I'm with the second half of Kurt - i.e. the shouting and screaming part :-) but you don't have to keep track of every freighter in the game. Especially now that the fleet training requirements mean that warships will be deployed a lot more often (aha!! is part of the reason for this proposal that you're looking for a reason to build MF?)
Sort of the other way around. The new training requirements are going to mean warships spend more time in overhaul so I was looking for a way to reduce that burden on players a little. As I mentioned in my last reply to Kurt I am personally happy with the overhaul tasks because I enjoy the logistics side of the game but I was concerned many players saw them as too much micromanagement. In reality ships probably spend a third of their time training, a third in dock and a third on station. I am trying to create this type of situation but reduce the dock time a little (to 25%) for gameplay purposes. I am still happy to go back to the original system if that is the general view among players.
How about this for a compromise: MF performs refits (rather than SY) - each MF has a simultaneous refit capacity that's e.g. 5x it's max tonnage. This could be broken up among more than 5 ships (if they were small), but no ship larger that the max tonnage could be refit. A SY could also be retooled to perform refits with no tonnage limit. Randy's suggestion that the cost depend on SY costs (rather than ship) makes this easier, but I would have the build points come from the shipyard rather than from construction factories (part of the initial SY cost is retooling ability, if you want technobabble).
I think I prefer to keep refits in shipyards, as they involve the building of new ship systems rather than maintaining existing systems. If I introduce the new retooling system for shipyards, refits would be done in yards set up to build the refitted class.
I'm not sure about the relative cost of MF and SY right now - one thing you might want to do is make MF refit capacity cheap relative to SY.
MF are very cheap at the moment because an SY can only work on one ship at once where MF can service many at the same time.
Another possibility might be to modify your idea to so that the clock only rewinds when a ship is in a "refit" readiness state, which it takes significant time to get out of if an emergency deployment is necessary - "minor refit" might take 1-2 weeks, while "major refit" might take 4-8 and unwind the clock more quickly. This would preserve the essense of the unavailability management issue, while allowing you to decouple MF and SY
I really like this idea. It would move maintenance from SY to MF, keep the idea that ships are unavailable when in overhaul or maintenance but also add the realistic option that you can drag a ship out of maintenance in an emergency; it just takes a while. It's probably a little less micromanagement than the original system too because it could be made an order rather than a shipyard task. This could be also expanded into a larger readiness states paradigm at some point.
Thinking out loud for a moment....
The minor overhaul above (I am assuming you mean overhaul rather than refit), could be the replenishment of spares only without any rewinding of the clock and it would take a week to clear the decks and leave port. Its similar to the existing minor overhaul but you wouldn't have to wait until spares were very low to make it worthwhile. An example would be HMS Conqueror when the Falklands War kicked off.
Quote from "Sink the Belgrano"
"Conquerer was scheduled for a 5 week Assisted Maintenance Period, where the boat's engineers would work with the shore-based engineering staff on a far-reaching programme of repairs and inspections." Her crew was on mostly on leave. The chief engineer was the senior officer on board and suddenly got a phone call telling him to 'Store for War'. It took several days to get the necessary supplies on board, round up the crew, etc, although it was done far more quickly than would have been possible in peacetime.
The major overhaul state would also include rewinding the clock and it would take four weeks to get out of this state. This would be more of a situation where sub-systems might be in pieces on the deck and had to be reassembled. However, not as bad as a refit where the ship itself might be in pieces.
As I mentioned above, another good point with this idea is that ships could be either flagged as being in an overhaul state, using the Ship window, or they could be given an order using the Fleet window as part of normal operations. They could also be given an order to break off maintenance and a delay would show on the screen (like loading cargo)
Example:
Move to St Ekatarina jump point
Refuel at St Ekatarina
Major Overhaul at St Ekatarina.
A minor overhaul would become an option whenever you might be spending more than a few days in port, especially if you are likely to get more than seven days warning of intruders. A major overhaul is a bigger decision because if anyone shows up nearby, you are probably stuffed, which is realistic
John and Kurt (or anyone else who wants to comment), would you prefer something along these lines or the original system? If we go back to the original system, I would simply allow yards to be retooled to perform overhauls
Steve
