Engine Efficiency, Refits, and Shipyard Tooling

[sloanjh (OP)]

Generally speaking, I like the way shipyard tooling is set up to be able to multiple similar classes.  Several times now, however, I've come upon a situation where it seems like a SY should be able to do a refit, but it isn't.  The issue is that a SY can't do an identical upgrade on an electronics or weapons suite, even though the only difference between the classes is the engines or hull material.

Concrete example:  A while back, I went from thermal 8 to thermal 11, and redesigned my standard 3HS-24 thermal sensor to a 3-33 sensor.  My standard destroyer design (call it Nelson VI) had MHD engines with fuel efficiency 0.7.  I introduced a new class (call it Nelson VIb) with E7 engines and 3-33 sensors.  My SY was tooled for Nelson VI, but could refit ships to Nelson VIb since the refit price was small (because they had such similar systems.

Then I researched fuel efficiency 0.6, and designed new E6 MHD engines.  This led to a new class (call it Nelson VII) with E6 engines and 3-33 sensors.  Note that Nelson VII and Nelson VIb are identical designs, except one has E6 MHD engines and one has E7.  The weapon and sensor suites are identical.  In addition, the refit from Nelson VI to Nelson VIb consists of (figuratively speaking) unbolting a 3-24 sensor and plugging a 3-33 sensor in to replace it.  It feels like this should be the same work, whether or not the ship has been up-engined.

This leads to the problematic situation.  What I'd like to do is retool my SY to the Nelson VII standard, so that all new construction is up-engined.  The problem is, that this prevents me from upgrading the sensor or weapons suites of Nelson VI using that SY, even for refits that don't touch the engines.  This isn't a big deal at the moment - the main problem shows up when I introduce the Nelson VIIb or VIIc or VIId classes (with better weapon or sensor suites) - I won't be able to make similar improvements on the Nelson VI set of ships using that SY.  And since 6000 HS SY are in short supply, this means that I'll effectively have to freeze the Nelson VI series of hulls at their current weapons/sensor mix.

The downside is that I don't have a good suggestion to solve the problem.  The only thing I can think of is to look at the changes being made in a refit, and if the new systems are a subset of the systems on the ship that the SY can build (note the subtle difference here between "is tooled for" and "can build") then it can do the work.  So for example, any SY that could build an existing class with 3-33 sensors could perform an upgrade where that is the only change to the class.  The determination of what classes can be built by a SY would stay the same.

The thing I like about this idea (if it can be worked) is that breaks some of the coupling between armor type, engines, weapons/sensor suites, and payload type (e.g. cargo hold vs. cryogenics vs. troop transport bay) in the refit process.  IRL, it mimics the recommissioning of the New Jersey class BB's in the 80's - the SY in question just needed to be tooled for the weapons/sensor systems (e.g. fitting Phalanx, Harpoon, Tomahawk, etc.) rather than being tooled to build a BB.

John

[Steve Walmsley]

Generally speaking, I like the way shipyard tooling is set up to be able to multiple similar classes.  Several times now, however, I've come upon a situation where it seems like a SY should be able to do a refit, but it isn't.  The issue is that a SY can't do an identical upgrade on an electronics or weapons suite, even though the only difference between the classes is the engines or hull material.

Concrete example:  A while back, I went from thermal 8 to thermal 11, and redesigned my standard 3HS-24 thermal sensor to a 3-33 sensor.  My standard destroyer design (call it Nelson VI) had MHD engines with fuel efficiency 0.7.  I introduced a new class (call it Nelson VIb) with E7 engines and 3-33 sensors.  My SY was tooled for Nelson VI, but could refit ships to Nelson VIb since the refit price was small (because they had such similar systems.

Then I researched fuel efficiency 0.6, and designed new E6 MHD engines.  This led to a new class (call it Nelson VII) with E6 engines and 3-33 sensors.  Note that Nelson VII and Nelson VIb are identical designs, except one has E6 MHD engines and one has E7.  The weapon and sensor suites are identical.  In addition, the refit from Nelson VI to Nelson VIb consists of (figuratively speaking) unbolting a 3-24 sensor and plugging a 3-33 sensor in to replace it.  It feels like this should be the same work, whether or not the ship has been up-engined.

