loved the fleet battles in DS9 where the Federation and Klingon fleets had large numbers of obsolete designs in there. It felt realistic, as it takes years to build a new ship, and by the time you have replaced half your fleet with newer designs, technology will have moved on, and something even better is available.
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

The original only spanned the TNG era, so the refit/upgrade system was ok. In Supremacy, that's not the case.

That's the reason I wouldn't want to decrease build costs for ships, to have larger fleets. I understand people love huge battles and such, but there's something about that "realistic" feel... this is something that is easily modded anyway, so huge everything can be done :wink: ( Right Alex? :twisted: )
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SonOfMogh
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by SonOfMogh »

Absolutely 100% agree. If you do end up in a huge fleet battle, then your fleet should be comprised of a handful of newer designs, and then a pretty even mix of older ships from various eras.

Only ships which are so old that they’re literally useless should be decommissioned. And even then it would be cool to just put them on low risk borders or escorting colony ships through relatively safe zones etc. The way to ensure this realism is by removing the ability to buy ships outright, and keeping the credits received when scrapping ships low.

Great work btw. Still amazing this is happening!
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

SonOfMogh wrote: Wed Jun 17, 2020 3:22 am The way to ensure this realism is by removing the ability to buy ships outright, and keeping the credits received when scrapping ships low.
In Supremacy you can't buy ships, and it's not in the plans to have that in the game.
The scrap (credits) returns are based on the ship´s build cost, so the lower tech it is, the lower its build cost, and hence the less the credits you´ll get.
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talon
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by talon »

I'm still waiting for this to be implemented and I really think it needs to be. I agree that you shouldn't be able to upgrade ships when they are in the middle of space but I do like the idea of having an "upgrade" order which sends the ship to the nearest available shipyard to start the upgrade. Also having something in the shipbuilding menu that allows you to upgrade ships in the system if an upgrade is available would be useful too.

As for the big debate of should ships be able to upgrade from one class to a new class you could make ship upgrading an option in the game set-up thereby making it the individual player's choice.
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SanguineQuest
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by SanguineQuest »

Rather than upgrading the ships themselves, perhaps there could be a "Crew Transfer," ability that activates only for obsolete vessels that allows you to transfer all or part of their EXP to a new modern vessel? After all, the protagonists getting a more advanced ship to replace one that was lost is a fixture of Star Trek fiction. Using that as an alternative to actual ship upgrades would preserve the potential to play out the fantasy of a fleet where out-of-date designs can still see use that sonofmogh talked about (since the ship would still exist after transferring its crew) but also allow the player to get some material benefit from their old vessels once they reach a new tier beyond scrapping them for spare change or using them as an extra body in a crisis.
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Misfire
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Misfire »

SanguineQuest wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:00 am Rather than upgrading the ships themselves, perhaps there could be a "Crew Transfer," ability that activates only for obsolete vessels that allows you to transfer all or part of their EXP to a new modern vessel? After all, the protagonists getting a more advanced ship to replace one that was lost is a fixture of Star Trek fiction. Using that as an alternative to actual ship upgrades would preserve the potential to play out the fantasy of a fleet where out-of-date designs can still see use that sonofmogh talked about (since the ship would still exist after transferring its crew) but also allow the player to get some material benefit from their old vessels once they reach a new tier beyond scrapping them for spare change or using them as an extra body in a crisis.
I like that idea.

Taking your thought a little further, I think it would be cool if all crew members were essentially what agents are in the current game and could be managed as such. Each having their own experience etc. Though something that specific would be difficult to implement without it being a micro-management nightmare.
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

talon wrote: Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:55 pm I'm still waiting for this to be implemented and I really think it needs to be.
The upgrade code already exists IIRC. We just don't have an "interface" to use it yet.

I agree that you shouldn't be able to upgrade ships when they are in the middle of space but I do like the idea of having an "upgrade" order which sends the ship to the nearest available shipyard to start the upgrade. Also having something in the shipbuilding menu that allows you to upgrade ships in the system if an upgrade is available would be useful too.
The shipbuilding menu would probably be the best way to implement this, and in the same spirit, ship repairs too (replacing the current Repair fleet order).
We would have to remove the old ship from the game as soon as the upgrade started, and the upgrade would work as a new build project - so that issues with things like the shipyard being attacked or destroyed (or the project being cancelled in any other way) during the process wouldn't occur.
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the6the
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by the6the »

Iceman wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:08 am
talon wrote: Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:55 pm I'm still waiting for this to be implemented and I really think it needs to be.
The upgrade code already exists IIRC. We just don't have an "interface" to use it yet.

I agree that you shouldn't be able to upgrade ships when they are in the middle of space but I do like the idea of having an "upgrade" order which sends the ship to the nearest available shipyard to start the upgrade. Also having something in the shipbuilding menu that allows you to upgrade ships in the system if an upgrade is available would be useful too.
The shipbuilding menu would probably be the best way to implement this, and in the same spirit, ship repairs too (replacing the current Repair fleet order).
We would have to remove the old ship from the game as soon as the upgrade started, and the upgrade would work as a new build project - so that issues with things like the shipyard being attacked or destroyed (or the project being cancelled in any other way) during the process wouldn't occur.
Iceman, That sounds like a winner idea to me! :up:
How difficult would be to implement it?
Also, in this idea, could entire task forces of the same ship type be able to be upgraded at once at the same ship yard/dock? Or would it have to be manually one by one (or two by two, three by three, depends how many construction docks in the system)?
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

the6the wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 5:35 pm How difficult would be to implement it?
Also, in this idea, could entire task forces of the same ship type be able to be upgraded at once at the same ship yard/dock? Or would it have to be manually one by one (or two by two, three by three, depends how many construction docks in the system)?
They'd have to be upgraded individually.



Iceman wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:08 amThe shipbuilding menu would probably be the best way to implement this, and in the same spirit, ship repairs too (replacing the current Repair fleet order).
The Repair fleet order would still be needed for starbases.
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geordie
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Re: Supremacy new release

Post by geordie »

I would like to go to an old topic, already discussed, but with a modified approach - THE SHIP UPGRADE!

In fact I want to propose a regular construction of next ship in the same class, but with a usage of resources of upgraded ship (at least 80%, maybe 90%) and to keep the old crew experience level. The upgrade could be performed in any shipyard, but limiting it to the native shipyards is an option. The acquired ships of minor races would be not upgraded.

What do you think of that longing for one of the predecessor (MoO2) options?
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Danijel
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Danijel »

I vote for just difference in price, and bonus for dragging it to shipyard and waiting for upgrade(retrofit?) is crew keeping exp(not sure if you meant this regarding price too, or you want to "add" to price total)?
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