On at least a couple of occasions, John has suggested that missiles should be organised into missile series so that intelligent substitions of ordnance can automatically be made when reloading. I have added this for the next version, which will be v4.5 as there are database changes.
The missile design window has a few additions, which can be seen on the screenshot below (click it to see full size). The first one is that using the dropdown list under the Empire name, you can recall the MSP allocation of previous designs. This may not produce the exact same stats as the original missile because technology may have moved on since you designed it but you will be able to see how you allocated the MSP for the original design. When you select a missile from this list, which includes missiles you have designed but not yet researched, the MSP boxes will be set to their values at the point when you pressed the Create button for that design. The object of this new functionality is both to allow you to see what you did in previous designs and to make it much easier to create more advanced missiles based on the same principles as in the past, which you might want to do if creating missile series.
The second change is the addition of the Missile Series section in the centre right. When you select a missile series from the list, all the missiles in that series will be displayed.
The third change is the addition of several buttons along the bottom of the window, as well as the Close button moving from top right to bottom right. Clear Design simply sets everything to zero. Create Series prompts you for a series name and then creates a new missile series. Delete Series, as you may suspect, deletes a missile series. it does NOT delete missiles associated with that series. Edit Series will set the currently selected Previous Design (from the dropdown under the Empire Name) to the currently selected missile series.
When you create a new missile design by pressing the Create button, the new missile will be assigned whatever missile series is selected in the Missile Series section dropdown. This dropdown can be set to 'no series'. To ensure you don't accidently set a series for a missile, if a series is selected when you press Create, you are prompted to confirm that series. Pressing No at that point will create the missile without linking it to a missile series. In that case, you can still edit it later.
[attachment=0:35uvzs6f]MissileDesign2.JPG[/attachment:35uvzs6f]
In v4.5, when you order a fleet to reload, it will attempt to load its assigned ordnance just as before. However, if that ordnance is not available or only partially available, it will attempt to load missiles from the same series in descending order of cost. For example, assume you had created an anti-ship missile called the Rapier at the start of a game. Over time your technology advances and you create a more capable Rapier-B and eventully an even more advanced Rapier-C. Lets also assume you link them all together in the same series (imaginatively called the Rapier series
). If a ship that is assigned a class loadout of 100 Rapier-Cs attempts to reload and there are insufficient Rapier-Cs available, the program will check for Rapier-Bs and Rapier-As at the same population and substitute those for the missing Rapier-Cs.
This will work for more compelx loadouts. Assume a ship with 100x Rapier-C, 300x Sentinel-C (an anti-missile missile) and 8x Raven-D (recon drone). If each of those missiles is in a missile series, then each of the different missiles will be checked separately. For the Sentinels, lets assume that 220 are available. The program will check for other missiles in the series to fill in the missing 80 Sentinel-Cs. That won't affect similar checks for the Rapiers and Ravens as they will take place independently.
Just in case anyone is wondering, you don't need to give missiles in the same series similar names. I was just doing that for ease of explanation. You might create the Devastator, the Annihilator and Obilterator and put them all in the same missile series. That would work just as well as giving them the same name with a different suffix. As always, naming schemes are down to personal preference.
Steve
