Especially with the release of patch 1.4.21 and the change to fleet accelerators, we have given rise to a new issue: a zillion design versions.


Example Scenarios:

  1. You are playing Vodyani, and you want to get a new Ark to a system as fast as possible. The best way to do this is to design the Ark so it has as many engines as possible, move it to the destination, plug it in, and then upgrade it with the desired FIDSI modules once its there. If this is done every time the Vodyani expand you will have to repeat the process many times and be on version 60 of an Ark. Tedium.
  2. Your empire is wide and vast, your home system has the highest industry and is best suited to pump out fleets, but how best to get them to the front lines? Rinse and repeat the above, however now we have more than just an Ark designs cluttering up the works, say hello to version 50 of your cruiser.
  3. Same thing with Behemoths (but this has always been the case with them). It's not as bad with Behemoths as it takes a good deal of work to have more than 5-6.

I am well aware of the bottom-line retrofit cost for "upgrading" ships, it is a small penance to pay honestly. Buy a new ship close to the front lines for thousands or exploit the aforementioned with a 30 dust down payment instead.


      Suggestion1 :

Similar to other 4x games (looking at you, Alpha Centauri) make ships able to be upgraded into ANY design that uses the same hull. Add a pop-up menu when you click the upgrade button with a named list of potential candidates. As a bonus this will fix the issue with mis-clicking "New Fleet" and instead upgrading whatever you had selected.


      Suggestion 2:

Make engines a different type of module altogether. Honestly it makes no sense when you can slap 6 engines on a tiny coordinator class ship, are the engines all itty-bitty? This opens up another level in ship specialization as certain factions could be slow with few engine slots (Unfallen, Sophons) and others have speedboats (Vodyani, Vaulters).

     

      Suggestion 3:

Nerf upgrading, make it hella expensive. It is literally harder to dissamble a house/car/boat and rebuild it than it is to just build a new one. Or make it so that changing module types is far more expensive, if you get the pre and post upgrade version of the design the same in industry cost but with completely different modules you only have to pay the down payment (30ish dust). Kinda silly right?


Thanks for reading