Construction of ship parts?

[linkxsc (OP)]

SO I've got about 300hrs of aurora time in, waging war against the dastardly procyons. And theres always been something I've wondered about. What good is fabricating ship components in the construction tab?

Like will they be stored up, and then when you go to build a ship (or refit) that needs 1, it'll be a little faster because the parts are already made or what? Cause if so... I've got 40 ships running around with engine tech 2 tiers behind, and could start crapping out the newer version of their same engines for the weeks leading up to them all getting back to earth where they can go through refit. (also new sensors, new fire control, new weapons... yeah, at least the missile ones are keeping their same weapons, they're just getting newer missiles to load)

Also does it work that way with fighters?

Cause when it comes down to it, most all of my fighters and ships (within a weight class) have exactly the same armor, engines, engineering, and sensors, with the exception of the main sensor ship, and the 1 with the jump drive for the fleet. The only differences are in fire controls, weapons themselves... and the extra few tiny fuel bunkers used to fill out the weight of the ship thats already got everythign else but has .4HS left to round it off at its class weight.

[Garfunkel]

Yeah, the stuff is stockpiled on the planet and then used when construction of a ship starts, speeding it up. I have no idea about fighters.

[Brian Neumann]

You can only upgrade ships.  Fighters can not be updated with new parts, also last time I checked you can't use parts to speed up fighter production.

If you want to upgrade some of your ships take a close look at the cost.  It may be cheaper to build all new ships depending on what you want to change.

Brian

[linkxsc (OP)]

Well does it work with building fighters anew? I know you cant update fighters, but moving up to a new engine tech to fill out my carriers is fine (the old ones just get shipped off to planetary defense fleets/training units)

[Barkhorn]

building parts using industry is mostly useful for speeding up shipbuilding.

refitting is typically not worth it.

[Garfunkel]

Yeah, refits are usually pretty quick so there's no point in stockpiling component beforehand. Also, remember that you get to keep ship grade when you refit, so even if the refit is roughly the same as the cost of a new ship, it can be worth it.

[alex_brunius]

Well does it work with building fighters anew? I know you cant update fighters, but moving up to a new engine tech to fill out my carriers is fine (the old ones just get shipped off to planetary defense fleets/training units)

I just checked and seems like FTR production still dont use prebuilt parts.

[linkxsc (OP)]

Yeah I had gotten on my laptop, and though I can't play the game cause I'm missing half of the buttons, I can still play around with that, and it dont work (dang) See the annoying part is that with prebuilding parts (especially during the time that a shipyard may be retooling) you can easily turn out a carrier (lets say it can haul 6 500t fighters) before its fighters are done (unless you built up a mass of fighter factories)

[Jorgen_CAB]

Is there not a few misconception on the cost or reasons for doing refits on ships?!?

As far as I know you only pay resources for the actual component you change in a refit, the extra "cost" is in the time it will take above that component cost. So, if you refit the engines on a ship that has a cost of 400 minerals the overall refit BP might be say 500. The extra 100 BP is only extra time it takes to do the refit part.

If you pre-built components for a refit you can often reduce time considerably. In my latest refit I pre-built the engine. It took a 10 month refit down to almost 2.5 month refit. If time is an important resource for you then diverting a few % of your planetary industry is a small price to pay.

The only extra cost in resources when you do any kind of refit is the actual retooling of the shipyards. Although, this cost may be spread out over many ships that you refit so might not end up being a huge cost and if you are going to build new ships with the new design anyway it surely does not matter.

The main benefit if you refit a ship instead of... say... scraping it... is that you reuse all those components that never needs a refit such as Engineering, Crew quarters, Hangars, Bridge, Fuel storage... perhaps armour. This usually make up roughly 20-25% of a ship, you also seldom refit all components on a ship, not all components are that important to actually refit, at least not as often.
You also retain a ships crew and fleet experience previously accumulated, that are usually a great reason for refitting a ship on its own.

Anyway... building components on a planet using industry is a way to save time for when you need ships built fast, such as during a war or in anticipation of a war. Using planetary resource also divert that energy from expanding the civilian part of your empire with factories, mines and such.