Repairing Ships via Upgrade

only problem is that the ship bieng 'upgraded' is vulnerable for one turn. Although once I had an enemy attack a fleet that was bieng upgraded, but the armor was already adapted to what the enemy was using and that protected my ships, either that or sheer luck.

The other thing is the cost, because high end ships would be more expensive, and so you have to pay for each time you do it. However that cash could be used for other things such as buying new ships or something.

An exploit usually means that there are always positive effects (if you do it right anyway), so I think that this is more of a 'cheese' since there are still risks and you have to be careful not to loose too much cash.

When I tried upgrading to the same class the cost was very low (~250 bc) even for an expensive ship. The cost was low because I wasn't really changing anything. This compares to the produced cost of ~1500 MP if fully manufactured on a planet (if directly purchased the same ship is ~20,000 bc if you're neutral, more if not).

Paying 250 bc to repair the hit points of a ship that would otherwise die in the next battle and cost 20,000 bc to directly purchase seems like a good deal to me.

This seems like a bug/exploit to me. That being said, I don't see how they could fix it fairly! Neat trick tho

They could "fix" it by not healing the ships when they are upgraded. It shouldn't be that hard to do, since you have to stick with the same hull type your total hp's won't change, (cargo -> large hull excepted, but a damaged cargo hull is also a dead ship, so it shouldn't matter) so just add a variable to the code that stores the damage taken or hp's remaining and apply that to your new upgraded version. Good catch on that bug though, I hadn't really noticed it before, probably because I usually just remove damaged ships to planets to act as defenders so they can heal, and forget about them unless I'm losing the war and need to pull out those reserves later.

They could "fix" it by not healing the ships when they are upgraded.

Well, they could. But since this is the only way to repair a ship in less than 4 turns--by any means--they really shouldn't. If we could use constructors to repair ships and starbases (which would be somewhat balanced in that constructors take significant time and money to make in large numbers), fixing this would be fine. But the whole "invade for two turns and hit 'End Turn' twenty times, then repeat" thing gets really tedious really fast.

They could "fix" it by not healing the ships when they are upgraded

Gotta agree that I believe HPs should not be healed during upgrading.

Also ships that have used any movement points shouldn't be upgradeable that turn.

IMHO They aren't bugs or exploits but definite cheese and oh boy do I smell.

Maybe adding a repair option that works similar to but seperate from upgrading would be nice. Say ship retains HPs while being repaired if it is attacked.

I know this would add to micromanagemaent but really just too much cheese as is.

I know this would add to micromanagemaent but really just too much cheese as is.

Okay, how?

Are you actually suggesting that it would make more sense for people to build a ship and then set off charges all over it than it would for them to leave the new parts undamaged?

Seriously, why the hell would you build a ship that's half blown up when you finish it? I admit that this might unbalance the game a little, but it's the obvious logical (realistic) approach. Kinda like how we'd be able to turn our Black Hole Guns against a planet in real life but we can't in this game.

The simplest solution to the repair situation is to make extra ships. These will reinforce your fleets when some of your ships have to be repaired. It costs more, but balance that against having your ships idling for many turns.

When those ships are repaired, they can act as reinforcements in a future attack.

Are you actually suggesting that it would make more sense for people to build a ship and then set off charges all over it than it would for them to leave the new parts undamaged?

Are you saying that just cause I add 1 more weapon on my ship because I got more room with miniaturization that all that hull damage would be fixed by adding that weapon?

Sorry, it's a cheap shot I know but couldn't resist.

Oh by the way I don't consider this a major problem just 1 of the things that can use some improvement to make the game even better.

The simplest solution to the repair situation is to make extra ships. These will reinforce your fleets when some of your ships have to be repaired. It costs more, but balance that against having your ships idling for many turns

Hope your talking about if they change it so that upgrading doesn't repair HPs.

As is, I can attack and then upgrade the ships that take damage on the same turn. Then they are ready to go the next turn.

Are you saying that just cause I add 1 more weapon on my ship because I got more room with miniaturization that all that hull damage would be fixed by adding that weapon?

Absolutely. "Fixed" it would be:
Captain: "Lord Drath says we need another set of turrets on the starboard side."
Crew Member: "Sir, the starboard side was ground to powder three weeks ago."
Captain: "So repair it."
Crew Member: "Um, no. Our contract clearly states that we must put the missile battery in broken, jury-rig it to the power plant, and detonate half the magazine to give symmetry with the damaged port side."

Now it's:
Captain: "Damn it, we lost the starboard batteries. All hands, get in there and help with repairs."
Crew Member: "Sir, we'd have to almost completely power down the ship to do that. No engines, no shields, no guns for at least a week."
Captain: "Well, we really have no choice. Hopefully the rest of the fleet can keep the Torians off our backs until we're done."

The simplest solution to the repair situation is to make extra ships.

Only it doesn't work like that. The new ships will have half the HP of the old ships, and will take several weeks to get to the area. If you're doing some sort of deep strike or if you had unexpected losses and your extras went down, it's actually more practical to take over a planet and park there for five to ten weeks, which is itself highly impractical.

Well with that arguement your saying that they should have an option that you can repair your ships in 1 turn with the only negative being that the repairing ships HPs are dropped to 1 for that turn. No cost or anything else.

So attack, capture, put damaged ships on same tile as an undamaged fleet for protection, repair damaged ships between turns, Roll merrily on the next turn.

I have since checked this out and have some corrections to how I said this works in my original post.

First off, if you try to upgrade a ship to it's same class, it just doesn't work. However, it doesn't charge you the cost of the repair as I originally said it did.

However, you can go into the shipyard, select a ship class to upgrade and save the exact same ship to a new name, for example Fighter IIA. You can then select a damaged Fighter II out in the field and "upgrade" it to a Fighter IIA, thus repairing the damage. One difference between this and my original post is how much it actually costs.

A top line ship (large hull with 3 Doom Rays and 5 Aereon Missile Defense) cost 750 bc to "repair" in this manner (even more if not neutral). This is sufficiently expensive that I can't go around and repair every Fighter II every time it receives damage. I end up using this tactic only on experienced ships whose hit points have increased dramatically. For the low level Fighter II that gets damaged, it's more cost efficient to use it till it dies and replace it with a new Fighter II off the production line.

With this in mind, I feel that this is a legitimate tactic that provides a reasonable benefit for a reasonable cost.