Ship Upgrade Questions

from GalCiv2 Forums

The upgrade system still confounds me. I play off and on and it is so long between sessions sometimes I can never seem to get the hang of things. Regardless, I love the game I keep coming back for more. Here is my current conundrum:

 

How do I upgrade a ship design without resetting the entire weapons/shields configuration? It seems when I click on a custom ship design, then select "upgrade" the interface preserves the hull design and all the cosmetic goodies but ix-nays the weapons, armor, and shields. I would like to start with the original design and work from there. Does there exist a way to upgrade ships in this fashion? I would think there might a be a setting in the setup somewhere?

 

Additionally, I still don't comprehend the upgrade concept and how it applies to ships in the fields. If I select "upgrade" to ships in the field are they upgraded where they are located? Or do they need to visit the local Jiffy Lube Starbase on planet?

 

One more question regarding the upgrading: When a ship is upgraded does the new design automatically overwrite the old design? Or should it be saved under a new design?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

9,775 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

How do I upgrade a ship design without resetting the entire weapons/shields configuration?
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Go to the main Menu then to Options then select the Interface tab. The last item on the screen is an option to "Remove Functional Components When Upgrading a Ship Design". Make sure the box for this option is NOT checked and you should be all set.

If I select "upgrade" to ships in the field are they upgraded where they are located?
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Yes. However the length of time it will take to perform the upgrade will be dependent on how far away the ship is from your territory. As long as the ship is within your influence area then any upgrade will take 1 week. Be careful because I've seen upgrades take over 100 weeks if far enough away from your area. In that case it's better to move the ship closer to your nearest area of influence which could include a starbase of any kind.

While upgrading, a ships hit points are reduced to 1 and they cannot move until the upgrade is complete so the ship can be very vulnerable. You can only upgrade ships to ships of the same hull size but a cargo hull can be upgraded to a large military hull based ship and vice versa. Finally of course the cheapest way to get a ship of any particular type is to produce it at a planet but of course you could instead just buy it either directly or on a lease of different lengths. Buying a ship is inefficient and wasteful of cash however there are times that it's beneficial to do so. In this case a compromise solution is to build a ship consisting of just the desired hull which is usually quick to produce and then upgrading the hull to the ship's final design. This can save a lot of cash but I forget the actual ratios.

Or should it be saved under a new design?
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You can actually save it to the old name but it's safer to choose a new name and the system warns you to do this. If you ignore the warning what you end up in the ships directory is an _0 for the first incarnation and a _1 for the second incarnation without changing the name actually used in-game. It can also get a bit funky if you upgrade the design but don't automatically upgrade every ship of this type that you've ever produced. The best advice is to avoid trouble and just add or increment a number to the ship design name. For my first colony ship I simply call it Colony, and then the next Colony1, Colony2, etc.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Mumblefratz, reply 1
You can only upgrade ships to ships of the same hull size but a cargo hull can be upgraded to a large military hull based ship and vice versa.
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Cargo and Large are the same size in DL only; this is not the case in DA and TA and you cannot upgrade a Cargo hull to a Large hull in DA/TA.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Cargo and Large are the same size in DL only; this is not the case in DA and TA and you cannot upgrade a Cargo hull to a Large hull in DA/TA.
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Thanks for the clarification. Yet another DA/TA difference about which I was unaware.

Actually while we're at it I'm sure you know the precise ratios of the cost of purchasing a ship outright versus the cost of upgrading the hull to a complete ship. Can you share this information?

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Mumblefratz -

My sincere thanks. You have answered my questions to the point. I could have, of course, through trial and error and thumbing through the digital manual discovered the answers, but learned and experienced players on this forum are a much better source of knowledge.

Thanks again!

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Mumblefratz, reply 3
Actually while we're at it I'm sure you know the precise ratios of the cost of purchasing a ship outright versus the cost of upgrading the hull to a complete ship. Can you share this information?
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Part of the problem is it's not a precise ratio ;)

It appears to be approximately (ShipBuyCost-HullBuyCost)*0.6, where ShipBuyCost and HullBuyCost are both derived from (Cost^1.1)*6.

For some reason the math doesn't add up with constructor modules, though.
There also happens to be a failing when applying it to ship designs that are upgraded to other ship designs, as it seems to be based in large part on component similarity.
And last but not least, don't try to apply it to upgrading a ship to a ship that costs less-or the same, for that matter (yes, that includes "upgrading" it to the same ship design)...those numbers get really funny.

But for your purposes, it would appear to be about 56% of the instarushbuy cost.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

But for your purposes, it would appear to be about 56% of the instarushbuy cost.
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I thought it was a bit better than that but the bottom line is that you can save money upgrading versus buy and whether it's a bit less than half doesn't matter much qualitatively but it's nice to know the real numbers.

Thanks again!
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You're welcome.

Most folks around here are pretty helpful. There's not quite as many of them as there used to be but there's still plenty of folks around that know quite a bit about the game. My main problem is that I have DL down pretty pat but for whatever reasons I'm just now in the process of playing my first ever DA game and it's likely to be awhile before I play my first TA game.

Sole Soul is pretty much the formula king of all versions of the game so you can take anything he says to the bank.