Considering Change to Maintenance Facilities

[iceball3]

I think we're forgetting that there is a difference between maintenance and overhaul. Shipyards perform overhaul and are limited by maximum berth size and number of slipways.
Major maintenance jobs are done in the shipyard, think engine replacement, sensor package removal and repair, major structural repair, etc.
Maintenance however is merely keeping equipment working, repairs, spare part replacement jobs, structural work being done piecemeal with cutting torches and welders etc. Not nessicarily limited by the absolute size of the ship but rather by materials and the amount of staff available to do the job. Maintenance doesn't make a ship brand new but rather slows the rate at which it falls apart.
So I think it makes sense that maintenance facilities are able to maintain a certain total capacity of ships, rather than a potentially infinate number of a certain size. Anything over the maintenance facility's size limit just stretches the resources and makes the work not as good.

Assuming most of this is talking about aurora: I think you're referring to old rules. More recent rules delegates all "Overhauling" operations to maintenance facilities. Shipyards only repair, refit, build, and scrap, currently.

That doesn't make sense to me, if that is the case then why wouldn't I just build multiple smaller facilities on the same planet if big ones are super costly?

Because there are no "multiple smaller facilities."  It is a single "harbor facility" and there is only one of them per planet it is just more expensive the more extensive it has to be.  This reflects real life where a basic harbor capability was fast and easy to set up but as the harbor facility grows each new bit costs far more.  Look at WW2 and the harbors the USN set up.

Paul, I believe you misread Quake's statement. Quake is suggesting that, logically, if bigger facilities cost more, then wouldn't it make sense to allow us to build multiple smaller facilities, mechanically, to use less cost while allowing more capacity for smaller vessels? The idea therein that it doesn't make sense to make it so you're only allowed to have one facility per planet, if it's inherently beneficial to build multiple small ones, given those rules.

[MarcAFK]

That's what I get for reading through Steve's posts in chronological order, I'm remembering stuff that's really old XD

[Paul M]

Working on a ship in orbit is not "maintaining it" it is in orbit and on its own clock.  If the ship is not putting on clock time it has to be tied up/docked.  Anything else is illogical.  I can set a ship to sitting out 1 km from the beach in the ocean near pearl harbor and send out small boats to give it supplies but that is no where near the same thing as when I bring the ship in and put it on a pier.  Then I can really work on it...and it is fully supplied from the base.

I know what he said, about multiple small yards but this is also illogical.  Each planet is one harbor and you have one harbor facility.  So you can't build multiple small ones.  This is just trying to game the system.  It is bloody obviously that and nothing more.

Saying you can do the work in orbit is illogical.  You can't turn off its reactor when it is in orbit.  You can't put the ships life support on to the station services while you pump out and refil its fresh water tanks.  You can't billet the crew in station side facilities, you can't fumagate the ship.  The ship in orbit can only easily recieve supplies from the planet nothing more.  What difference does the maintanence facility possibly make when the ship is not attached to it?  By the aguement that it is all done by shuttle the ship should be maintainable anywhere in the star system the maintenance facility is located in.  Since I can send things over in shuttles anywhere in the star system.  There is no need what so ever to be in orbit around the planet except for shore leave of the crew if you want to use the shuttle stuff up argument.

Why do people have a problem that the ship has to be docked anyway?   It will not affect the game any, except that now ships orbiting half way to mars aren't maintained by the planet.

Look at any military harbor and you see piers, and a huge base.  Why do they need those things when you can just park the ship off the coast and send out techs by helicopter and dingy?  Maintenance facilities in aurora are just the same sort of thing.

[Sheb]

It's just that in space, you don't need a pier to bring equipment and the like over. You have no need to anchor it. You can park it in orbit and it won't move.

As such, all the supplies, workshop etc don't require a fixed shipyard. If you have more workshop, you can maintain more tonnage of ships, and that's it.

[MarcAFK]

Perhaps a compromise is needed, leave maintenance facilities at their current 200 tons maximum size per facility but then also add a maximum total tonnage multiplier. Perhaps starting at total capacity of 5 times maximum size.
Tech lines could increase both maximum tonnage limit and maximum total capacity. It may get confusing but it seems like a pretty simple compromise.
With this system you couldn't game the system by making swarms of 1,000 ton FACs and get away with only having 5 maintenance facilities, with starting tech you can support 5 1,000 ton ships, or if you had 50 facilities there would be a 10,000 ton limit and 50,000 tons capacity, allowing 5 10,000 ton ships, or a veritable swarm of 50 FACs.
Similar to my last proposal I suggest reducing maintenance when facilities are overloaded past total capacity, but in addition the maximum tonnage limit is to be respected.
What do you think?

