Civilian freighters with conventional engines -> upgrade?

[Black Rabbit (OP)]

Hi all,

Short version question: Do civilian transport lines upgrade their ships, or retire them when their engine technology is obsoleted?  If not, is it possible to force the issue using SM?


Long version question: So, I'm getting into my first real deep conventional start game, and I went ahead and started out with some conventional freighters -- the kind that speed along at a blazing speed of 60.

All has been good, they helped with expansion onto a second planet, and I've broken into nuclear thermal engines.  So, now I noticed a bit of a problem.  I ordered some infrastructure delivered to a new planned colony at the second star in my binary system, and the travel time for these old conventional freighters is 1100 days.  Sort of impractical.

So, er, the questions above.  Do civilian lines upgrade/refit their freighters?  If not, is there a way to force the issue using SM?  As much as I like them locking down structures for years on end as they go at conventional speeds, I'm thinking I'd like to avoid that.

Thanks in advance, all.
Chris

[Jacob/Lee]

Well, all existing ships suddenly lose old parts/gain new ones when you modify the class so I ASSUME civilians do the same.

As a test, rip all the engines out of the freighter class then wait a short amount of time. If the ships stop dead in their tracks you have the answer.

[Black Rabbit (OP)]

Actually, I sorta of tested that already (I think?).  It's a class I hadn't personally built yet, so the class hadn't been locked yet (I hope I'm using this term properly -- still learning).

So, I took the existing class and swapped out all the conventional engines for NT ones.  It's been months of game time since then, and they're all still creeping along at conventional rates, whereas the class's defined max speed is now 1415.

[Beersatron]

It isn't normally a good idea to change a class after something (yours or civilian) has been built from it as it can make Bad Things happen.

With that caveat out of the way, try going into SM mode. I think you can then go to the ship list screen and the Civies should be viewable. Simply select the top civie ship and then use the arrow keys to move down the list. Doing this will update each individual ship to the most recent version of the design. You can do this for your own ships and PDCs also.

After you do that, go to the task force screen and for each ship/TF check and make sure that their speed is set to MAX.

That should do it.

Another alternative to the above is buying the civie ships from the civie tab in the F2 screen. I have never actually done it but I have noticed the button, back up your Database before doing it though.

[Beersatron]

Ignore the above, it seems that you can not do it in SM Mode, I must have seen it when using Designer Mode.

Sorry!

[Black Rabbit (OP)]

Aw, I want that password too!  

Hmm.  Outside of designer mode, is there any way to get rid of those ships without borking the db?

(Ew, I was wrong.  Their speed is 40, not 60.  Blech.)

EDIT: Ohhh, I think I get it.  Reading your reply above, it seems that it's quite possible that the civvy freighters *did* update with the design when I changed it, but that their fleets are stuck at the max speed of 40 set when that was the cool thing to do.  So I guess I did *not* really test it fully.

(Thanks for the answer, though -- good to know that there is at least some way to force the issue if those civvy freighters become a serious nuisance.)

EDIT 2: Tested it -- I tried the pulling-out-all-their-engines-and-fuel-tanks trick.  They don't update when I change the design.  In fact, my confusion as to the 40 speed versus 60 is because a while back (few years of game time) I updated the freighter design with more engines to make it faster. The civilian-owned versions of that freighter that existed before the update continue to go only 40, while the ones that were built since go 60.

I imagine that, when a civilian line launches a ship, Aurora creates a locked copy of the design as it is at the time, tied to those ships, but nonetheless retains their link to the design in the player race's design inventory so as to show them on the Ships in Class tab, even if it's been since changed?

Hmm...  when I develop warships I think I know what my first testing targets will be...

[sloanjh]

I imagine that, when a civilian line launches a ship, Aurora creates a locked copy of the design as it is at the time, tied to those ships, but nonetheless retains their link to the design in the player race's design inventory so as to show them on the Ships in Class tab, even if it's been since changed?

My recollection is that there are some fields in the ship records in the DB that repeat information found in the design.  I am sure that it does not create a new copy of the class record.  As Beer said, (apparently) these fields in the ship record get updated when a ship is displayed.  This may or may not put the ship back into a good state - I've never looked into it both others have said that this is the case.  This has nothing to do with Civie vs. Player - if you go to the "Ships of this class" tab of the Class (F5) screen, you should see the civie ships show up (maybe that's the spot he was thinking of).

This all comes back to the original "this is A Bad Thing to be messing around with intentionally" statement.  In particular, please be very cautious about submitting bugs to Steve if you mess around with ships in this way.  A major reason that Steve is wary about giving out the passwords is that he is concerned about getting sent on wild goose chases for bugs that are actually due to someone corrupting the DB.  So I doubt he'd be pleased to work through a bug that turns out to be due to someone playing around with the classes after ships have already been built....

John

[Black Rabbit (OP)]

In the Ships in Class tab, yes, I can see them listed, but attempting to double-click on them only displays the first of my own ships, so I can't get them to display in the F6 ship display (if that's what you meant).

I understand what you mean about the bug reports.

[Panopticon]

Your best bet (not that that is saying much) might be just to obsolete the class your civilians are using and hope they buy new ships, you can use SM to remove their old ones entirely if I recall correctly.

[Black Rabbit (OP)]

Ah, alright.  Though I can't figure out for the life of me how to get rid of them using SM.  Anyone know how to go about that?

[Brian Neumann]

Ah, alright.  Though I can't figure out for the life of me how to get rid of them using SM.  Anyone know how to go about that?

Have a ship with a tractor beam tractor them.  When you do this you will then transfer the ownership to you.  Once you do this you should be able to scrapp the ship  normally.  I have not tried this myself, but I have seen it reported on the site recently.

Brian

[Black Rabbit (OP)]

Ooh, nice! 

Alright, I'll try that!

Thanks guys.

[jseah]

I have tried the tractor beam trick myself.  A few times in fact. 

I haven't used it to get rid of old civ. ships yet however. 
First time was to test how tractor beams worked.  I didn't have another ship to test it on so I tractored a civilian.  Found that the civilian ship was mine now.  Deleted that. 

Second time was to test what happens when I scrap civilian ships.  Turns out, you get the minerals as per normal.  =)  I have yet to try a "no mining" game, but that sounds like it would be suicidal.  Perhaps I will play a Sol-only game to see how feasible it is once 5.5 stabilizes.