so refit takes longer than actually building a ship??????

[Journier (OP)]

.....

I didnt look at resource costs but i could have built 3 ships in the time that the game wants to take to refit my ships :/ The screwed up part is that it takes up the same amount of shipyard space as building an entire ship.

[Hawkeye]

Look at what a major, and I mean a MAJOR refit involves.
Say you want to replace the engines, the electronics (FCS, ECM/ECCM and sensors) as well as the main battery.
First, you have to pretty much rip the ship appart to even get at the parts you want to replace. Then you take out the engines and put in the new ones. As those have more thrust, you have to put in more support struts as well, which plays merry hell with space allocated to other parts, but you finally manage it. Now out comes the electronics and in goes the new one, but oh, you need new wiring, because the old one worked with 500 Mb/s I/O speed and the new, improved on needs a 2 Gb/s which the old wiring can´t handle. After months of crawling through every tiny space in order to replace the wires, the job is finally done. Next is the main battery. The old 150mm lasers are replaced by the new and shining 200mm. But those don´t fit into the armored weapons bays, so those have to come out too. The new bays don´t fit between the support struts, so new ones have to be designed and fitted, finally the new guns went in. Oh, but the power plant is not sufficient anymore, we need a new one! The new plant also reqires new wiring,...
And this assumes, you at leest keep the displacement as is.

To make a real world example:
Because of the London Treaty, which forbid the building of new battleships between WW1 and WW2, many navies refitted their BBs (most notable I belive, were the japanese and the italian). In terms of both, time and cost, building new ships would have been a lot more efficient.
I remember only one case, where a deliberate increase of displacement was tried. Germany around 1900 cut it´s coastal armored cruisers in half to add a 30 feet section, thus increasing length and displacement. It was very expensive and took a hell of a time - not to mention that it was a total failure.

Edit: I forgot: But I agree, tripple time seems excessive.

[Charlie Beeler]

Depending on how radical the change is, triple time might be low.  Things like new armor and radically different engine configuations can trigger very long refit times.


As an aside, the primary limited to interwar capital ships was not the London Treaty (assuming you mean the 1930 and not 1936) since that primarily changed the rules for submarines and cruisers.  

Washington 1921 was the main limiter but in no way forbad new construction of battleships.  It attempted to limit the displacements, protection, armaments, and total naval tonnage.  Under this treaty new ships could be constructed...if the nation in question was willing to scrap existing hulls.  This is was lead Lexington and Saratoga being completed as carriers instead of battlecruisers.

[Hawkeye]

Yep, meant the Washington treaty. My mind is playing tricks on me again

[Shadow]

Depending on how radical the change is, triple time might be low.  Things like new armor and radically different engine configuations can trigger very long refit times.

It should never be longer than building a whole new ship; otherwise it defeats the entire purpose of refitting. If it weren't for the fact we can't currently transfer crews (and their associated experience and training) between ships, refits would be entirely pointless given exaggerated costs. That is, unless the changes are minimal and the cost doesn't surpass that of building a new vessel.

I believe the culprit is the tonnage increase costs. Perhaps those should be lower.

[Brian Neumann]

Depending on how radical the change is, triple time might be low.  Things like new armor and radically different engine configuations can trigger very long refit times.

It should never be longer than building a whole new ship; otherwise it defeats the entire purpose of refitting. If it weren't for the fact we can't currently transfer crews (and their associated experience and training) between ships, refits would be entirely pointless given exaggerated costs. That is, unless the changes are minimal and the cost doesn't surpass that of building a new vessel.

I believe the culprit is the tonnage increase costs. Perhaps those should be lower.

Actually the reverse is true.  When you start to talk about adding enough tonnage to be significant then the time and expense to tear the ship appart before rebuilding it can cost more than just building a new ship.  For changes that only make minor adjustments to the total tonnage the system is working quite well.  The only time I have had any real problems with cost is on freighters, changing their engines and for warships when the tonnage change was greater than about 10%.  Once I got over that I noticed the cost for the refit was getting quite close to just building a new ship.

Brian

[Charlie Beeler]

It should never be longer than building a whole new ship; otherwise it defeats the entire purpose of refitting.

Not necasserily true.  When you factor in the teardown time refits, in our current real world, often take longer that original construction.  As long as the fincancial cost is lower than new construction refit makes more sense, too the bean counters, than original construction.

Real world examples, B-52 and CH-47.  In theory Everett or Wichita could build new B-52's and Phillidephia could build new CH'47's.  It's still cheaper to refit existing airframes even though it takes longer to build new.  Granted these are aircraft and not ships, but I've either got first or second hand knowledge of both.

[sandman662]

Well, if the material costs of refitting are lower than building a new ship, there is your benefit.  I am starting to run out of minerals on Earth and if it is cheaper for me to refit than to build new, I guess I'll have to deal with the much longer time frame.

[Shadow]

Well, if the material costs of refitting are lower than building a new ship, there is your benefit.  I am starting to run out of minerals on Earth and if it is cheaper for me to refit than to build new, I guess I'll have to deal with the much longer time frame.

