Modular Ships

[Borealis4x (OP)]

I have heard that it was possible to fit ships of the same class with slightly different facilities so you would not have to commit an entire other shipyard. Is this true? How do you do it? I would quite like to merge my freighter, colony, and troop transport ships.

[Sheb]

If the refit cost to refit a class A ship into a class B ship is low enough (less than 20% of total built cost of the class A ship), a shipyard tooled for the class A will be able to produce class B too. A classical exemple is that a shipyard tooled to produce a colony ship can also produce a freighter of the same size. (The reverse is not true, because since cryo modules are more expensive than holds, it cost more than 20% of the cost of a freighter to turn it into a colony ship).

I'm not sure about about troop transport though.

[Borealis4x (OP)]

Funny, I would have thought that it would be easier to convert a cargo ship. Just put the cryo-beds in the holds.

[Sheb]

Think of it this way: cryo-bed are expensive, delicate equipment. You need to have specific tools to handle them, so a shipyard that normally produces freighter wouldn't know what to do with them.

[Borealis4x (OP)]

But wouldn't the cryo beds be made in a special factory on Earth and then installed up in the orbital shipyards anyways? At that point all you need is space to put them, space a freighter hold would have in droves.

Ahh, never-mind. Silly tangent. I'm just mad because my colonizers are usually smaller than my freighter. I like limiting the former to 100,000 beds because it allows me to calculate things easier and the latter two standard cargobays for much the same reason (1 mines, 10 infrastructure).

[Borealis4x (OP)]

Damn, it come real close at 26% of the cargo ships build points to convert to a colonizer. Although I did notice it took less to convert the freighter into a colonizer than the other way around despite the colonizer having tons more build points. I guess thats because the freighter was 2 times the tonnage.

[Sheb]

The refit cost does goes up when tonnage change, so you want your design to be of the same size.