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Urushiol
Urushiol
Join Date 05/2003
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Problem: v1.1 Beta 3 and ship designer upgrades

Automatic obsoletion causing problems

April 6, 2006 7:43:31 PM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
There is a new "feature" in beta 3 that I find extremely frustrating. When I upgrade a ship in the ship designer, the old version is automatically obsoleted. At first glance, this seems like a good idea - you usually upgrade ships to replace them. However, often I use one base ship (e.g., a decorated hull template) to create many ships with that base hull. IOW, I upgrade a base hull that I have spent a good deal of time creating.

With the change in beta 3, that hull becomes obsolete the first time I upgrade it, without any say on my part! This removes the option of using hull templates to create varying designs of ships with the same base look.

Please change this "feature" to allow the user to obsolete his/her own ships. Please remove the auto-obsolete function! Alternately, please put in an "un-obsolete" feature so we can undo the automatic obsolete. I'd prefer removal of the auto-obsoletion, but this would be a workaround that I could live with.
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Urushiol
Tommymac
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #1 April 6, 2006 8:19:13 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Can't you just use the upgraded design as a base and save the new one with a different name? That is what I've been doing with my base hulls up to now anyway - use 'em once and obsolete them til next game, and use the new upgrades to build upon. ( I don't make any jewelry changes anyway - just components.) I keep a copy of my clean ship folder with just base designs so that I can 'clean' the current one out by deleting it after every game anyway....
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Urushiol
Urushiol
Join Date 05/2003
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Reply #2 April 7, 2006 12:18:14 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Oldstatesman wrote:

Can't you just use the upgraded design as a base and save the new one with a different name? That is what I've been doing with my base hulls up to now anyway - use 'em once and obsolete them til next game, and use the new upgrades to build upon.


This is generally what I do for all my upgrades as well. However, with the automatic obsolesence changes presented in beta 3, there are scenarios that occur for me every game that confound this approach. Let me give you two examples.

0) baseline: I use a single dolled-up base hull for all ships of a particular hull size each game. It gives each race I use a distinct appearance and thematic flavor, and besides which, it's fun to create a new set of hulls once each game.

1) In the early game, I like to have two sets of ship lines for each hull size. I'll pick a small hull for this example. One line of small ships has no engines and is mobile. The other small hull line has engines and is used for offensie maneuvers. My normal MO is to create a cool small hull, then upgrade it to form the "engine" line. Then I upgrade the same cool small hull to form the base for the "non-engine" line. With beta 3, the base hull is automatically obsoleted as soon as I create the "engine" line, meaning that I have no template to use to create my "non-engine" line. If I use the "engine" line ship as a template, then I lose it to automatic obsolescence as soon as I upgrade it to a "non-engine" form.

2) In the mid game, I adjust my defensive strategies based on the weaponry used against me. Say I started out making ships with armor to fight one enemy using mass drivers. Another enemy presents with beam weapons, so I want to get a second line of ships going, this time with shields. I don't want to obsolete the armor line, because there are still enemies I want to attack (both now and later) with that line of ships. I will want to have two distinct lines progressing through the rest of the game. But when I go to upgrade my armor line to shields, the armor line is automatically obsoleted, and I can only build those shield ships unless I create a new armor line from scratch.

If you don't care what your ships look like, then this really doesn't matter much. However, I agree with many players that the ship designer is one of the better features of GC2. I become frustrated when I spend a lot of time designing a hull that looks good to me, then I can only use it in a limited capacity without re-creating it, simply because of the new automatic obsolesence feature.

Devs - If you really want to retain this "feature," is it possible to make this a check-box option for those of us who want to use consistent hull templates?

Thanks,
Uru
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Urushiol
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Reply #3 April 7, 2006 1:34:18 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I have just tried it I now understand what you are saying.

I just made a version 2 of a ship, and it obsoleted the first version - which I still wanted to keep around as an option to build.

I agree - this should not occur. It is impossible to use a consistent template throughout the game and keep the different versions. Big Problem. Kills much of the fun of the Shipbulder.


Is this a bug or feature? If it is a feature, can we have the option to turn it off? TIA!
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Urushiol
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Reply #4 April 7, 2006 1:58:32 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
After thinking about it, I bet this was done so the AI would upgrade their ships properly. But somehow it got turned on for the Human player too. I have just checked the updateed XML files that came with 1.1b3 and cannot find anywhere to turn this off. Must be hardcoded.
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Urushiol
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Reply #5 April 7, 2006 10:45:07 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I see where Stardock has said they have turned this auto-obsolete - off - is this fix downloadable now?
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