[IanD]

If you go this way with Steve's proposal you need a mechanism to mothball ships. In the '60s and 70s when the RN had more ships than it could afford or man they would be moored in Fareham Creek and Chatham Dockyard with external machinery plastic wrapped and the ship dehumidified and sealed. (to be fair there were two grades of mothballing, one where the ship was likely to see renewed service and one where it was really a source of spares for sister ships.) It should cost ~10% maintenance supplies to mothball a ship and ~25% and x days/weeks to de-mothball a ship.
If this is not done you will just build space stations with the required hanger space to dock all your warships and incur no maintenance cost. Thus you only require sufficient maintenance facilities to maintain your space stations (which may or may not be less than required for your navy, I haven't worked it out). 

If any of you have read books such as those written by Neil McCart on the service history of past RN vessels you realise that there were two types of maintenance: dockyard assisted maintenance and self maintenance even in port when the ships company (possibly using dockyard stores) carried out the required maintenance. This could obviously be done in remote anchorages. Remember that HMS Invincible changed an engine in the South Atlantic during the Falklands campaign while still underway.
This is the difference between maintenance and refit. the latter requiring full dockyard facilities, while the former does not.

Saying you can do the work in orbit is illogical.  You can't turn off its reactor when it is in orbit.  You can't put the ships life support on to the station services while you pump out and refill its fresh water tanks. You can't billet the crew in station side facilities,

Sorry Paul this is incorrect. When the Singapore base was operational, often when ships were in for maintenance the crew were billeted in HMS Terror, a shore establishment. If in Portsmouth then the crew would often be billeted in accommodation ships (decrepit warships) or shore facilities (HM Naval Barracks). Simply because if you are performing changes to a ship during a major overhaul (or even some minor ones) the living conditions ashore were much better than on-board, there may be no electric power aboard if generators are being repaired/replaced and there may be nowhere to accommodate crew on-board if accommodation is being upgraded short of a full refit.

A little off topic when a ship is scrapped could ALL components be recycled. In addition when a ship is refitted could the removed components be added to the planetary stockpile? The reason is simple. I refit my first line ships to the most modern spec. I can then use the removed components from these ships to refit my second (or third) line ships to extend their useful life.

Ian

[bean]

Working on a ship in orbit is not "maintaining it" it is in orbit and on its own clock.  If the ship is not putting on clock time it has to be tied up/docked.  Anything else is illogical.  I can set a ship to sitting out 1 km from the beach in the ocean near pearl harbor and send out small boats to give it supplies but that is no where near the same thing as when I bring the ship in and put it on a pier.  Then I can really work on it...and it is fully supplied from the base.

Yes and no.  If it's anchored in the ocean proper, then it's clearly not 'in port'.  But it's possible to be in port and not be tied up.  Being in port means that you're in a protected anchorage, which wouldn't be the case in your example.  A ship anchored out in the roadstead is in a significantly different position from one at sea, although not quite the same as one that's alongside.  They'll still have a significant watch, and power will likely be provided by onboard auxiliaries.  But they're not actually steaming.
Of course, Aurora is in space, so this is all kind of moot. 

I know what he said, about multiple small yards but this is also illogical.  Each planet is one harbor and you have one harbor facility.  So you can't build multiple small ones.  This is just trying to game the system.  It is bloody obviously that and nothing more.

Why?  Planets are really big (citation: look around you).  If it's more expensive to go from supporting 100,000 tons to supporting 150,000 tons than it is to build a 50,000 ton yard from scratch, I can't see any logical reason this wouldn't work.  The planet isn't so small it can't fit more than one.  (And if you're assuming these are space stations, orbits aren't so small we couldn't fit more than one, either.)  I'm in favor of making it more expensive to support larger ships, but there are ways to do that which don't involve making it more expensive to support large aggregate tonnages.

