Guide or advice for managing shipyards?

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Is there a guide somewhere on maximizing shipyard performance? Retooling, refitting, and "secondary classes" are all a bit hazy for me; my shipyards are constantly retooling, and I know that wastes a lot of resources and time.

[Froggiest1982]

Is there a guide somewhere on maximizing shipyard performance? Retooling, refitting, and "secondary classes" are all a bit hazy for me; my shipyards are constantly retooling, and I know that wastes a lot of resources and time.

If you are constantly retooling then you either have too many classes per shipyard or not enough shipyards per class.

Looks same but it's not.

Too many classes per shipyard meaning you may have some ships which could serve the same role bringing down the classes needed from let's say 3 to 1 and consequentially you will end up needing fewer Shipyards. For instance, having GEO and GRAV together already reduce classes from 2 to 1 or explorer with GEO and GRAV from 3 to 1.

Not enough shipyards per class meaning that if you do have 10 active designs, you ideally want to have 10 shipyards tooled for purpose. The one ship that you are planning to build only once could be done under a "service" shipyard which will be mostly retooling every now and then while the others will retool only when a class is being updated. Usually, such shipyard has only 2 or 3 slipways.

In my opinion some retooling it's still organic and should be taken into account.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Is there a guide somewhere on maximizing shipyard performance? Retooling, refitting, and "secondary classes" are all a bit hazy for me; my shipyards are constantly retooling, and I know that wastes a lot of resources and time.

If you are constantly retooling then you either have too many classes per shipyard or not enough shipyards per class.

Looks same but it's not.

Too many classes per shipyard meaning you may have some ships which could serve the same role bringing down the classes needed from let's say 3 to 1 and consequentially you will end up needing fewer Shipyards. For instance, having GEO and GRAV together already reduce classes from 2 to 1 or explorer with GEO and GRAV from 3 to 1.

Not enough shipyards per class meaning that if you do have 10 active designs, you ideally want to have 10 shipyards tooled for purpose. The one ship that you are planning to build only once could be done under a "service" shipyard which will be mostly retooling every now and then while the others will retool only when a class is being updated. Usually, such shipyard has only 2 or 3 slipways.

In my opinion some retooling it's still organic and should be taken into account.

Lots of notes already; thanks!

A couple more questions: one, how would I reduce the cost of retooling itself? I'm not sure how it's calculated, so I don't know whether I can design ships that require less drastic retooling.

Two, how can I design ships so that multiple classes can be built from one shipyard? I know it's possible, but I don't know what's involved. I think there was actually a way to see a class's "secondary classes" in VB6, but I haven't found it in C#.

[Froggiest1982]

Is there a guide somewhere on maximizing shipyard performance? Retooling, refitting, and "secondary classes" are all a bit hazy for me; my shipyards are constantly retooling, and I know that wastes a lot of resources and time.

If you are constantly retooling then you either have too many classes per shipyard or not enough shipyards per class.

Looks same but it's not.

Too many classes per shipyard meaning you may have some ships which could serve the same role bringing down the classes needed from let's say 3 to 1 and consequentially you will end up needing fewer Shipyards. For instance, having GEO and GRAV together already reduce classes from 2 to 1 or explorer with GEO and GRAV from 3 to 1.

Not enough shipyards per class meaning that if you do have 10 active designs, you ideally want to have 10 shipyards tooled for purpose. The one ship that you are planning to build only once could be done under a "service" shipyard which will be mostly retooling every now and then while the others will retool only when a class is being updated. Usually, such shipyard has only 2 or 3 slipways.

In my opinion some retooling it's still organic and should be taken into account.

Lots of notes already; thanks!

A couple more questions: one, how would I reduce the cost of retooling itself? I'm not sure how it's calculated, so I don't know whether I can design ships that require less drastic retooling.

Two, how can I design ships so that multiple classes can be built from one shipyard? I know it's possible, but I don't know what's involved. I think there was actually a way to see a class's "secondary classes" in VB6, but I haven't found it in C#.

1 - There is a tech that let you reduce costs and time for retooling

2 - There is a rule for that that also help you to understand costs in question 1 here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg117467#msg117467

With the new rules, you will find it easier to use some Naval Shipyards to build also small Commercial Troop Transport and Freighters as they are cheap (less than 10k tons). My corvettes are all 9,000 tons and their shipyards can also build a 5k capacity troop transport and a 5k capacity freighter which are both of 9,000 tons or less displacement.

Patriot-I PD class Corvette      9,000 tons       217 Crew       1,285.2 BP       TCS 180    TH 647    EM 0
3593 km/s      Armour 4-38       Shields 0-0       HTK 71      Sensors 6/6/0/0      DCR 14      PPV 71.82
Maint Life 2.69 Years     MSP 757    AFR 162%    IFR 2.2%    1YR 149    5YR 2,240    Max Repair 129.12 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive (Ship) (3)    Power 646.9    Fuel Use 81.06%    Signature 215.62    Explosion 11%
Fuel Capacity 700,000 Litres    Range 17.3 billion km (55 days at full power)

Quad 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (3x4)    Range 90,000km     TS: 30000 km/s     Power 12-12     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R96-TS5000 (2)     Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 5,000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (Medium) (3)     Total Power Output 59.4    Exp 5%

Anti-Missile Search Sensor AS5-R1 (1)     GPS 16     Range 5.5m km    MCR 497.5k km    Resolution 1
Commercial GPS (1)     GPS 1600     Range 25.7m km    Resolution 100
Commercial TH (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km
Commercial EM (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

UNEC Sparrow-I class Troop Transport      9,000 tons       65 Crew       300.3 BP       TCS 180    TH 313    EM 0
1736 km/s      Armour 1-38       Shields 0-0       HTK 31      Sensors 6/6/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 20    Max Repair 80 MSP
Troop Capacity 5,000 tons     Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Commercial Ion Drive (Low Fuel) (2)    Power 312.5    Fuel Use 7.83%    Signature 156.25    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 414,000 Litres    Range 105.8 billion km (705 days at full power)

Commercial GPS (1)     GPS 1000     Range 18.5m km    Resolution 100
Commercial EM (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km
Commercial TH (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

UNEC Centaur-I class Freighter      7,500 tons       40 Crew       179.5 BP       TCS 150    TH 156    EM 0
1041 km/s      Armour 1-34       Shields 0-0       HTK 17      Sensors 6/6/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 14    Max Repair 39.0625 MSP
Cargo 5,000    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Commercial Ion Drive (1)    Power 156.2    Fuel Use 8.94%    Signature 156.25    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 226,000 Litres    Range 60.6 billion km (673 days at full power)

Commercial GPS (1)     GPS 1000     Range 18.5m km    Resolution 100
Commercial EM (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km
Commercial TH (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Okay, got some ideas to try out now. Thanks!

[TheTalkingMeowth]

The refit cost viewing thing is missing from C# ship design. In the meantime, we have:

Iceranger's ship optimizer can load the ship designs from your save file and calculate the refit costs for you. It'll also autogenerate bridging hulls, which are ship designs you can tool the shipyard to so that it can build any of the input designs.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

The refit cost viewing thing is missing from C# ship design. In the meantime, we have:

Iceranger's ship optimizer can load the ship designs from your save file and calculate the refit costs for you. It'll also autogenerate bridging hulls, which are ship designs you can tool the shipyard to so that it can build any of the input designs.

That's AWESOME. I feel like I've only scratched the surface with the optimizer; seems like there's a lot of useful stuff there.