If it were up to me I'd require a ship be in 'dock' at a starbase or planet before being eligible for upgrade.

  I disagree.  Setting your whole empire to 100% manufacturing and 100% shipyard(military) is going to pump out modern ships far faster than going to 100% economy and paying to upgrade your current fleet.  Not sure where the break even point will be, but it is not at 15:1.

  Choosing whether to upgrade existing or build new ships should be a balanced decision.  It isn't.

The idea that players should be forced to go to port to upgrade ships comes up from time to time.  The overwhelming consensus from players, outside of a few die hards on the issue, is: ABSOULTELY NOT . For many reasons, including micromanagment, balance, and that good ol' fashioned concept of "fun".  Micromanagment and balance concerns arise because this would inevitably encourage even more starbase spamming, this time just so people could upgrade ships hundreds of tiles and dozens of turns away from home.  The lack of fun comes in because, quite frankly, it sucks to waste 20 turns just so one can put a new set of blasters on a ship, just to turn around and waste another 20 turns to get you ship back where it came from.

Now the devs did consider this idea early in development.  But they ultimately concluded, rightly IMO, that there would be a revolt on their hands if they tried to change a long standing mechanic like this.  Personally, I shudder at the thought of this being implemented on an Insane map.

Now from an immersion standpoint, don't forget that the whole concept of range is part and parcel of this.  It's not just life support, but also resupplying ships after battle, giving them more fuel to travel, and generally everything else tied to the idea that ships can only go so far away from friendly territory.

No, requiring ships to go back to a base to upgrade would require a radical redesign of how ships, range, and distance are currently handled.  And considering that there are already disadvantages to upgrading far from home (longer time to do it, more expensive [I think], ship is a sitting duck while being upgraded), I see little reason to force players to waste turns to send ships back home and manymany reasons not to do it.

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As for the separate issue of cost, I do agree that it is far too much right now.  At least compared to GC II.  I'd have to back and check to see what the ratio was before, but right now it is completely out of whack.  From what I understand, the debs want players to choose the X-per-turn option when it comes to upgrading.  But that sucks as well, IMNSHO. . I am quite certain there is a happy medium where it still costs a chunk of change to upgrade many ships at once without completely bankrupting the player.  Just have to find it.

The economy is completely out of whack.

Credits only purpose is to cover maintenance cost, so that your treasury stays just above zero. Other than that, you should be somewhere between 100% Manufacturing or Science at all times.  And probably at 100% on one or the other of those.

Under almost no circumstances would you pay for upgrades.  If you even have those kind of credits on hand, you're operating at terrible efficiency.

15:1 is an absolute joke...I hope...

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A credit economy should be viable with enough investment.  In a lot of game the credit/income based economy has a weaker early game, but a strong late game.

I want it to be a strategic decision I have to make, perhaps taking all my faction wide planetary characteristics into account....

Right now it's just...Credits suck, Manufacturing it is; But there's still strategic decisions right? Um nope, just put it at 100% Manufacturing, it's optimal in 99% of cases. Only having more spill-over than next queued building cost forces any management at all.

Couldn't agree more, good sir, or take alot more time to upgrade then now if not + costing more credits (for the unconvinient location and lack of nearby usefull infrastructure).

Yeah, a prod economy has to be alot stronger and the preferable choice, to avoid just saving up credits to become a usefull strategy (and by that saving yourself upkeep costss until units are needed + being able to instantly buying the kind of fleet composition you need). Also building up build capacity (using tiles for industry and doing  industrial tech, starbases) need to mean something.

To avoid cheese and boredom (games are more fun when you have to think long term, or when long term factors are an issue when doing decissions) and stupid non-brainers; that's why upgrading (and buying of) ships needs to be VERY expensive and not instant. More like an act of desperation when you really need to fast produce something to tip the balance (but then PAY FOR IT!!!).

  I do like the idea of ships in a planet / starbase / shipyard being cheaper / quicker to upgrade (and repair) than an in field retrofit  It would reflect the idea upgrading a stockpiled reserve fleet, a reason to pull ships back for refit, and the advantage of building an advance starbase close to the front for quick refits.  I would not require it though.  I hated upgrading my fleets in Distant Worlds.

"No, requiring ships to go back to a base to upgrade would require a radical redesign of how ships, range, and distance are currently handled.  And considering that there are already disadvantages to upgrading far from home (longer time to do it, more expensive [I think], ship is a sitting duck while being upgraded), I see little reason to force players to waste turns to send ships back home and manymany reasons not to do it."

No, it would require the player to build a starbase as a forward-operational support base - s0mething navies have been doing since navies have been around.

Historically speaking, upgrades were extremely limited in scope, and done only with slightly more advanced technology.

The most radical upgrades I can think of in naval history would have been the retrofitting of 1st generation SAMs onto late-WW2-era cruisers.  Which was hideously expensive, as is.  So much so, that most of the proposed conversions were abandoned in favor of building new, from-scratch ships.

For example:  the USN's Alaska-class "large cruiser/battlecruiser" design would appear to be suitable for conversion to a well-armed missile ship. The studies to do it showed it wasn't the case, and the US Navy ended up retiring those ships after less than 10 years use, simply because the cost to convert exceeded the cost to build a new CG with even better capability.

Honestly, the only conversions that should realistically be economical are ones that are within 10-15% of the original design's production cost. Retrofitting anything significant has always been a least-best option.  Build-and-retire is (and always has been) the best strategy unless you're sooooo desperate as to need every single ship available.

Now, if there was some way to upgrade a ship being constructed in a shipyard (before it was complete), that would be interesting.