Saying you can do the work in orbit is illogical.  You can't turn off its reactor when it is in orbit.  You can't put the ships life support on to the station services while you pump out and refil its fresh water tanks.  You can't billet the crew in station side facilities, you can't fumagate the ship.  The ship in orbit can only easily recieve supplies from the planet nothing more.

I'm going to assume that you're using 'in orbit' to mean 'in orbit and not docked to a space station', because if you don't, this makes literally no sense at all.  That said, all of those are actually pretty easy.  Movement on an orbital scale is basically free, as is surface-to-orbit work.  Instead of bringing the ship to a space station, bring the space station to the ship.  There's no weather to worry about (unlike on Earth), so a lot of what drives modern shore facilities doesn't apply. 

  What difference does the maintanence facility possibly make when the ship is not attached to it?  By the aguement that it is all done by shuttle the ship should be maintainable anywhere in the star system the maintenance facility is located in.  Since I can send things over in shuttles anywhere in the star system.  There is no need what so ever to be in orbit around the planet except for shore leave of the crew if you want to use the shuttle stuff up argument.

This is like saying that you couldn't possibly walk to your mailbox because it's absurd to try to walk to the other side of whatever continent you're on. 

Why do people have a problem that the ship has to be docked anyway?   It will not affect the game any, except that now ships orbiting half way to mars aren't maintained by the planet.

I think you're confusing different meanings of the word 'orbit' here.  And confusing space and sea. 

Look at any military harbor and you see piers, and a huge base.  Why do they need those things when you can just park the ship off the coast and send out techs by helicopter and dingy?  Maintenance facilities in aurora are just the same sort of thing.

They don't have to be.  Suggesting that the naval solution will apply directly to space is almost always wrong.

Perhaps a compromise is needed, leave maintenance facilities at their current 200 tons maximum size per facility but then also add a maximum total tonnage multiplier. Perhaps starting at total capacity of 5 times maximum size.

I'd be OK with that, although I'd suggest that the current maximum size be increased some.

If you go this way with Steve's proposal you need a mechanism to mothball ships. In the '60s and 70s when the RN had more ships than it could afford or man they would be moored in Fareham Creek and Chatham Dockyard with external machinery plastic wrapped and the ship dehumidified and sealed. (to be fair there were two grades of mothballing, one where the ship was likely to see renewed service and one where it was really a source of spares for sister ships.) It should cost ~10% maintenance supplies to mothball a ship and ~25% and x days/weeks to de-mothball a ship.

The problem there is that this tends to lead to giant mothball fleets which then get brought out in wartime.  IRL, you have other issues, like providing crew.  I've suggested a model which takes this into account in the past, with crew flowing out of the pool as well as in.

If this is not done you will just build space stations with the required hanger space to dock all your warships and incur no maintenance cost. Thus you only require sufficient maintenance facilities to maintain your space stations (which may or may not be less than required for your navy, I haven't worked it out). 

Just use PDCs.  They require no maintenance at all.  But the payoff is 5-10 years, typically, getting shorter as your ships get more expensive for a given size.  I did the math on this a few months back.

If any of you have read books such as those written by Neil McCart on the service history of past RN vessels

That sounds really interesting.  Do you have titles?

Remember that HMS Invincible changed an engine in the South Atlantic during the Falklands campaign while still underway.

Really?  I was not aware of this.  I do seem to recall D.K. Brown mentioning that they could change engines quite easily (maybe even at sea) but not that they had done so.  But even so, gas turbines are a lot easier to change than most other engines.  You couldn't do that with steam.

Sorry Paul this is incorrect. When the Singapore base was operational, often when ships were in for maintenance the crew were billeted in HMS Terror, a shore establishment. If in Portsmouth then the crew would often be billeted in accommodation ships (decrepit warships) or shore facilities (HM Naval Barracks). Simply because if you are performing changes to a ship during a major overhaul (or even some minor ones) the living conditions ashore were much better than on-board, there may be no electric power aboard if generators are being repaired/replaced and there may be nowhere to accommodate crew on-board if accommodation is being upgraded short of a full refit.

I think he was comparing 'in orbit' with 'in orbit docked to a space station'.

A little off topic when a ship is scrapped could ALL components be recycled. In addition when a ship is refitted could the removed components be added to the planetary stockpile? The reason is simple. I refit my first line ships to the most modern spec. I can then use the removed components from these ships to refit my second (or third) line ships to extend their useful life.

