Question About classes

[DizzyFoxkit (OP)]

There is a button on the class design screen that says add new hull.   Does this create a type of ship under the class name? As in you can have a Tribal Class geosurveyship and a Tribal Class gravsurvey ship within the same design? If it doesn't do this, is there a way to create more than one ship under 1 class with a different loadout? For example to create one basic class for armor, engines, shields, or basic defenses.  Then just create 'subclasses' that fit that basic loadout with weapons and more advanced equipment to  allow quick diversifying of roles from a single class?

[dgibso29]

Click "Copy Class." Rename the hull with a designator. Ex:

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Prinz Eugen class Heavy Cruiser    16,000 tons     1693 Crew     2706.2 BP      TCS 320  TH 1600  EM 0
5000 km/s     Armour 5-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 17     PPV 80
Maint Life 8.75 Years     MSP 2850    AFR 117%    IFR 1.6%    1YR 67    5YR 1000    Max Repair 180 MSP
Magazine 930    

Meyer Werft MMPDE10 (20)    Power 80    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 565,000 Litres    Range 63.6 billion km   (147 days at full power)

Standard Missile Launcher Mk. 2 (20)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 40
MFC172-R100 (4)     Range 172.8m km    Resolution 100
Kingfisher ASM Mk. 2 (232)  Speed: 18,000 km/s   End: 60.2m    Range: 65m km   WH: 6    Size: 4    TH: 108 / 64 / 32

A3S MR144-R100 (1)     GPS 18000     Range 144.0m km    Resolution 100

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Prinz Eugen-C class Carrier    16,000 tons     951 Crew     2341.2 BP      TCS 320  TH 1600  EM 0
5000 km/s     Armour 5-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 17     PPV 0
Maint Life 11.29 Years     MSP 2600    AFR 117%    IFR 1.6%    1YR 37    5YR 562    Max Repair 180 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 4000 tons     Magazine 680    

Meyer Werft MMPDE10 (20)    Power 80    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 515,000 Litres    Range 57.9 billion km   (134 days at full power)

CIWS-120 (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Kingfisher ASM Mk. 2 (232)  Speed: 18,000 km/s   End: 60.2m    Range: 65m km   WH: 6    Size: 4    TH: 108 / 64 / 32

A3S MR144-R100 (1)     GPS 18000     Range 144.0m km    Resolution 100

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Prinz Eugen-A class Area Defence Cruiser    16,000 tons     1305 Crew     3493.2 BP      TCS 320  TH 1600  EM 0
5000 km/s     Armour 5-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 40/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 16     PPV 20
Maint Life 3.14 Years     MSP 2251    AFR 124%    IFR 1.7%    1YR 342    5YR 5137    Max Repair 720 MSP
Magazine 1380    

Meyer Werft MMPDE10 (20)    Power 80    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 515,000 Litres    Range 57.9 billion km   (134 days at full power)

Anti-Missile Launcher Mk. 2 (20)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
AMFC33-R1 (4)     Range 33.6m km    Resolution 1
Needle AMM Mk. 2 (1380)  Speed: 46,400 km/s   End: 1.4m    Range: 4m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 340 / 204 / 102

AM2S MR57-R1 (1)     GPS 720     Range 57.6m km    Resolution 1
A3S MR144-R100 (1)     GPS 18000     Range 144.0m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH5-40 (1)     Sensitivity 40     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  40m km
That approach will save you a great deal on refits, especially if you keep the exact same sensor suite.

Edit: So in answer to your previous question, no, there is no way to create "subclasses" as you envision them.

[DizzyFoxkit (OP)]

Thanks for your answer, so the only way to get close (I'm trying to get it done for my OCD when it comes to organization in strategy.  ) is to make a copy of the class and make what changes you want?

[dgibso29]

Right, and when you want to change from an attack role to an anti-missile role, you would refit your Prinz Eugen to a Prinz Eugen-A. Theoretically, you can build all of these classes from the same shipyard. But I did not check, and I am not familiar with exactly what governs that.

[DizzyFoxkit (OP)]

Thanks for your input, the game seems really interesting so far and I actually like how you can come up with your own designs instead of following a pre-made template.  Though missile/beam weaponry still escapes me.  I'm sure I'll get it eventually.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

"New Hull" just lets you add a new designation for a shiptype. This has no ingame effect other than the labeling.  You could create an asteroid miner called the "Infinite Tyranny class Genocide Platform" if you want.

If the refit cost for a ship is under 20% of the total shipcost you can build/refit it out of the same yard.   In practice, only pretty similar ships will be able to refitted. There is also an extra overhead if there is a tonnage change.   Note that refits don't always go under 20% both ways - you may be able to build Ship A and Ship B out of a yard tooled for Ship A, but only Ship B out of a yard tooled for Ship B.

Ideally ships that you want to be interchangeable have similar roles and have identical non-mission components - the same amount of armor, engines, fuel, crew, and engineering spaces.  The easiest ships to make interchangeable are AMM and ASM missile ships as a lot of their cost is in magazines rather than the launchers themselves.  Regardless, keeping ships on similar chassis helps keep down retooling times and costs, as that is also dependent on refit cost.  So even if you can't build out of the same yard there are some advantages.

There are some other tricks to building interchangeable ships. Mainly you want to keep the 'mission payload' to as small a portion of the ship as practical.  Fast well defended ships are good candidates - it puts a lot of tonnage/cost into engines/armor/shields. If at all possible, you want to standardize your electronics as well. But that is tough. 

You can view the refit costs in the components/DAC tab of the ship designer.

Personally, I fiddled with retoolable designs for a while but found I liked multirole ships better.

[Steve Walmsley]

Whether you can build two or more classes from the same yard is based on refit cost. If you can refit from the tooled class to the other class for less than 20% of the cost of the tooled class, you can also build the other class.

On the DAC / Rank / Info tab of the Class window there is a section called Eligible Additional Classes. This provides a list of any other classes you will able to build if the selected class is the tooled class for a shipyard.

Steve