Want to start this off by saying I just picked this game up during the steam sale while knowing nothing about it and have been blown away by how fun it is.

Kudos to the devs.



That being said, retrofitting is quite a headache. There's three major flaws in its design that I've found, and unfortunately a large bit of the coding for conditions would have to be edited to fix these issues.







1. Naming

a) Immersion is kind of broken when your unit changes from "Drakkenling" to "Drakkenling 2". As a new player it's easy to get confused and assume the 2 means its current level, or who knows what.

Fix - Keep the unit's base name, rework the retrofitting condition so it is not name based.



b) Once an existing template has been deleted, you can no longer create a new template with the same name.

Fix - If a template is deleted, remove it from the list of unavailable names.





2. Retrofitting

a) If you receive units from a quest, you are unable to retrofit them unless you already had their technology unlocked; if you unlock their tech after receiving the units, you can never retrofit them.

Fix - Either let all units that have been in a player's control be available in the retrofitting menu regardless of technology (preferred) or let units be available for retrofitting once their technology is researched (or minor factions assimilated).



b) Once an existing template has been deleted, you can no longer retrofit units of that template.

Fix - Rework the retrofitting condition so it is not name based.





3. Using Templates

a) When retrofitting a unit, you should be able to select from any template of that unit's base type to retrofit to and have the unit be renamed appropriately, rather than the current state of linear retrofitting within the template.

Fix - Have the retrofit button bring up a new menu akin to the military menu where all available templates for that base unit type are listed.



b) When building a unit from a city, every single template you have made is listed. If you've made 5 templates for each basic unit type, you're looking at 15 different templates for 3 units clogging up the construction menu.

Fix - Have the construct unit button bring up a new menu akin to the military menu where all available templates for that base unit type are listed.







I'd like to hear others' opinions on more possible issues or suggestions on what would make retrofitting less problematic.

I agree completely about that retrofitting a unit and having your unit change from Drakkenling to Drakkenling 2 or 32 is unnecessary and you should be free to rename the unit as you like. It could appear a minor issue but i also feel that it breaks immersion.

Agree about all other points.