I usually SM the removed components back into the stockpile during refit.  I'd like to get the minerals back during scrapping, although things like living quarters seem like they'd be built into the ship and not very modular.

[IanD]

Suggesting that the naval solution will apply directly to space is almost always wrong.I'd be OK with that, although I'd suggest that the current maximum size be increased some.

I agree, but its somewhere to start. Its one reason I tend to have only frigates carriers and cruisers in the early to mid game and try and call a ship type by its function.

The problem there is that this tends to lead to giant mothball fleets which then get brought out in wartime.  IRL, you have other issues, like providing crew.  I've suggested a model which takes this into account in the past, with crew flowing out of the pool as well as in.

Yes, you may have a giant fleet but its probably using old tech, think how fast your sensor range changes especially early game. The USN still maintain a fleet reserve and I was surprised how big relatively the RN reserve was in the 1960s. I guess a partial solution would be to increase the cost of reactivating the ship so that after 15 years or so its a lot cheaper to build a new one, but quicker to reactivate an old one. For example HMS Bulwark was being considered for reactivation during the Falklands conflict and work may have actually started, it would have been very expensive, but many years quicker than building a new carrier. (Can you tell the Bulwark book by K.V. Burns and Mike Critchley is one I haven't got!) Limiting the crew is certainly one way of countering this. Rescuing your life pods would suddenly be very good practice! However look at the size of the WW1 and 2 RN which was the upper limit for a population which reached approximately 48 million in 1940-45, when they were decommissioning the old battleships to free up crew for escorts, one reason the Royal Sovereign was lent to the USSR. But it was still an awful lot of ships!

Just use PDCs.  They require no maintenance at all.  But the payoff is 5-10 years, typically, getting shorter as your ships get more expensive for a given size.  I did the math on this a few months back.

Yes I think though it would become much more prevalent.

That sounds really interesting.  Do you have titles?
Really?  I was not aware of this.  I do seem to recall D.K. Brown mentioning that they could change engines quite easily (maybe even at sea) but not that they had done so.  But even so, gas turbines are a lot easier to change than most other engines.  You couldn't do that with steam.

For titles look at https://www.navybooks.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Neil+McCart. There are other authors, I am currently reading the one on the Loch class frigates. If you look on Amazon you will find many more titles but some are very expensive, try ebay you get bargains sometimes. 
No, you couldn't do that with steam. Edit: From Harrier Carriers Vol 1. HMS Invincible by Neil McCart. 80 miles SW Lands End Engine room staff began to change starboard main gear box. Completed 15th April.
18th June Engine room staff began to replace a Gas Turbine main engine (3 tons) at sea. Appears completed by 25th June. Self maintenance period 25th June to ? self maintenance period (still at sea) assisted by repair ship Stena Inspector and Cable ship Iris (this appears to be an assisted self maintenance).  Back on station 1st July.

I usually SM the removed components back into the stockpile during refit.  I'd like to get the minerals back during scrapping, although things like living quarters seem like they'd be built into the ship and not very modular.

Yes, that's what I did in my last game with components such as weapons, sensors, shields and engines etc, but not crew spaces, bridge and engineering etc. It was a hassle though to work out the minerals that should have been returned from the refitted ships when systems were replaced. Currently they just disappear into thin air (and I really needed the uridium and galicite).



Just to throw some more ideas around perhaps the planetary maintenance system could be overhauled completely. Just for example:

A warship with sufficient maintenance supplies could perform self maintenance in orbit of any planet but for only a 6 to 12 month reduction of the maintenance clock.  This would allow extended frontier patrols, but probably require additional maintenance supplies and probably a minimum number of crew.

Fleet Anchorage (orbiting structure? Think Addu  Atoll) reduce maintenance clock increase by 50%, but needs little or no population. Could handle large number of warships, 250,000 tons?

Naval Base (orbiting structure + ground facilities? 2 million tons,  Think Scapa Flow) would stop maintenance clock for 250,000 tons of warships (expandable to Naval Dockyard) have 2-3 slips for the refit/repair (not construction) of warships, could be pre-fabbed as PDCs, but not moved once emplaced. Requires dedicated population of 1 million. Would have to appear in Shipyards tab to refit ships.

