Shipyards able to produce multiple designs?

[linkxsc (OP)]

So what exactly are the rules for this, I know we've probably all seen them. Shipyards can often turn out multiple "similar" ship designs, even without retooling. This happens very often if you have geosurvey and gravsurvey ships that are basically identical except for the sensors themselves.
I also know that every time I design a ship, and then a jump capable version (usually with some weapons and fuel stripped out for the jump drive), If I tool the shipyard to the jump ship, I am able to produce both designs. Whereas if I tool it for the version with no jump drive, it will be the only available ship to produce.
I've also run into where using the jump ammo transport design (which aside from having magazines is roughly the same as jump fuel tenders, jump MSP ships, and their jumpless versions) can net me able to produce 6 different ships from the same yard without trouble.

Other times however. I've had 2 ships with identical designs, however 1 has newer armor with an extra layer or 2, plus some tiny fuel tanks to round it out, and the shipyard can't produce the newer 1 without retooling, same time the older 1 can't be produced after retooling.
And again, I've had strange spots where my yard made to turn out my missile cruisers, can turn out their significantly different AMM cruisers (I guess they're about half the same, with engines, ammo, and armor taking up the weight)



So is there anywhere where theres a tallied rulseset of how this can be used to ones advantage. Cause 1, retooling costs can be extreme, especially with larger more advanced ships. 2, it makes it significantly easier (with multi slipway yards) to turn out several ships of similar type, plus a like minded jump ship with the same capabilities.

[Ninetails]

Now, I am not completly sure of this, but as I remember it the rule is something along the lines of "if it cost less than 20% of current ship to refit to". The problem here is that I have found no precise rules for how refit costs are calculated. What I can tell you, is that in the design under the DAC/Rank/Info tab, on the left side of the screen you can find 2 usefull pieces of information concerned with this. In the first large text field, is the list of which other designs will be elegable to be constructed on shipyards set with this design, while below it is a field where you can check what it will cost to refit it from another type of design. These helps you plan out shipyards and refitting before you finalize your design and starts fitting shipyards with them, possibly saving you from some of these problems.

For some rules of thumb for refitting costs, for similarly sized ships, it is generally dependent on the cost of the components that was not in the previous version. Also note, that when refitting armor to a new type, all armor must be changed (if you were changing in real life from say iron to titanium, you would need to replace all of it, not just add some extra plates). The jump ship problem can be considered by noting that the non-jump drive does not really have new components, just a different hull, which is what you then pay for on the refit. So when comparing the ships, consider the cost of the different components, and the general size of the ship. When upgrading to a newer version, one often puts many different new components on it, and they are often more expensive, which makes refitting harder. On the other hand, if you are exchanging main mission components, for new components which are not expensive compared to the rest of the ship (early/small beam weapons, missile tubes, cryo into cargo, and so on), then it would not be too hard to produce them at the same shipyard. Though for your missile ships, possible different sensors might break it at higher tech levels, since those components get really expensive later on. In the late/end game sensors, engine and medium-large beam weapons tend to be the most expensive items on ships, maybe 60-90% of the cost combined, so you could relatively easily switch between designs that keep these constant.

[linkxsc (OP)]

Wow, never noticed that field in the DAC/Rank/Info tab (usually because there isn't anything written there when designing the first ship and setting it to a naming theme, then from there I just copy the design and make other ships off of it with that all filled in already) I see now. perhaps I'll play with designs a bit and see jsut how much I can stretch the "also buildable" limit

[alex_brunius]

From the wiki:
( Seemed to work fine when I tested in game ).

It is possible that other ship classes can be built in the same shipyard without retooling. For a second class to qualify as eligible for construction, it must be possible to refit a ship of the primary class to that class for less than 20% of the primary ship class cost. See Refitting below.

Refitting a ship means turning it into a ship of a different class. Whether that makes sense depends on the Refit cost, as shown in the field on the right. That cost depends on the actual components that have to be changed, plus an extra Refit overhead cost, plus 1/10th of size difference. For example, updating a 4,000-ton "Broadsword Mk II" destroyer to "Broadsword Mk II-B" by installing just a few modernized sensors and an additional fuel tank, for a total cost of 25% of original build points might be worth the effort, but turning it into a 7,000-ton light cruiser would cost more than scrapping the destroyer and building a new cruiser.

You can look up the actual refitting cost in the design window, under the "DAC/Rank/Info" tab. To estimate whether it is worth updating a ship class, look at the component breakdown in the Component summary tab.