Well, I guess that's it. I suppose I value time way more than I do actual resources, though.

[Andrew]

Depending on how radical the change is, triple time might be low.  Things like new armor and radically different engine configuations can trigger very long refit times.

It should never be longer than building a whole new ship; otherwise it defeats the entire purpose of refitting. If it weren't for the fact we can't currently transfer crews (and their associated experience and training) between ships, refits would be entirely pointless given exaggerated costs. That is, unless the changes are minimal and the cost doesn't surpass that of building a new vessel.

I believe the culprit is the tonnage increase costs. Perhaps those should be lower.

Refitting is meant to be similar to the process of refitting ships in modern wet navies. Noticably modern navies find it more efficient to build a new ship rather than go through a refit which involves changing the hull of the ship signiigantly.  The limit on refits of modern vessels tend to be changes to electronics or bolting on new systems to the top of the ship without structural changes.
As others have mentioned the exception was the major refits of ships between the world wars when older battleships where refitted to a more modern design, these refits did not make major changes to the hull in general and those few which did where very slow and expensive. Many of the refitted ships (British , American and Japanese) conversions from BB/BC to carriers where very inefficient ships compared to their purpose built cousins further hightlighting the complexities of major refits

[sloanjh]

Well, if the material costs of refitting are lower than building a new ship, there is your benefit.  I am starting to run out of minerals on Earth and if it is cheaper for me to refit than to build new, I guess I'll have to deal with the much longer time frame.

First, what all the other old hands said

Second, you can recover minerals by scrapping the old ships.  Don't remember the ratio.  So in the situation you describe, I would probably build new ships and either scrap or put into the "reserve" the old ships.  (Note that commercial ships like freighters don't cost anything to keep around, but military ships will cost minerals and so are probably better off scrapped.)

Third, as many others have pointed out, the refit system is intended for small changes to the design.  For example, when upgrading my conventional-start PDC to TN sensors, I design the new bases with conventional armor and launchers, rather than TN versions.  This way, I'm only ripping out the old fire control and putting in new fire control (this is what refit is intended to support).  If I replaced everything, I might as well build a new base.

Fourth, a good suggestion to make in the suggestion thread might be for Aurora to launch an "are you sure" dialogue when launching a refit task if the cost of the task is above some threshold (like 50%) of new construction.

John

[Charlie Beeler]

Well, if the material costs of refitting are lower than building a new ship, there is your benefit.  I am starting to run out of minerals on Earth and if it is cheaper for me to refit than to build new, I guess I'll have to deal with the much longer time frame.

First, what all the other old hands said

Second, you can recover minerals by scrapping the old ships.  Don't remember the ratio.  So in the situation you describe, I would probably build new ships and either scrap or put into the "reserve" the old ships.  (Note that commercial ships like freighters don't cost anything to keep around, but military ships will cost minerals and so are probably better off scrapped.)

Third, as many others have pointed out, the refit system is intended for small changes to the design.  For example, when upgrading my conventional-start PDC to TN sensors, I design the new bases with conventional armor and launchers, rather than TN versions.  This way, I'm only ripping out the old fire control and putting in new fire control (this is what refit is intended to support).  If I replaced everything, I might as well build a new base.

Fourth, a good suggestion to make in the suggestion thread might be for Aurora to launch an "are you sure" dialogue when launching a refit task if the cost of the task is above some threshold (like 50%) of new construction.

John

That's not a bad idea at all.

[Journier (OP)]

Well, if the material costs of refitting are lower than building a new ship, there is your benefit.  I am starting to run out of minerals on Earth and if it is cheaper for me to refit than to build new, I guess I'll have to deal with the much longer time frame.

First, what all the other old hands said

Second, you can recover minerals by scrapping the old ships.  Don't remember the ratio.  So in the situation you describe, I would probably build new ships and either scrap or put into the "reserve" the old ships.  (Note that commercial ships like freighters don't cost anything to keep around, but military ships will cost minerals and so are probably better off scrapped.)

Third, as many others have pointed out, the refit system is intended for small changes to the design.  For example, when upgrading my conventional-start PDC to TN sensors, I design the new bases with conventional armor and launchers, rather than TN versions.  This way, I'm only ripping out the old fire control and putting in new fire control (this is what refit is intended to support).  If I replaced everything, I might as well build a new base.

Fourth, a good suggestion to make in the suggestion thread might be for Aurora to launch an "are you sure" dialogue when launching a refit task if the cost of the task is above some threshold (like 50%) of new construction.

John

That's not a bad idea at all.

I also like this idea.

[Journier (OP)]

Another thing that could be very neat is.... What if a ship wreckage could be towed back to a shipyard and get refit?

Obviously it would depend on damage but that is demonstrable through history via mobile dry docks repairing heavily damage ships, or raising sunk ships and putting them back into action.

[Andrew]

Fourth, a good suggestion to make in the suggestion thread might be for Aurora to launch an "are you sure" dialogue when launching a refit task if the cost of the task is above some threshold (like 50%) of new construction.

John

A really good idea, it would make it much harder to refit a 40,000 tom carrier into a 1000 ton FAC By accident