Naval Dockyard (orbiting structure + ground facilities? 5 million tons. Large expensive facilities) would stop maintenance clock for 500,000 tons of warships (expandable?) have 5 slips for the refit/repair (not construction) of warships, could be pre-fabbed as PDCs, but not moved once emplaced (think Singapore, Devonport or Portsmouth). Requires dedicated population of 3 million. Would have to appear in Shipyards tab.

You would be able to build multiple facilities at a single planet. You could also have the last two produce maintenance supplies if you want.

To put this in some sort of context the UK had the following Naval bases/Dockyards in WW2: HMNB Devonport, HMNB Portsmouth, HMNB Clyde, (Faslane), HMNB Rosyth, HMNB Chatham, Woolwich Dockyard, Deptford Dockyard, Queenstown, Portland Dockyard, Scapa Flow, Pembroke Dockyard, Sheerness Dockyard, Simon's Town Dockyard, Malta H.M. Dockyard, Trincomalee Dockyard.  This is not an exhaustive list and of course ignores all the many supporting facilities such as air bases and ordnance depots etc as well as Dominion bases.

Ian

[TMaekler]

I like the idea of combining dockyards with maintenance. In the end those facilities are used for both functions - so maybe removing maintenance facilities at all and integrate their function into the dockyards and you decide weather you want to use your capacities for production or maintenance might be a way to go? So a ship is only maintained if it is assigned to a dockyard... .

[bean]

I agree, but its somewhere to start. Its one reason I tend to have only frigates carriers and cruisers in the early to mid game and try and call a ship type by its function.

Oh, I'm not saying that we should launch a purge of all naval models.  But saying 'this is how it works at sea' is insufficient as an explanation.

Yes, you may have a giant fleet but its probably using old tech, think how fast your sensor range changes especially early game.

As a bit of explanation, the giant reserve fleet is a big thing in Starfire.  AIUI (and I haven't played Starfire, but it drives a fair bit of Aurora) it tends to be basically a way of keeping a giant fleet, which gets activated when you go to war, and otherwise doesn't cost very much.  This is rather distinct from what happens IRL.  If we can find a good way to model IRL, then we could probably get him to put it back in. 

I guess a partial solution would be to increase the cost of reactivating the ship so that after 15 years or so its a lot cheaper to build a new one, but quicker to reactivate an old one. For example HMS Bulwark was being considered for reactivation during the Falklands conflict and work may have actually started, it would have been very expensive, but many years quicker than building a new carrier.

I can't see it being more expensive and quicker to do a simple reactivation than a new-build of a similar type.  To a large extent, there's a limit on how quickly you can spend money working on ships, set by the size of your shipyards.  The killer is running costs and doing major refits during the reactivation.  The only case I'm aware of of a ship coming out of long-term storage quickly is the New Jersey being recalled for gunfire duty off Vietnam, which was as austere as possible (a few electronic improvements) and she was recommissioned about 8 months after the decision was made.  It was another 6 months before she was in action.

Limiting the crew is certainly one way of countering this. Rescuing your life pods would suddenly be very good practice! However look at the size of the WW1 and 2 RN which was the upper limit for a population which reached approximately 48 million in 1940-45, when they were decommissioning the old battleships to free up crew for escorts, one reason the Royal Sovereign was lent to the USSR. But it was still an awful lot of ships!

It's not so much manpower as a proportion of population as it is the fact that at the moment, manpower never leaves the pool except by death in action.  Here's my proposal (copied out of another thread.)

First, the crew pool tracks people and points separately.  The academy has a level that it pumps people in at.  For example, it may add 100 people and 20000 points in a given week.  These are added to the pool values.  When a ship is commissioned, it takes the correct number of people and points, based on the pool averages.  Adjusting the academy training level only affects the inflow, not what's already in the pool.  Also, people should leave the pool.  Maybe 5% a year, of average points.  In wartime, you can check a box which temporarily slows the loss rate, but eventually (5 to 10 years later) it comes back to normal, or even goes higher.  After you uncheck it, the war timer counts backwards until it reaches 0, so people don't just toggle it on and off when they get to the point of diminishing returns.
Second, rotate people on ships.  To make it easy, whenever a ship gets shore leave, a certain number of people rotate back into the pool, based on how long it's been out.  Maybe 10% per year.  They're replaced with normal people from the pool.  This is to avoid the "ICBM station with an enormous crew rating" problem.
Third, allow picked crews, and unpicked crews.  These have maybe 150% and 50% of normal points, respectively, taking the appropriate number of people and points from the pool, and getting those values when the crew rotates.  This is to allow you to have a good crew on your fancy new battleship, and give your second-line PDCs the dregs.
Fourth, conscript-crewed ships should not feed into the pool.  Because of the nature of the crews (and to avoid flooding the pool with untrained people), the people who leave the ship at the end of their tour are just lost. 

