Am I missing some UI tricks?

[SlyFrog]

Posted this elsewhere, but thought I would come here. Please note, I am NOT looking for flames or discussions on whether the UI is good or bad. I'm just having a difficult time with the game, and would like some answers to know whether I should keep playing it.

Alright, I just started playing SEIV Deluxe, and now I'm immediately remembering my issues with the UI from when I tried to play the game a few years ago.

Here's the situation. I create, immediately in the game, a scout design with 6 level one engines. It happens to be in a planetary queue.

I get a research breakthrough, such that I can now produce level 2 engines. I go to the design screen. First, I notice that I can't click a button to upgrade all designs. I have to do them individually. Okay. So I go to upgrade the scout design. Press the upgrade button. Hey, it at least pops in level 2 engines. Great! Then I try to save the design. Whoops, it makes me pick a new name for it, because I can't change the design if it is already in a queue somewhere. Huh? So now I have to have to designs, one of which is obsolete, that I have to go click on in every queue to remove and replace with the new design, and then I have to obsolete the old design. This is many, many clicks, for a simple upgrade that must happen hundreds of times in this game.

I want to like this game, but am I missing something? Is it really that many clicks and screens to do something as simple as take advantage of a new engine type that becomes available?

I'm serious, please let me know, because I want to like this and hope I am missing an easier way.

[Q]

I hit the upgrade button, change the design name from "Antares X" to "Antares XI" (or similar), hit the create button. Then the old design is already selected and you hit the make obsolete button.
Yes you have to do this for every design where the new components are used but it is quite fast IMO, at least much faster than in SE V at the moment.
And if you have old designs under construction don't remove them but retrofit them after they are finished, otherwise you loose what already has been constructed.

[douglas]

SlyFrog said:
that I have to go click on in every queue to remove and replace with the new design

This is the source of the vast majority of your excessive clicks and is very rarely worth the effort, both in terms of going through the UI to do it AND in terms of the actual game mechanics. Each and every one of those ships under construction has almost certainly been worked on for at least one turn. If you replace it with the new design, that progress towards completion is lost along with the resources you spent on it. For something as minor as the very small cost reduction from higher level versions of the same engine, I often don't even bother upgrading the designs because the benefit is so tiny and it's something I'd have to do for every single design I have. Engine upgrades that don't actually give me another movement point tend to wait until something much more important needs upgrading in my games.

[Black_Knyght]

I tend to upgrade my designs pretty much the same way as "Q", but instead of upgrading exist ships I generall relegate them to static defense roles or the like.

[Artaud]

For me the upgrade process goes rather quickly. I just add a "B" or "2" to the existing design name, if I have only upgraded engines. If I make more than one component upgrade then I choose an entirely different class name.

I retrofit some ships right away, but often some members of the upgraded class are on patrol someplace and not near a space yard.

I regard retrofitting as an option, not a requirement. My fleets often contain modern and obsolete ships.

Sometimes I will create a specialist class for old ships. Those obsolete frigates can still give you good service if you strip out the weapons and install point defense cannons, or drone bays, or satellite bays, or supply bins, or medical bays.

[Suicide Junkie]

Indeed. Retrofitting is often not worth the time and money for small tech improvements...
Changing all your ships and queues over the instant you get a minor upgrade actually hurts your empire.

Consider the engine upgrade. The difference in cost of the new drive is about 20 minerals. This saves you about 2 minerals per turn per engine, given average-to-weak maintenance reduction in racial setup.

Each ship you retrofit costs you about 275 minerals per engine for ion drives, 400 minerals for CT drives, and more for higher tech drives.
If we consider going from Ion 1 to Ion 2, then you're spending 1650 minerals to retrofit the 6 drives.
Retrofitting will save you 12 minerals per turn.

In order to break even that ship must survive, and not have any further engine upgrades, for 138 turns.

In other words:
Never EVER upgrade ion 1's to ion 2's. Build new ion 2's, but leave your existing ion 1 ships alone.

While it may be convenient to upgrade those Ion 1's at the same time as you upgrade shields or weapons, it is expensive.
Shields and weapons, on the other hand, are almost always worth the cost of retrofits, since they improve your combat effectiveness.

[Possum]

I do it just like Q said. I use arabic numerals for combat ships, changing to a new number for a major upgrade, or adding a lower case letter suffix for a minor upgrade.

I do support ships the same way, but I use roman numerals for them.

I am a big, big upgrader. I build frigates with a repair bay and 2 engines, and leave them sit at major bases for fast repair capability. It's not at all unusual for me to have a per-turn repair capacity of 40-50 systems at a forward base.

I tend to build bare-bones combat ships, using only the absolutely essential systems - engines, sensors, weapons, armor, shields. For this reason, I build a lot of support ships, and I tend toward somewhat specialised support ships.

To a certain extent, this helps with upgrades, as the systems that need upgrading are often on a support ship, rather than on the combat ships themselves.