Upgrading Ground Units

[Borealis4x (OP)]

I know it isn't a feature in the game yet, but how do you think re-training ground units to use new templates should work? I'm assuming at some point you'll be able to take an existing unit and morph it into something else using ground force construction complexes, with time and costs based on how radically you are changing the unit. This is rather straight forward and makes a lot of sense. However, merely upgrading units to use new technology seems like it'll be a bit harder...

If you want to, say, just upgrade your existing units to use the most up-to-date armor and weapons tech you'd have to create and research new versions of every element and then create a whole new template and then retrain everyone. This would get old very quickly with even a small army, let alone a galaxy-spanning one.

Instead, I propose there should just be an option to upgrade a ground unit to use the latest tech using your ground force complexes that consumes time and resources. I know it probably more realistic to have to design a research a new tank even if its using the same armor class and same class of weapons, but ultimately I think its better to just streamline the process for getting a linear upgrade when it comes to ground units. There are simply too many steps involved to expect the player to do things manually.

[Droll]

I think every designed unit should have an "update to latest tech" feature that keeps all capabilities and components but simply makes the unit use the current racial statistics as opposed to what they were in the initial design. This should do two things, the old version should remember which design is an upgrade should auto-obsolete itself (there is literally no reason to build the older version since costs would have remained the same).

The fact that the upgraded version remembers its predecessor design would allow us to have a button on the OOB which, when a formation is selected it checks element-wise which designs have upgrades and creates some sort of GU build task that creates an upgrade. You could either force the entire formation to enter a "retrofit" or do some other funky stuff with the element itself.
You could also extend this so that you can do upgrades on an entire hierarchy, much like how the hierarchy medal award buttons are supposed to work.

IMO as far as cost is concerned, the costs should be equal to or only very slightly less than making a new unit however the training time of a "retrofit" task should be significantly reduced. My rationale is that new vehicle armor plates/gun or new improved infantry weapons aren't going to be cheaper because they are replacing some older version but there's the fact that you aren't training new crew to use the new gear unlike when you training things from scratch. You might however consider changing cost savings to retrofitting different base types though. Maybe retrofitting a vehicle is cheaper than a new one because you reuse the chassis whereas an infantryman is probably getting a whole new armor suit or a new gun regardless.

[Lord Solar]

I think every designed unit should have an "update to latest tech" feature that keeps all capabilities and components but simply makes the unit use the current racial statistics as opposed to what they were in the initial design.  This should do two things, the old version should remember which design is an upgrade should auto-obsolete itself (there is literally no reason to build the older version since costs would have remained the same).

The fact that the upgraded version remembers its predecessor design would allow us to have a button on the OOB which, when a formation is selected it checks element-wise which designs have upgrades and creates some sort of GU build task that creates an upgrade.  You could either force the entire formation to enter a "retrofit" or do some other funky stuff with the element itself.
You could also extend this so that you can do upgrades on an entire hierarchy, much like how the hierarchy medal award buttons are supposed to work.

IMO as far as cost is concerned, the costs should be equal to or only very slightly less than making a new unit however the training time of a "retrofit" task should be significantly reduced.  My rationale is that new vehicle armor plates/gun or new improved infantry weapons aren't going to be cheaper because they are replacing some older version but there's the fact that you aren't training new crew to use the new gear unlike when you training things from scratch.  You might however consider changing cost savings to retrofitting different base types though.  Maybe retrofitting a vehicle is cheaper than a new one because you reuse the chassis whereas an infantryman is probably getting a whole new armor suit or a new gun regardless.

This, and some feature to replenish a unit to a certain template that replaces lost units at full cost.

[Vastrat]

I think every designed unit should have an "update to latest tech" feature that keeps all capabilities and components but simply makes the unit use the current racial statistics as opposed to what they were in the initial design.  This should do two things, the old version should remember which design is an upgrade should auto-obsolete itself (there is literally no reason to build the older version since costs would have remained the same).

The fact that the upgraded version remembers its predecessor design would allow us to have a button on the OOB which, when a formation is selected it checks element-wise which designs have upgrades and creates some sort of GU build task that creates an upgrade.  You could either force the entire formation to enter a "retrofit" or do some other funky stuff with the element itself.
You could also extend this so that you can do upgrades on an entire hierarchy, much like how the hierarchy medal award buttons are supposed to work.

IMO as far as cost is concerned, the costs should be equal to or only very slightly less than making a new unit however the training time of a "retrofit" task should be significantly reduced.  My rationale is that new vehicle armor plates/gun or new improved infantry weapons aren't going to be cheaper because they are replacing some older version but there's the fact that you aren't training new crew to use the new gear unlike when you training things from scratch.  You might however consider changing cost savings to retrofitting different base types though.  Maybe retrofitting a vehicle is cheaper than a new one because you reuse the chassis whereas an infantryman is probably getting a whole new armor suit or a new gun regardless.

This, and some feature to replenish a unit to a certain template that replaces lost units at full cost.

Agreed this would be a great benefit for those of us who get frustrated with some of the micro.