Upgrading existing ships

"Retrofit"

Select a ship, click on Deconstruction Orders (ship with green recycling triangle), then Retrofit (ship with hammer).

The default hotkey is ctrl-E.

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"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it /is/ a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

A comment regarding the strategy of retrofitting existing ships. Think about whether you really want to upgrade or not before you do it.

I recently chose to bring in virtually all of 2 attack fleets (they were still assembling) for retrofit. The problem was that the upgrade was pretty expensive, and ended up causing my economy to choke for 10-15 turns. In retrospect, I wish I had sent those 2 fleets in to die with their lowly tech, and spend the resources building new fleets.

I'm not saying that the latter solution is always the best solution - just think about the expense you are taking on and how much retrofitting you are about to do, and time consumed away from the front and so forth.

Then hit CTRL-E and upgrade away

Retrofitting ships saves their experience level. Depending on the amount of exp built up I far prefer to retrofit as it makes them much better in battle and harder to hit. Sending inferior ships into battle just to have them destroyed is a terrible waste of resources imo. The only thing that bugs me about it is the game lists a retrofit as a ship lost and it drops your score for doing so.

Nice to know if you are mega evil

Remember : Pillage! then burn.
- Cpt. Kaff Tagon

Good point regarding the experience level - that's another one of the factors to consider before a major refit project.

I'm not trying to say refitting is bad (I like it too much). I'm trying to point out that you can starve your offense for ships with too much and unnecessary refits.

Or improve your capacity to do speedy retrofits

The Repair Component works wonders there

Remember : Pillage! then burn.
- Cpt. Kaff Tagon

With regards to retrofitting large numbers of ships at the same time.

If I were to select a planet and build say 4-5 defence bases in orbit, would it be better to place a repair component or a space yard on them to speed up the retrofit process?

Yes Indeed it would, because the repair tonnage those components give are added up.

I build dedicated repair bases or ships which are fully loaded with the repair component ( there is no restriction ) and call them dry docks. on every defense position and build hub i put a view of these. patches everything up in no-time

Remember : Pillage! then burn.
- Cpt. Kaff Tagon