This leads to the problematic situation.  What I'd like to do is retool my SY to the Nelson VII standard, so that all new construction is up-engined.  The problem is, that this prevents me from upgrading the sensor or weapons suites of Nelson VI using that SY, even for refits that don't touch the engines.  This isn't a big deal at the moment - the main problem shows up when I introduce the Nelson VIIb or VIIc or VIId classes (with better weapon or sensor suites) - I won't be able to make similar improvements on the Nelson VI set of ships using that SY.  And since 6000 HS SY are in short supply, this means that I'll effectively have to freeze the Nelson VI series of hulls at their current weapons/sensor mix.

The downside is that I don't have a good suggestion to solve the problem.  The only thing I can think of is to look at the changes being made in a refit, and if the new systems are a subset of the systems on the ship that the SY can build (note the subtle difference here between "is tooled for" and "can build") then it can do the work.  So for example, any SY that could build an existing class with 3-33 sensors could perform an upgrade where that is the only change to the class.  The determination of what classes can be built by a SY would stay the same.

The thing I like about this idea (if it can be worked) is that breaks some of the coupling between armor type, engines, weapons/sensor suites, and payload type (e.g. cargo hold vs. cryogenics vs. troop transport bay) in the refit process.  IRL, it mimics the recommissioning of the New Jersey class BB's in the 80's - the SY in question just needed to be tooled for the weapons/sensor systems (e.g. fitting Phalanx, Harpoon, Tomahawk, etc.) rather than being tooled to build a BB.

I like this idea in principle - my concerns are around the implementation and the intuitiveness for players in terms of what refits will work in which shipyard. I can see a way to write the code to figure out what systems the shipyard could refit, although it could be open to abuse. In the examples above you are comparing relatively similar ships but if a shipyard can build an engine for a small warship, could it therefore swap the engines on a dreadnought? Is swapping the missile launchers on a destroyer the same as on a much larger warship. I guess this would be restricted by the size of the shipyard. However, in real life two ships could be radically different but share similar systems and upgrading those systems might require completely different approaches. In the New Jersey example above, any shipyard that could add a particular system to an Arleigh Burke might not be able to easily add that same system to the BB without additional setup work or training for that shipyard. In game terms, there would still have to some limits on the flexibility of upgrading within a certain shipyard and defining/coding those limitations could be tricky.

The other issue is that the shipyard code is setup to handle refits to a class that can be built in the shipyard. The above would require refits for ships that can't be built in the same shipyard and that would require significant changes to the shipyard code. In any event, it's probably best for me to tackle this after v4.1 as I am in the final test phase at the moment and don't want to make any significant changes. We could look at the whole refit system once v4.1 is out and working.

BTW, are you assuming this would work be alongside the existing refit system or replace it?

Steve

[Beersatron]

Steve, I recall mention of your planning to implement two types of Shipyard in 4.1 or a later version. One would be for Military vessels and the other would be for 'Civilian' vessels, i.e. those without combat systems. Would it be possible to add another type of Yard purely for repairing and refitting? I imagine that such a Yard in real life would not need the full support systems as a construction yard and therefore would cost less and have a slightly faster completion time.

You could then base the available refits on the size of a yard and not on what the yard is currently tooled for.

As I type that I think that if you do it that way you would then maybe make the refit period slightly longer to account for the fact that there is no retooling of the yard.

Unfortunately I do not know where to begin to look on wiki or google for supporting information in real life terms, but just wanted to pass the idea out.

[Steve Walmsley]

Steve, I recall mention of your planning to implement two types of Shipyard in 4.1 or a later version. One would be for Military vessels and the other would be for 'Civilian' vessels, i.e. those without combat systems. Would it be possible to add another type of Yard purely for repairing and refitting? I imagine that such a Yard in real life would not need the full support systems as a construction yard and therefore would cost less and have a slightly faster completion time.

You could then base the available refits on the size of a yard and not on what the yard is currently tooled for.

As I type that I think that if you do it that way you would then maybe make the refit period slightly longer to account for the fact that there is no retooling of the yard.

Unfortunately I do not know where to begin to look on wiki or google for supporting information in real life terms, but just wanted to pass the idea out.

In v4.1 there are Naval Shipyards, which are the same as current shipyards, and Commercial Shipyards, which are cheaper and much larger but can only be used to bulid Commercial designs. A third type of yard in the future could be possible but I want to retain as much internal consistency within the game as possible. If I added a yard for refitting that wasn't restricted by retooling, the obvious question would be why couldn't the construction yards have the same capability. I like the existing paradigm with regard to retooling as I think it adds a more real-world feel to planning future construction.

