large military shipyard retooling

[LoSboccacc (OP)]

so, I've built a 5 slipway 20k ton military shipyard, for my first fleet of dumbship. long story short, the ship were smeared because I forgot the res 1 active sensor. In the meantime, the research went a bit further so I redesigned half the components and created a new design.

the problem is, the retooling of the shipyard took so long, I've had time to move from the ion engines that I'm currently designing magnetic confinement fusion drives 

what I'm doing wrong? is it supposed to really take that long? I guess some time is reasonable, but ten years seems a bit too much 

now I'm building a squadron of that ion mk2 design, which is hopelessly outdated now. but, if I retool again, it will take again forever. has it something to do with all the slipways? but they should not affect retool rate (more stuff to retool, but the same exact more production to carry out the retooling)

[Atlantia]

Take a look at the Mod Rate in the Manage Shipyards tab. That's what's gonna dictate how long your actions take. I don't know about whether or not adding capacity or slipways changes the mod rate (it doesn't look like it, judging by my own shipyards. No correlation by the looks of it).

[shadenight123]

bigger the ship...
Retool for Selected Class: The class selected for retooling is chosen from the adjacent ship class dropdown. Only classes that are small enough to fit within the shipyard's capacity can be selected. This task costs 0.5x of the ship class build cost plus 0.25x ship class build cost per slipway. So if a shipyard with two slipways wanted to start building a class that cost 800 BP, the cost to retool would be 800 x (0.5+0.25+0.25) = 800 BP. If there were four slipways, the cost would be 800 x (0.5+(0.25x4)) = 1200 BP. Mineral use is based on the minerals used in the class.
bigger the cost.

[Hawkeye]

so, I've built a 5 slipway 20k ton military shipyard, for my first fleet of dumbship. long story short, the ship were smeared because I forgot the res 1 active sensor. In the meantime, the research went a bit further so I redesigned half the components and created a new design.

the problem is, the retooling of the shipyard took so long, I've had time to move from the ion engines that I'm currently designing magnetic confinement fusion drives 

what I'm doing wrong? is it supposed to really take that long? I guess some time is reasonable, but ten years seems a bit too much 

now I'm building a squadron of that ion mk2 design, which is hopelessly outdated now. but, if I retool again, it will take again forever. has it something to do with all the slipways? but they should not affect retool rate (more stuff to retool, but the same exact more production to carry out the retooling)

You´re doing nothing wrong. You are not supposed to change the ships you can build on the fly

Spent some research in the "Shipyard Operations" tech, to speed things up, but retooling will never be done in a few weeks, no matter what you do.
Plan for this. Research a couple of ship-related techs to a level you are comfortable with, then switch over to other areas, like construction, while building your fleet.

[sloanjh]

Plan for this. Research a couple of ship-related techs to a level you are comfortable with, then switch over to other areas, like construction, while building your fleet.

And if you really are just doing a minor design tweak (e.g. sensor upgrade), then make sure not to change expensive stuff (like armor or engines) - that will cut the time way down (both for retool and to refit the existing units that have already been built).

One more thing: for REALLY big units (e.g. BB and CV) with long build/retool times, I'll make minor tweaks to the class after the units have been laid down, then refit them immediately after they're completed (you can retool to the new designs while still working on the old ones).  It's usually things like upgrading the sensor suite, that can give a major improvement to capability while only costing 10-20% of total....

John

[LoSboccacc (OP)]

ok, I did it again and I definitely think something is fishy about retooling.

A commercial 10 ton shipyard takes half year to build and it takes three years to retool.

seriously, even if you scrap it and build anew it takes less than retooling, what the heck?

[Girlinhat]

Retooling isn't a casual activity.

[Panopticon]

It isn't a fast process, think about it. This is a shipyard, an enormous construct that is set up to build one type of ship to very exacting specifications, every component needs to be able to be built there. Changing that means not only adjusting the size of the slipway itself, but modifying the shipyards own internal factories. It's kinda a lot of work.

[LoSboccacc (OP)]

ok, it's a lot of work, but actually it is more than scrapping the shipyard altogether and built anew! and not by a tiny margin, it's like six time more!

six time more for retooling a factory (albeit huge) than building one anew?

I guess that the problem with build rate here is that a shipyard can only be retooled by itself, and not in the factories that built it in the first place.

[Erik L]

ok, I did it again and I definitely think something is fishy about retooling.