If you add in pay for crews in the pool, then maintaining a huge pool of crew for your mothballed ships becomes quite difficult, and the ships coming out of the pool in wartime will be well behind the active ships.  That could make a big difference in terms of using it to cheat.

Yes I think though it would become much more prevalent.

It works now, but not many people seem to use it.

For titles look at https://www.navybooks.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Neil+McCart. There are other authors, I am currently reading the one on the Loch class frigates. If you look on Amazon you will find many more titles but some are very expensive, try ebay you get bargains sometimes. 

Oh, I thought you were talking about yard craft.  I may see if the library has any of those.

Yes, that's what I did in my last game with components such as weapons, sensors, shields and engines etc, but not crew spaces, bridge and engineering etc. It was a hassle though to work out the minerals that should have been returned from the refitted ships when systems were replaced. Currently they just disappear into thin air (and I really needed the uridium and galicite).

I agree that mineral return would be very nice.

A warship with sufficient maintenance supplies could perform self maintenance in orbit of any planet but for only a 6 to 12 month reduction of the maintenance clock.  This would allow extended frontier patrols, but probably require additional maintenance supplies and probably a minimum number of crew.

Not sure that this is realistic for high-tech ships.

You would be able to build multiple facilities at a single planet. You could also have the last two produce maintenance supplies if you want.

Interesting theory (the rest of this snipped for length), but I'm not sure it's warranted.  The current system works pretty well, particularly with the addition of Civilian hangars and the changes being discussed here.  That said, a refit/repair shipyard could be quite handy.

I like the idea of combining dockyards with maintenance. In the end those facilities are used for both functions - so maybe removing maintenance facilities at all and integrate their function into the dockyards and you decide weather you want to use your capacities for production or maintenance might be a way to go? So a ship is only maintained if it is assigned to a dockyard... .

Bad idea for several reasons.  First, it won't play well.  You won't be able to do forward bases at all, and a lot of shipyards (which are not cheap) will be stuck serving as maintenance facilities.  Second, it's not realistic.  Ulithi never had the facilities to build ships, and they certainly did maintenance. 
A better option might be to speed up overhaul times, and require that they be done in shipyards.  Maybe add refit/repair/overhaul only yards, too. 

[iceball3]

I like the idea of combining dockyards with maintenance. In the end those facilities are used for both functions - so maybe removing maintenance facilities at all and integrate their function into the dockyards and you decide weather you want to use your capacities for production or maintenance might be a way to go? So a ship is only maintained if it is assigned to a dockyard... .

The problem is that micromanagement becomes a bit severe, mainly because shipyard slipways and modifications are so darned expensive. Insofar as management, I figure that construction slipways -should not- be tied up for maintenance when they're supposed to be building, repairing, and scrapping ships (over a span of several years no less).

And what would that mean for the new "Deep Space Maintenance Facilities" feature that Steve just recently programmed in, as well? We can't just do away with maintenance facilities; we just got a new feature which has an allotrope of them: the maintenance module.

[IanD]

As a bit of explanation, the giant reserve fleet is a big thing in Starfire.  AIUI (and I haven't played Starfire, but it drives a fair bit of Aurora) it tends to be basically a way of keeping a giant fleet, which gets activated when you go to war, and otherwise doesn't cost very much.  This is rather distinct from what happens IRL.  If we can find a good way to model IRL, then we could probably get him to put it back in.

I have played 3rd Starfire, although after about 100 turns with 5-6 players it was impossible to keep it going in a 1000 star galaxy. I also tried 4th but it was flavourless. In 3rd a reserve fleet did not feature even when we increased costs x10. We were too busy massing fleets to deter invasions or to invade.

