Frustrations With Ship Building

[Xenoform21]

So I've managed to put about three or four games under my belt, and the biggest peeve that this game is giving me is ship building. Don't get me wrong, the ship builder is very versitile and allows you so much freedom with constructing these masterpieces of ships, but i think we need to be able to implement options for allowing the Ai to design ships for you the way that you want them designed.

Personally, I enjoy the 4X portion of the game rather then sitting in the ship yard for an hour every time I research a new engine or hab component. I've just gotten so frustrated with the time required to upgrade every single ship.

At this point I let the Ai design my ships and bases for me, which is a huge disadvantage to what i'm seeing on these forums, with ships that don't burn fuel while they sit around ( geniuses those guys that invented solar cells hey? ), starbase labs that output triple the research then the default bases, torpedo boats and behemoth defensive bases, freighters that have more shields and armour.

So, the request that i would like to make, is based on allowing the player an easy way to design their own templates for ships. From what I understand, the Ai already has its own templates that it follows for ship design. ( Ie: for a destroyer, 4-5 beam weapons, 4-6 engines, keep under 200 points, etc. ) So could it be made so that we can generate our own templates for ships or edit the existing ones? So that way I can say that Research Station RST - x , will have 4 reactors, 10 armour, 7 of each research labs, etc. Then i can just let the Ai update these designs every time my researches put out new components.

One reason I bring this up is because I primarily play with the Atuuks, who's ships seem to be lightly armed, armoured and not particularly fast or nimble in comparison to other empires. Which is completely oposite from my gameplay style of fast colonizing and then turtling, and then having a huge number of ships that can't do Sh** all. Basically, I would like to change this without having to spend half of my game time in the ship editor.

[PDiFolco]

I'd find it better if the AI could build correct ships, instead of fiddling to bypass it ! [:'(] Plus the indispensable "refit fleet" or "refit all xxx design" feature...

[Xenoform21]

Well i guess what I'm saying is sure, you could let the Ai build perfect ships for you every time, but then your opponents would also have those perfect ships. And then its just a race to tech up before your opponent does.

I'm just advocating for a more streamlined ship builder to make the whole process easier.

[BigWolfChris]

Personally, the AI should NEVER EVER stick to one set of ship designs, if a perfect design exists, the game is flawed, perfection should never be achieved.  At the same time, if they do, we, the players, can defeat them easily, as we just need to learn their designs and counter... that's it

All ships setups should have strengths and weaknesses, it is then upto the opponent to defend against the strengths and exploit the weaknesses
If all ships are the same, winning is just about who gets the most hits on the other one first... you loose the strategic and tactical aspects, and the game gets dull
Look at GalCiv, 3 different types of weapons and defence, if mis-matched, the defences only worked at 1/4 efficiency
Space Empires was a little more complex, each weapon had a form of counter (Armour, Shields, PD), and so did most defences further into the tech tree (Certain weapons could bypass Shields or Armour, and PD only effective against missiles/torpedoes and fighters/satellites)

But DW has a more limited scope making me think that maybe, a perfect design is possible, but I'm hoping I'm wrong

[theonlystd]

IF there was an upgrade all button id be pretty happy.. And if i could get the AI to ignore my designs in regards to obsoleting and such ...

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: Xenoform21

Well i guess what I'm saying is sure, you could let the Ai build perfect ships for you every time, but then your opponents would also have those perfect ships. And then its just a race to tech up before your opponent does.

I'm just advocating for a more streamlined ship builder to make the whole process easier.

No, I'd just want sensible designs .. No bomb bays on bases, faster ships- please, no colony ships unable to catch up an orbiting planet (yes, I've seen that !!), solar panels everywhere, specialized ships instead of the jumble we have (with starport doing research, totally unarmed mining bases, resort bases equipped like warships), etc...

[Xenoform21]

Well the idea that i have of creating a template for such a design would fit that bill perfectly, IMHO. That way you can make those pretty ships with extra shields and armed mining bases, etc. and still let the Ai deal with the process of upgrading.

[Gertjan]

I hope they make it easier soon, not more complex. I dont like spending too much time in the design screen.

[freeboy]

In this same vain I had an issue wit hship design, I did a design and saved it for a CA, cruiser, and then tried to build it but it did not show up, nor did any other ca or capital ship, although my military suggested several time sa fleet that included both! I love a good challenge! lol I like the diversity and am strugling with these details , hopefully its just me!

[ductape]

my biggest problem, is that very soon after i design a ship, the AI decides to obsolete it and replace it with the latest and greatest. Annoying, and for me it makes ship design pointless.

[Joram]

Freeboy, I believe all you need to do is make sure the design is not marked as obsolete.  Then you should be able to build it.  I'm not sure how quickly the AI makes things obsolete but you might want to double-check it.
 