A commercial 10 ton shipyard takes half year to build and it takes three years to retool.

seriously, even if you scrap it and build anew it takes less than retooling, what the heck?

Unless you are building 1k ton ships, you are neglecting the expansion time. Expanding a shipyard to a usable size (10k tons) takes quite a while.

[LoSboccacc (OP)]

Unless you are building 1k ton ships, you are neglecting the expansion time. Expanding a shipyard to a usable size (10k tons) takes quite a while.

it's in the quoted text, this case is with a simple commercial shipyard. they comes in 10k ton apiece.

[LizardSF]

Could I get a verify that, as implied, retooling to build a 'slightly better' version of a ship ("We swapped out the old Mark II missile launchers for the new Mark IIIs") will take a lot less time than retooling to build a completely different ship of the same, or close, tonnage? That is, if Ship A uses 3 type-4 ion drives, and Ship B used 3 type-4 ion drives, the part of the shipyard that assembles and installs type-4 ion drives doesn't need to be retooled and doesn't count, or counts less, against the cost of retooling? Or, in other other words, is retooling 100% based on the hull size of the ship, or is it based on how many components the ship shares with the prior ship?

This is pretty important, as it could effect which yards I retool, and why.  I was going on the assumption that it took just as long to retool from the Exeter Destroyer to the Exeter-A Destroyer as it did from the Exeter Destroyer to the Franklin Geo Surveyor, if both ships were the same overall tonnage, so it didn't matter what a shipyard was previously making.

[Yonder]

Could I get a verify that, as implied, retooling to build a 'slightly better' version of a ship ("We swapped out the old Mark II missile launchers for the new Mark IIIs") will take a lot less time than retooling to build a completely different ship of the same, or close, tonnage? That is, if Ship A uses 3 type-4 ion drives, and Ship B used 3 type-4 ion drives, the part of the shipyard that assembles and installs type-4 ion drives doesn't need to be retooled and doesn't count, or counts less, against the cost of retooling? Or, in other other words, is retooling 100% based on the hull size of the ship, or is it based on how many components the ship shares with the prior ship?

This is pretty important, as it could effect which yards I retool, and why.  I was going on the assumption that it took just as long to retool from the Exeter Destroyer to the Exeter-A Destroyer as it did from the Exeter Destroyer to the Franklin Geo Surveyor, if both ships were the same overall tonnage, so it didn't matter what a shipyard was previously making.

I'm a little rusty, but if I remember correctly retooling is only based on the cost of the ship. However a shipyard tooled to build class a particular class of ship can also build similar ships without modification. Although I'm not sure precisely how this level of "similar" is calculated, it's based on the cost of refitting a ship from one class to another, which is based on how many components are different and how expensive those components are. There may also be some factors for how similar the ships are in tonnage.

This produces some unrealistic constraints, but as long as you know what they are the system works alright. For example if your Exeter-A Destroyer is the Exeter Destroyer with a new sensor and a few more Magazines you will probably be able to build the Exeter-A Destroyer at Shipyards tooled for Exeters, and vice-versa.

On the other hand if the Exeter-A replaced all of the Exeter's engines and turrets with new ones of updated technology but the same sizes, then they would become too different to share shipyards because the cost would be so different, even though in "real life" it seems like that wouldn't happen. If you had the same number and same sizes of components then it should be completely straightforward to continue using the same installation processes for the ship, only the production of those components would change.

[Erik L]

it's in the quoted text, this case is with a simple commercial shipyard. they comes in 10k ton apiece.

Even a 10k ton commercial yard needs expanding. Most useful designs will run in the 30k ton range.

[sloanjh]

I'm a little rusty, but if I remember correctly retooling is only based on the cost of the ship.

The retooling cost/time to go from class A to class B is based on the refit cost from A to B IIRC.  So if you're simply swapping out a few small sensors it will be trivial, even for a BB, but if you're changing big/expensive systems (engines, armor, jump engines) or increasing the tonnage significantly (which costs extra in the retool cost) then it can be very expensive.

That being said, unlike an actual refit (where the cost can exceed that of new construction) it seems plausible to me that the retool cost shouldn't exceed the cost for an "initial" retool (if it weren't assumed to be absorbed in the cost of constructing the SY ).  I don't know if Steve already has this limit in, but it might be worth putting a suggestion in the main suggestions thread.

John