Using components in Shipbuilding

[xenoscepter]

Yeah, I vote leave it in too.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I've added a check box to the Class window which toggles if you want to include alien tech in your designs. If so, any component that is currently stockpiled at any of your populations will be available for class design.

When you create a shipyard task, any components in your stockpile will be used to reduce the cost and mineral requirements of the task. This is mandatory for alien components, but using your own components is optional (new for C#) and you can turn that off if desired (to save components for the most important ships).

You can retool shipyards to any design, regardless of whether you currently have the components, but you can only build or refit a ship if the required components are at the same population as the shipyard. Note this gives you an ability to create a modified version of a captured alien design, using some of your own tech, and then tool a shipyard for that design even though you don't have stockpiled components for all components in your hybrid design. In this case, you won't be able to build a ship of that design, but you will be able to refit the captured alien ship to the new design (because the refit only adds your tech).

[Father Tim]

Will I still be able to scrap my own ships for components?  When I tear down an old, slow battleship can I save its secondary armament turrets for use on my cruisers?  What about recycling CIWS through my auxiliary fleet, or even re-using old-tech jump drives from my DDLs in new tugs or troop transports?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Will I still be able to scrap my own ships for components?  When I tear down an old, slow battleship can I save its secondary armament turrets for use on my cruisers?  What about recycling CIWS through my auxiliary fleet, or even re-using old-tech jump drives from my DDLs in new tugs or troop transports?

Yes, you can still do that.

[Scandinavian]

Will the yards remember which components they took from stockpile, so I can get them back if I cancel the build halfway through? (In VB Aurora, I seem to recall a number of terraforming modules disappearing on me for that reason.)

[vorpal+5]

Thanks very much Steve. I too like to be able building components separately from ships. It has a variety of uses.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Will the yards remember which components they took from stockpile, so I can get them back if I cancel the build halfway through? (In VB Aurora, I seem to recall a number of terraforming modules disappearing on me for that reason.)

The components are consumed when you create the task and the task is shortened to account for that.

[serger]

I think it will be great, if any alien ship and/or component will have some penalties, reflecting unfamiliar control systems or even incompatibilities with your race/nation standarts, that can be reduced by refitting with mixed design.

[Jorgen_CAB]

While I do not use to pre-build components that often in my multi-faction campaigns it was regularly used to reflect war production as some part if the regular industry switched to build components so ships could be build allot faster. So I say it is a great role-play tool. Using industry to build components are not really optimal, but you can feel forced to do it if you are forced into a war and you have limited shipyard capacity but a very strong industry.

[Hazard]

Component construction also becomes more available as construction factories become more capable. At the base 10BP per year production speed you are basically always trying to catch up with population growth and getting enough personnel demanding facilities in place to tap that resource fully because your production speed at best increases by 8% per year on average, but most likely a fair bit lower because you need mines to supply the minerals needed for that growth as well as other facilities, so you are most likely growing 1 to 4% per year in construction capacity. Population growth will notably exceed this during most starts.

By the time you hit 20BP per year you are probably matching or catching up to population growth, in part because unless you are constantly expanding at least some of your settled bodies will slow their own population growth and when you hit 30BP per year you'll start exceeding growth speeds even under unfavourable mineral conditions, so at that point not dedicating some of your production capacity to component construction or things that are not solely focused on fueling your construction economy results in wasted production capacity.

[smoelf]

The decision is already made, so this is not to sway any minds, but just wanted to say, that I'm really happy to see that using pre-built components will have a place in C# as I use it a lot. It makes building larger ships more feasible without waiting years and years to use them. Some times the retooling and build times are so long, that my new ships are close to outdated by the time they are build. Using pre-built component is really useful here.

I also find that there is an interesting decision to make; whether to delay access to a new fleet or to sacrifice industry to speed up constructing time by building components, which in turn actually encourages forward planning.

[Deutschbag]

Echoing Smoelf's sentiment, I agree that pre-building components is a really neat thing that I use a lot. I definitely am glad it's staying in.

[hubgbf]

Note this gives you an ability to create a modified version of a captured alien design, using some of your own tech, and then tool a shipyard for that design even though you don't have stockpiled components for all components in your hybrid design. In this case, you won't be able to build a ship of that design, but you will be able to refit the captured alien ship to the new design (because the refit only adds your tech).

Astounding !
Thanks a lot Steve.
it will entice us to capture enemy ships to be able to use them later.

[Felius]

And on the subject of being challenging not having it: Yes, proper usage of prebuilding components is definitely very strong and allows, and said proper usage does require more micro, but the greatest gains require the least of it. But at the same time making effective use of it also has the issue of foresight: It's very easy to overproduce, and if you do you are left with a number of obsolete components and your only recourse is to scrap them at a net loss. Similarly, it also incentives much heavier standardization in components than might be the strict optimum if not considering the production lines in question.

It's a powerful tool, but I don't quite feel it's outright overpowered, and the efficiency gains have a strongly marginally decreasing benefit, so I don't feel it overly rewards micro (by Aurora standards).

On the note of personal usage, I generally just use it build a few of the biggest components of my ships (generally the "standard heavy civilian engine" that my freighters and other large civilian vessels use and a few high cost military parts for military ships I deploy in some quantity), because beyond that it takes a lot of effort to set up for very little extra gain.

[Lightning]

I was wondering if it would be possible to somehow note which components, either in stock or in a design, are alien components? There have certainly been times I would have found that useful.