Anyway, I too find this the least enjoyable aspect of the game.  It's very labor intensive and not always intuitive.  I hate that if you turn automation off, then you have to worry about all those silly civilian ships.  The AI's automation of design is also fairly poor with bugs making them design fairly useless things.  A few examples, the base with bombardment torpedos that a I posted or similarly a cruiser with 6 lasers and 10 bombardment torpedos or examples other people have posted where older tech is better than the newer one.
 

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

In this same vain I had an issue wit hship design, I did a design and saved it for a CA, cruiser, and then tried to build it but it did not show up, nor did any other ca or capital ship, although my military suggested several time sa fleet that included both! I love a good challenge! lol I like the diversity and am strugling with these details , hopefully its just me!

What's your max size yard ability ? It starts at 200 with starting tech, you can make a larger design but have a message "can't build". AI is stupid enough to propose to build such ships even if you can't ...

[Interesting]

I agree with everything that has been said.

I want to:

Be able to upgrade all designs with the press of one button, each component to a higher tech, without adding or removing more components.
(instead of clicking on each design, clicking upgrade, then clicking ok, then selecting another design... repeating this process for each one of the thirty or so designs EVERYTIME a NEW TECH IS DEVELOPED IS A PAIN)

This detracts from the gameplay experience!

Once I upgraded the designs, I have another BIG PROBLEM.

Retrofit the existing ships/bases to use the superior technology.
I have to open the Ships and Bases windown (F7), filter the ship type, select a ship on the list, select it to the lower left screen, go to it, close the ships and bases window, maybe zoom in close enough to it (can be done before too), then finally INDIVIDUALLY RIGHT CLICKING THE SHIP and selecting "Retrofit".

And then what? I have to wait for it to go to the nearest possible shipyard where it can retrofit for the new design.

If I want to retrofit multiple ships, one after the other, they dont. Its like they enter in a "queue" line, or they use more resources, this might be even bugged.

Retroffiting a fleet, for example, I have to click ship by ship and send them to retrofit, but after a bunch has been issued the order, something happens and some ships stops half way. No. Its not the fuel this time. No messages or warnings explaining why wont they proceed with the retrofit order.

This is a major major pain.

Its not like we will "retire" or "scrap" them and buy new ones, it takes time to build the new ships and require more resources.

I can only avoid this problem, by waiting huge leaps of technological advancement, just so I dont have to lose 67.66% of my time doing WHAT THE GAME SHOULD AUTOMATE FOR ME.

Ships that uses missile like torpedos upgrade to missile like torpedos, instead of colony bomb type of torpedos. It has to be reprogrammed/fixed.

The whole "automate" thing, should be broken down into parts, so we should be able to decide if we want to automate refuels, automatic retrofits (periodically, instantly after upgrades, queue the retrofit after the last mission/mining cycle is done), instead of

In the beggining I used the "automation" of individual ships for the refuel, but then I noticed the "automation" also issues missions, like escorts, patrols, build stuff and so on, missions that sometimes take armed ships to enemy territory, missions that sometimes expand my territory unorganizedly, like a construction ship on automated is waiting to get attacked by pirate ships from somewhere I didnt explored yet (as in, somewhere I didnt prepared defenses, fleets strategically for), why? because automated construction ships will prioritize gas miners planets outside your boarders after a while. Its very easy to keep track of what the AI is doing, you can barelly prevent it from screwing up.

Thats why I turn "automation" off, and this lead to another problem. If there is no automation, ships end up iddlying on space after each manual task I assign them, wasting energy and fuel, thats why I changed design for all STATE ships to have Energy Collectors. This way I can have them sitting anywhere, ready for any counter attack. Before I gave my military ships Energy Collectors, whenever I wanted to use a fleet, they werent "ready", not enough energy or fuel. I could let them sit in a big space port with many docking bays, but then I lose the logistics/strategic advantages.

Its not so much of an economic problem. Its a problem of "what I, the player, have to control, what I have to be aware of the AI shortcommings and prevent it"
I wish the developers would fix the upgrade/retrofit/design/automation problems.

[Shark7]

I'm actually finding it far better to build the ships myself instead of leaving it to the AI. I like having lots of cheaper, weaker escorts to fill the patrol roll while leaving my bigger ships available for smashing stuff.

[freeboy]

ok, I can build these large ships , as my recent builds prove BUT I do not see my designs, perhaps it is obsolute, but I JUST made it! wow, this is an issue! lol
ok, back to killing sapce bugs  thanks

[freeboy]

ok, the dd is still on the list and I can build it, the CA is still on the list, BUT I cannot build it! but I can build other larger ships?
Anyone have an idea what is happening here? If it is the ship list for designer.. is it still in teh game? can I turn off the ai removing ships? help!