I can't see it being more expensive and quicker to do a simple reactivation than a new-build of a similar type.  To a large extent, there's a limit on how quickly you can spend money working on ships, set by the size of your shipyards.  The killer is running costs and doing major refits during the reactivation.  The only case I'm aware of a ship coming out of long-term storage quickly is the New Jersey being recalled for gunfire duty off Vietnam, which was as austere as possible (a few electronic improvements) and she was recommissioned about 8 months after the decision was made.  It was another 6 months before she was in action.

I have found in Aurora early to mid game it takes years to build a ship without pre-made components and about 18 months to pre-build your components and then a month or two to build your ship. Here I am thinking of ships of around 15,000 tons. If you had a reserve fleet you could de-mothball your ship which may or may not take yard capacity (that's up to Steve). If you wanted to upgrade it then you would have to refit it. Time dependent on whether you had a component stockpile.  Examples: Loch Achanalt  decommissioned into reserve on 5th June 1945. On the 19th May 1948 she was taken in hand for restorative work on engines and machinery. On the 6th August she was handed over to the New Zealand Navy. HMS Hampshire paid off into reserve in June 1969. She was taken in hand on 3rd August 1973 and recommissioned on 3rd September 1973. The first instance was because of a glut of ships after the wartime build up, the second due to costs and manpower shortage. There are more around if you want to look.

Lets face it you would probably only activate your reserves if you were under pressure. You would not have time to train your crew so they would be green conscript crews in obsolete ships and suffer accordingly when they were in combat.

It's not so much manpower as a proportion of population as it is the fact that at the moment, manpower never leaves the pool except by death in action.  Here's my proposal (copied out of another thread.)If you add in pay for crews in the pool, then maintaining a huge pool of crew for your mothballed ships becomes quite difficult, and the ships coming out of the pool in wartime will be well behind the active ships.  That could make a big difference in terms of using it to cheat.

In wartime you conscript who you need to, if you are lucky you have a core of regulars and reserve personnel to build your new crews around. But as was found in WW2 operational efficiency suffers unless time is taken to train and work a ship up, that was what HMS Western Isles at Tobermory was for. Read any book covering life in the Atlantic escorts. The RN expanded from 276,000 personnel in 1940 to 873,000 in 1945. These extra crew just did not exist in 1940. they had to be recruited and trained, however basic. To be sure a high tech spacecraft will require a higher educational attainment than a surface warship, but the educational attainment now is greater than 1940 (I hope  ) the crew requirement should also be much smaller taking advantage of automation. The type 45 Destroyers have a complement of 191, the previous type 42 a complement of 286.
Even in Starfire green ships suffer (see Paul M's Theban Empire).

Not sure that this is realistic for high-tech ships.

I disagree, before the Invincible class you had to cut through several decks including the flight deck to change major propulsion machinery on a carrier and you could not do it under way. I cannot believe that we would ignore the lessons learnt and go back to the old ways.

Interesting theory (the rest of this snipped for length), but I'm not sure it's warranted.  The current system works pretty well, particularly with the addition of Civilian hangars and the changes being discussed here.  That said, a refit/repair shipyard could be quite handy.

As I said its just an alternative idea. However I like the idea of a naval base/dockyard. 

Sorry this is all based on the wet navy but its all I have to go on. 

The problem is that micromanagement becomes a bit severe, mainly because shipyard slipways and modifications are so darned expensive. Insofar as management, I figure that construction slipways -should not- be tied up for maintenance when they're supposed to be building, repairing, and scrapping ships (over a span of several years no less).

And what would that mean for the new "Deep Space Maintenance Facilities" feature that Steve just recently programmed in, as well? We can't just do away with maintenance facilities; we just got a new feature which has an allotrope of them: the maintenance module.

As far as I am concerned you can have both. they need not be mutually exclusive, you can call them anything you want. These are just ideas to see if there is anything better out there. But I do like the idea  of a naval base/dockyard, how its possibly implemented is up to Steve. Maintenance facilities may represent small ports, call them anything you want as long as there is internal consistency.

[bean]

I have found in Aurora early to mid game it takes years to build a ship without pre-made components and about 18 months to pre-build your components and then a month or two to build your ship. Here I am thinking of ships of around 15,000 tons. If you had a reserve fleet you could de-mothball your ship which may or may not take yard capacity (that's up to Steve). If you wanted to upgrade it then you would have to refit it.

Fair enough, but I'm not sure how this is a response to my point.  Reactivating from reserve without refits will almost always be cheaper than new-build.