Steve

[sloanjh (OP)]

I like this idea in principle - my concerns are around the implementation and the intuitiveness for players in terms of what refits will work in which shipyard. I can see a way to write the code to figure out what systems the shipyard could refit, although it could be open to abuse. In the examples above you are comparing relatively similar ships but if a shipyard can build an engine for a small warship, could it therefore swap the engines on a dreadnought? Is swapping the missile launchers on a destroyer the same as on a much larger warship. I guess this would be restricted by the size of the shipyard. However, in real life two ships could be radically different but share similar systems and upgrading those systems might require completely different approaches. In the New Jersey example above, any shipyard that could add a particular system to an Arleigh Burke might not be able to easily add that same system to the BB without additional setup work or training for that shipyard. In game terms, there would still have to some limits on the flexibility of upgrading within a certain shipyard and defining/coding those limitations could be tricky.  

I agree on the potential for exploits/weirdness.  The example that came to mind was the VLS cells in a Burke DD - to fit them to a BB you'd probably have to use strange techniques to cut big holes in the deck.  After thinking about this though, I think that the same problem is probably already present with the current refit system - if one already had a class that looked like a Burke but had rail launchers rather than VLS (call it the Able class), then the current mechanism would allow you to cut holes in the deck of an Able to upgrade to a Burke.  The difference is that you would now be able to also cut those holes in the deck of an old Kidd-class to do the upgrade (all assuming that VLS is cheap enough to not trigger a retooling, of course).  The point I'm groping for here is that such major work would probably cost more than the retool limit, and if it doesn't it's already allowed using the current system.  The sorts of changes that are allowed in a retooling feel more like e.g. adding Harpoon box launchers.

Maybe a simple way to account for the "additional setup work or training" that you mention would be to add a e.g. 50% surcharge to the cost or the refit if the target class can't be built by the SY.  So if the Able-->Burke upgrade above cost 100 build points, upgrading a Coontz-->Coontz VLS or a New Jersey --> New Jersey VLS might cost 150 BP, since the SY is tooled to build Burkes but not Coontz VLS or New Jersey VLS.

BTW, this brings up a different suggestion that I've wanted for a while.  It would be nice to be able to query "if I retool a SY to produce this class, could it also produce this other class" without actually doing the retool :-)
 

BTW, are you assuming this would work be alongside the existing refit system or replace it?

I think that, given the way I phrased it, any refit that can presently be done by a SY would be doable with the new system.  So in terms of game play I guess this would be "alongside" (i.e. it's allowing additional refits) but from coding it would probably end up replacing the current system.  If you jiggle with the definition, though, all bets are off - I'm neutral on the subject.

Note that this mechanism is definitely "alongside" the "what can the SY build" question.  The "build" question involves two class types (the tooled class and the built class).  The proposed "refit" question involves three class types - the tooled class, the "from" class (e.g. New Jersey 1950) and the "to" class (e.g. New Jersey 1980).

John

PS - Welcome Back!!

[waresky]

STEVE,only for gameplay purpouse..4.1 r near to come?

[Steve Walmsley]

STEVE,only for gameplay purpouse..4.1 r near to come?

It is fairly near. I have been mainly testing since I got back from Las Vegas, although I am playing cards a lot at the moment as I have been lazy the last few months and need to actually earn some money

I still have a few things to test and fix but I expect it will be out in the next 2-3 weeks.

Steve

[Beersatron]

STEVE,only for gameplay purpouse..4.1 r near to come?

It is fairly near. I have been mainly testing since I got back from Las Vegas, although I am playing cards a lot at the moment as I have been lazy the last few months and need to actually earn some money

I still have a few things to test and fix but I expect it will be out in the next 2-3 weeks.

Steve

Steve, on the same track as money, do you have an Amazon wish list? If I am thinking of the correct thing, you can display it to the public and if somebody is feeling generous or appreciative of your work then they can donate the item to you. There is a really good Coldfusion Guru (its a web language) who blogs and helps the community a lot and I am pretty sure that he has this setup.

Might be an option for you until you decide/start the novels you were thinking of writing (it was novels, right?)