More canon refit style

posted on September 4th, 2011, 7:05 pm

I was originally going to post this comment in the STA2: Evolution thread, but realized that it kinda warrented its own topic. Anyways, One thing I've been thinking about is refits. I don't regularly play Rommies, and I don't usually get to the refits before, in IA, I start to lose and then rage-cheat to overpower the AI. . .

Anyways, if I am correct, the ships just spontaenouesly (excuse the misspelling. It's a hard word; don't judge me) refit, instead of - as I think to be much cooler - going to a yard and actually like building on to the ships with the refit stuff. It could be similar to the way S. 8472 does the evolving in Stock A2 (and, by extension, the Mylock in Sigma): The ships would go to the yard and begin refitting. The refit parts begin building over the current ship with the refit version of the ship (it may just be the same ship with an extra weapon, or completely new, like going from E1 to E2), and then somewhere along the build time, the old ship disappears. Then you'd have a "new" ship, like 8472 does in Stock.

It's more canon, but I'm not sure if it would be doable gameplay-wise. If it's unbalanced, isn't unique, conflicts with plans already set into effect for future patches - what is the opinion (positive or nagative. Probably varying ammounts of negative) of the community, and the devs regarding this?

posted on September 4th, 2011, 7:32 pm

Well, the refits don't spontaneously refit themselves. It takes some time for them to refit and while in the refitting stage they are vulnerable and easy to kill.

posted on September 4th, 2011, 7:32 pm

yes, yard-refits are not possible with the current possibilities of the game engine but are on todo list

posted on September 4th, 2011, 7:39 pm

Well, the refits don't spontaneously refit themselves. It takes some time for them to refit and while in the refitting stage they are vulnerable and easy to kill.

I meant that once the upgrade is done, they're suddenly the refit ship. They may take a minute to get to the refit, but there isn't anything going on in that time (like actually seeing the additions being built onto the ship) that actually makes it seem like the ship is refitting - except for the spontaneous change from one model to the other upon the "completetion" of the "refitting".

yes, yard-refits are not possible with the current possibilities of the game engine but are on todo list

Hmm. Ok. Well, hopefully the todo list gets a lot emptier real quickly so that this can get got quicker. But I'm not meaning to be pushy if it sounds like that.

posted on September 4th, 2011, 7:58 pm

Conservation of Detail.

posted on September 5th, 2011, 2:51 am

It's good news to here this is on the to-do list as I feel it would be more realistic than the current set-up and add a nice touch. I would also like the option where you could have a separate yard dedicate only to refitting rather than construction/repair.

I look forward to this new feature when you guys get to it.

posted on September 5th, 2011, 9:59 pm

I would also like the option where you could have a separate yard dedicate only to refitting rather than construction/repair.

If I remember right, the Mixed-tech yard can only build, not repair. So, do the other way around. Make it a repair yard that can't build anything. And, as an, I guess, workaround, you could put the spot where the ships repair inside the dock of the yard itself (It goes overtop now, but it wouldn't conflict with any building ships since it wouldn't be able to build ships), and you have yourself a refitting yard.

And all five factions, to my knowledge, refit their ships. We all know the Romulans do it, The Feds keep creating new sub-types to keep their ship chassis' in service for as long as possible, the Klingons have been using the same dozen-or-so ship designs for forever (ooh, ooh, idea: I guess it would be similar to the Borg system right now, but how about you have the basic chassis ship, and then you can refit it into a specific type of that ship. I mean, several of their ships already in the game chare similarities because they're "descended" from the same original chassis. So, why not have that chassis to start with, and then expand by allowing to choose which ships you'll get? It's certainly an interesting idea.), the Dominion, I think, are always refitting their bugs (mk1, mk2, etc.), and the Borg have different variations of theirs.

I look forward to this new feature when you guys get to it.

As am I Majestic, as am I.

posted on September 5th, 2011, 10:06 pm

There is already a station that can repair without building; the Borg Mixed-Tech Yard.

Rank-ups are refits of the original vessel, including appearance changes that will be expanded soon. The 'click button to replace' is meant as a mainly Romulan thing, the others get ranks and pre-existing varients.

posted on September 5th, 2011, 11:22 pm

The repair only yard has been done before in stock A2 too, I have done it for years. What I was hoping is a special yard that only refits ships not repair them. That way you don't have huge queues due to ships coming for repairing.

posted on September 5th, 2011, 11:33 pm

The only thing you can do in the meantime is allow refitting to occur only around a yard

posted on September 6th, 2011, 3:47 am

Thanks Dom, I think that is my best bet. Our of curiosity do you know the code that is required for this?

posted on September 6th, 2011, 4:30 am

Sure I'd take a look at the kli_dispatch.odf weapon for now - I'll have more time tomorrow to go into it if you still need help. Someone else in fact did exactly this type of refit recently: Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Starship refits

I haven't tested Dragonmalice's mod, but I trust it works and it will undoubtedly prove of good use

posted on September 7th, 2011, 7:01 am

Due to performance reasons, i would not suggest to use this way of area-limited-refitting too much in your gameplay, but you will notice that yourself