Time dependent on whether you had a component stockpile.  Examples: Loch Achanalt  decommissioned into reserve on 5th June 1945. On the 19th May 1948 she was taken in hand for restorative work on engines and machinery. On the 6th August she was handed over to the New Zealand Navy.

She was less than 1,500 tons.  Of course her refit was fast, and she's been in storage for only 3 years.

HMS Hampshire paid off into reserve in June 1969. She was taken in hand on 3rd August 1973 and recommissioned on 3rd September 1973. The first instance was because of a glut of ships after the wartime build up, the second due to costs and manpower shortage. There are more around if you want to look.

Wiki has her listed as 'under refit' 70-73, which makes a lot more sense. 

Lets face it you would probably only activate your reserves if you were under pressure. You would not have time to train your crew so they would be green conscript crews in obsolete ships and suffer accordingly when they were in combat.

Replicating that was the core of my suggestion for the altered crew pool.

The RN expanded from 276,000 personnel in 1940 to 873,000 in 1945. These extra crew just did not exist in 1940. they had to be recruited and trained, however basic.

I actually have a book on that, although I haven't managed to get around to reading it yet. 

I disagree, before the Invincible class you had to cut through several decks including the flight deck to change major propulsion machinery on a carrier and you could not do it under way. I cannot believe that we would ignore the lessons learnt and go back to the old ways.

The Invincibles were unusual in being able to do that, IIRC.  Brown specifically references being able to take the turbines out through the trunking, although I'm not sure that you could do it underway.  If so, I'd suggest that it had to do with the relative novelty of gas turbines at the time the Invincibles were designed.  I'm reasonably sure that you can't do it on a Burke, probably because there was no need to ensure you could.  And there's lots of other work which can't really be done underway.  For instance, replenishing VLS.

Sorry this is all based on the wet navy but its all I have to go on. 

It's not just wet navy, it's all RN.  There are other navies in existence, you know.   

[MarcAFK]

I tend to keep old obsolete vessels around for a while, at least as many as I can afford.
It would be nice if I could reduce its maintenence requirement without needing to shove it into a hanger, more importantly I would love to be able to take the entire trained crew out of my old warship and put them into a brand new class, while I understand that the new crew needs to learn all the new systems that are different, there should be some advantage to recycling old seasoned officers rather than just getting them back as standard green crew of the appropriate raining level.

[IanD]

Fair enough, but I'm not sure how this is a response to my point.  Reactivating from reserve without refits will almost always be cheaper than new-build.

Its because you add the cost of the refit of a 10 year old ship to the cost of reactivation or use an obsolete ship which will probably get chewed up fast. Refits in Aurora are expensive, especially when you change the engines. It may not be quite as expensive as a brand new ship, but won't be far short and probably not as good, but good enough (hopefully) for a jump point defence. I suggested mothballing  as the proposed changes may impact the number of ships you can keep fully maintained and in service during a protracted peace.

She was less than 1,500 tons.  Of course her refit was fast, and she's been in storage for only 3 years.
Wiki has her listed as 'under refit' 70-73, which makes a lot more sense. 

My information on Hampshire is taken from "County Class Guided Missile Destroyers" by Neil McCart. He states categorically she was in reserve. The batch 1 Counties were not refitted to any great extent, didn't even get Seaslug Mk II.

The Invincibles were unusual in being able to do that, IIRC.  Brown specifically references being able to take the turbines out through the trunking, although I'm not sure that you could do it underway.  If so, I'd suggest that it had to do with the relative novelty of gas turbines at the time the Invincibles were designed.  I'm reasonably sure that you can't do it on a Burke, probably because there was no need to ensure you could.  And there's lots of other work which can't really be done underway.  For instance, replenishing VLS.

I would not have said gas turbines were new when put into the Invincibles, HMS Exmouth was refitted in 1966 with COGOG. The exhaust and intake trunking was also utilised to allow the removal of complete engines, giving a rapid 24-hour exchange time. Of course there will always be something you cannot do underway, and I don't have much of an idea about VLS, although I am surprised that you cannot replenish those while underway. It kind of limits your deployment in an active war zone.

It's not just wet navy, it's all RN.  There are other navies in existence, you know.   

Yes, but 99% of my reference sources are RN. The rest are mostly Janes or WW2!