New player and noob questions

[noahthethird]

Hey, just got this game on a friend's recommendation, and I gotta say, I'm mighty impressed! I'm a big fan of autism-inducing strategy games, like Europa Universalis, so this seems right up my alley. I've never encountered this developer before... are all of Matrix Games;' games like this?

Two quick problems which I can't seem to resolve. First, I've noticed that when retrofitting certain ships, particularly my combat fleets, the vessels will not actually retrofit. They'll just stand around indefinitely, or only half the ships in the fleet will retrofit and the other half will cancel their orders. I have been able to retrofit my fleets successfully, so I think I knew how to do it (right click, Retrofit at Nearest Shipyard) but it does happen quite often, so is there something I'm missing?

Second problem is, how do I repair the deathstar, that World Thingamajig, I forget what it's called exactly? I found one in a debris field and had to kill a bunch of rival empire constructors that were trying to bring the beastly looking device online. It looks important, so I parked a fleet on top of it and tried to send my own construction ships in to claim it; unfortunately, whenever I issue a Repair order on the abandoned superweapon, the construction ship bugs out and jumps out of the system, on a beeline to a different colony two sectors away. What gives? I've fixed ships in debris fields before - in fact, I have a constructor repairing an abandoned alien battleship right next to the World Blower-uper. But they refuse to fix the true prize. Again, is there something I'm missing?


I've got all the expansions installed, no mods, version 1.9.0.0. Playing as human with only the first Storyline checked off in the game creation screen, if that matters. Thanks!


-edit- reading through the latest patch documentation, I suspect these may be patchable issues; if so, are save games compatible between versions?

[Bingeling]

Matrix is mostly a war game publisher, the average game is complex and turn based (it seems). DW is untypical of the site.

The retrofit button should work, but ships not having anything to retrofit to (they are the latest design) will just refuel.

You constructor probably jumps to a spaceport to pick up resources to do the repair.

It is probably a good idea to patch to the latest version

Edit: Save games are typically compatible between patches unless otherwise stated, but you may have to start a new game to see all the changes of the patch in effect.

Each save game folder lives in a version folder, so you have to go "up" some steps to locate your old game, though.

[noahthethird]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Matrix is mostly a war game publisher, the average game is complex and turn based (it seems). DW is untypical of the site.

The retrofit button should work, but ships not having anything to retrofit to (they are the latest design) will just refuel.

You constructor probably jumps to a spaceport to pick up resources to do the repair.

It is probably a good idea to patch to the latest version

The ships in question are definitely in need of a refit. I've got Taskforces with three or four different generations of warship thanks to this problem; I had some luck with disbanding fleets and babysitting each individual ship until it actually decided to retrofit, but that's horribly time consuming and I'm in a war right now, so I don't really have the luxury of making sure each ship completes it's order.

As for resources, what resources will they need? Is there any way to check? I'm still not entirely clear on how construction ships and repairing "works", behind the scenes, I mean.

[Bingeling]

I am not sure what resources are used in repairs either. I expect the typical ship resources...

Another reason for your lack of retrofit could be lack of cash on hand. I had this puzzle me in one game. A "big" retrofit can be quite expensive.

If you go to ship list, sort by fleet, multi select the fleet members and press retrofit there, it should tell you the retrofit cost.

[noahthethird]

Money is not an issue at this point, I'm swimming in cash thanks to those Trade Wonders and a couple tech sales. Anyway, I tried installing the latest patch; I'll get back to the game tonight after class and see if that resolves anything! Thanks.

You wouldn't hapent o know what components define a ship's ability to conduct repairs, would you? Is it the Construction Yard component? Would I also need Weapon/Energy/Tech plants and docking and cargo bays and so forth? I ask because I'd like to make some military tenders, smallish ships I can attach to my fleets, dedicated exclusively to refueling and repairing damaged vessels. Are construction vehicles the only ships that can do this? Or can I, say, throw some component onto my Frigate class chassis and turn them into mobile repair stations? I'm getting to the point where they're no longer really necessary for combat purposes.

[Bingeling]

A construction ship is the only one that can repair. I am not sure if it can repair a non-crippled ship (I never tried). If it works, it will not be a smallish ship, it will be a giant ship following your fleet around.

At the very bottom of the energy tech plant, there is the damage control things, after a few techs they become repair bots. Ships with these repair themselves.

To refuel your fleet, you need resupply ships. They are enabled by another of the techs in the last 3 lines of energy techs. They must deploy at fuel sources to mine fuel, and be deployed to allow others to refuel at them.

The plants are required to make components put together at a shipyard. They belong nowhere near a military ship.

Frigates as used by the AI designs are of little use to me as well. Thus my empires tend to have none after the very initial phases. Maybe some survivors hang on in some defensive fleet that has never been modified.

[Canute0]

The construction ship can repair any other ship and normaly don't need resources to do this.
The World destroyer is a different thing, for this ship a construction ship need some resources. When you order a construction ship to repair a world destroyer it will prolly head to a spaceport to pickup the resources.

But the better solution are to add repair bot's to your design they slowly repair the damaged components. Repair bot's are redunant, no benefit from multiple.


Not sure why some of your ships from a fleet don't retrofit correctly. You wrote that you can manualy order them to retrofit and they are doing it then, so anything should be ok with the design and cash. Missing resources don't prevent it to start the retrofit.

[CyclopsSlayer]

If he is issuing individual upgrade orders to ships in a fleet, while the fleet as a whole is automated, the Refit order can be countermanded with some silly order to go park at a empty system and look pretty or something.

I have also seen when a single Base is overloaded with Refit or Refuel orders, some of the ships present seem to get 'stuck'. I ordered on fleet to refuel, all 12 ships moved to the Gas Mine, 10 of them fully refueled. No matter how many times I repeated the refuel order those last two ships stayed with dry tanks. Eventually kicked them from the fleet and ended up scrapping them.

[Bingeling]

When a fleet receives an order, the fleet members receive that order. It makes sense that your retrofit order is overruled if the fleet itself receives an order.

The refuel issue could be a bug, but often a fleet can be in an area with some gas mines and colonies that are not well supplied with fuel. Refueling the whole fleet can be hard (no one has enough fuel). Some ships in the fleet may be much lower on fuel than the others. I will then tell the fleet to refuel, and afterwards give the members very low on fuel separate orders to refuel. They will not head to the fleet target, since the fleet has reserved all fuel there, but will head to mines and colonies nearby where there hopefully are some small amounts of fuel in store.

But any order given to a fleet will cancel any "special" orders given to single fleet members. A fleet member that lacks an order will move to the fleet leader. I abuse this with otherwise idle fleets to visit ship locations, to perform invasions on less defended colonies, and to refuel new arrivals lower on fuel than the rest.

[elanaagain]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

... A fleet member that lacks an order will move to the fleet leader. I abuse this with otherwise idle fleets to visit ship locations, to perform invasions on less defended colonies, and to refuel new arrivals lower on fuel than the rest.

Yes, this is how I keep my troop transports quickly on task. My invasion troop ships are grouped in a TF with one flagship. I order the fleet to invade a world. I then give the flag ship (not the fleet) an order to hang out somewhere away from the battle – perhaps back at base / home colony with more troops waiting. When each LST (landing craft) has dropped its troops, having no new order, it will automatically seek out its flag ship. Viola, back to base. Frees me up to handle the other parts of an invasion.