Refit Stations

posted on May 30th, 2013, 12:49 am

Hello again! This post was inspired by Desertyrain Minrok's The Veteran Club post and hellodean's Fed Warp-In Avatar post.

I would propose that every faction that is known to use refitted ships (Federation, Klingons, and Romulans) be equipped with a Refit Station. A refit station is essentially a shipyard. However, no ships can be built or repaired at the Refit Station. Instead, you can research different refits for ship classes. After a refit has been researched, a ship of a researched chassis type can be selected by the station, and then the ship docks with the station and starts its 'refit'!

Since the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons all use refitted technology differently, this station becomes available at different times per faction and varies in usefulness. This is what I would imagine for the races:

Federation: Since the Federation does not refit ships under normal circumstances (as Myles noted, the Federation will usually invest in creating new chassis instead of updating old ones), this station is a late game structure. Refits greatly increase stats of refitted ships, but all refits are costly and time consuming.

Klingon: Klingons are known to refit some of their smaller ships, and therefore this station would be a component of the Klingon Field Yard. Since the majority of the Klingon early game is geared towards raiding, the refits available in this field yard would allow the Klingons to create more specialized, defensive ships.

Romulan: Refitting ships is an essential part of the Romulan Mid/Late game strategy. Therefore, these stations are available to Romulans in unlimited number soon after building a basic research facility. The Romulan iteration of the Refit Station would be much more efficient then its Federation and Klingon counterparts, since this would allow the Romulans to maintain their speciality in 'refitting' their ships.

This is why I think this is a good idea:

1. This makes more sense - Although the current Romulan refit system definitely works gameplay-wise, canonically it makes about as much sense to have a 'refit your ship with the press of a button!' button as it does to have a 'replenish all supplies!' button. Having Refits Stations will allow for a more realistic refit experience.

2. New tech possibilities for the Federation and Klingons - This station would allow a Federation player to get more out of his randomized warp-in vessels. All the sudden, Excelsiors get much cooler if they can be upgraded to Excelsior Refits. For the Klingons, some ships may become more specialized after they are refitted. Brels can get more powerful cloaking devices and perhaps a stealth firing special ability.

3. New strategic possibilities - This is pretty self-evident, but a Refit Station gives Federation and Klingon players a new avenue of attack. A Romulan Refit station may also be a good way to update larger vessels, such as the aging Romulan Warbirds.

Thanks for reading!
-Ywingdriver

posted on May 30th, 2013, 4:36 am

I'm doing something similar to this. I am trying to set it up so you have a shipyard that will build custom ships, with new tech being researchable.

What your proposing though is a bit out of it. From what I can tell, you want the ability to select everything at once. The game can only support so many buttons at once.

Solution I came up with:
Setting up the shipyard to be like the Borg station, but it 'rebuilds' itself after its done. This is simple in theory, but implementing it is a bit tough.

If you want, I can send over the code when i'm done, or you can borrow it from my next version.

posted on May 30th, 2013, 9:16 am

I like what I see here.

But, I think we can make the idea better than it already is


For example:

The refitting yards refit vessels and can repair them much faster than a normal yard can.
Reason for this: Engineering and maintenance systems are made to refit ships - the crew is familiar with the refits changes and know where they have to put hands on to make it work again.

You can not build a yard to refit vessels. You will have to refit the yard to make it able to refit vessels.
The same is true for the Refit-Research-Station.
Maybe you will have to refit a research station and a engineering station to refit a vessel complete.
This will cause that everyone have to build a bigger base.

Another example:
There will be a station complex for refitting:
Made of both yards, a engineering-station and a research station.
I don't know if this would work - but maybe it could be build part by part?


I have a suggestion on refitting its self, too.
There are different refitting-trees of every Avatar.

The Avatars will have different trees to refit vessels.

Federation for example:
- The active Avatar will have a refit for the saber making it a fast heavy armed ship that is used for tackling an enemies mining outpost - or some thin like that.
- The defensive Avatar got a refit on the Saber, too. Making it much better armored to use it for guarding on a Mediteran Class Vessel or other unarmed ships.

posted on May 30th, 2013, 3:20 pm

I had to sit on this idea for a bit. I really like all of the suggestions. It may be time to build a 'Construction Facility' that facilitates construction/refits/research.

Here's another idea. I am a customization fanatic, so I can see why some may not like this. If you simply build a yard that strictly refits ships that were built before the refit, then it has almost no use. Future ships will have the refit which really makes it pointless. However, a refit station that 'specializes' a vessel is a different story. The Norway for example has three different abilities or tactical modes. With a refit station, you can build a 'vanilla' Norway, run it through the refit yard, and for the cost of supplies modify it for one of three roles that suit the ability. The end result is heightened attributes for each role. The refit station's GUI can use a selector (like a check box) instead of a build list.

Another possibility is a more fine-grained specialization where you can modify all ships attributes. If you want to beef offense and sacrifice system, for example, that's what a refit yard might do.

Perhaps you could have a refit yard's options locked and have different options through different avatars. This works better since the Borg's module system would still offer a unique advantage over other races. It would be really cool to see something like a Tal-Shiar refit facility where ships could fire through cloak even if the offense attribute is drastically slashed.

They might also be made into map objects to be controlled or captured. Make certain areas really worth fighting for.