Upgrading and updating and designing and reediting and ... boring

Are you playing stock games? Mods like the Balance Mod considerably reduce this constant retrofit "burden" because the tech tree leveling has been overhauled. Level increases also carry higher research requirements than in stock. You can also change your game setup at game start to increase the tech costs.

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See my PBW game stories on http://users.pandora.be/banzaiboy/sevpbw/.

In the design screen there's an upgrade button, I use it a lot to update my existing designs, add one or two components and build them. Also, I only upgrade older ships when they are not needed (guard or attack) and they are more than a few levels old OR a stategic change has taken presedence (i.e. increase point defence in as many ships as possible) - to alleviate further the need of frequent upgrades I'm always selecting Slow Research (highest tech cost possible).

You In the Ship Design menu, there is an Upgrade button that will upgrade all the components on you ship to the latest design. Also, you can set you Ministers to Ship Designs, and they will create all the designs for you. To do that, just go to the Empire Settings menu, and scroll down the the Ministers button.

I definitely agree. I often put off making new designs until a great need or a quantum leap in tech has occurred. Most of my old ships work just fine.

(and we have a winner in the unofficial ugly avatar contest... )

There's also a button "upgrade queues" or something. Has that one actually worked for anyone yet? I had hoped that after upgrading an existing design this button would automatically change all queue items with older designs to the latest one, but i've never seen it do anything

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See my PBW game stories on http://users.pandora.be/banzaiboy/sevpbw/.

It works, but it only changes the things in queues which are not currently beeing build. So if you have 5* ships A beeing build on a planet and hit the button, it will not upgrade any of them to AII, but if your queue says 1*A, 1*A,... then the second one will be build updated.

Hmm, that's really too bad. Especially when you build units in batches of 10, 20, ... etc.

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See my PBW game stories on http://users.pandora.be/banzaiboy/sevpbw/.

And i see no instructions on how to use that function.
I'll provide that.

When you upgrade your design, don't mark it as obsolete yet. make certain the old unit is still selected.
click the "upgrade queues" button. Then, chose the new design from the provided list. click "OK".

Any designs not in batches that aren't being worked on are upgraded to the new model. Then you can mark the old design as obsolete.

Allso, generally, you shouldn't be building your warships in batches greater than 5. Now for units, you can generally scrap those after you've built the new ones.
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I'll make one later.

Hey, how about upgraiding fighters, drones etc?... I can't find the way to do that.

As I know, upgrade queues upgrades facilities, not the ships

Units (satellites, drones, fighters, troops) are considered cargo. You can't upgrade those, but you can build the newer designs and dump the older ones (launched units need to be retrieved to planetary cargo first).

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See my PBW game stories on http://users.pandora.be/banzaiboy/sevpbw/.

It's too bad... That mean if I have 500 fighters, I need to dump them all? And then I must spend minerals for another 500?

=( too bad

Other options are to ship them off to the front and use them as chaff, or use the "fire on" command to have your own ships blow them up, or leave them as garrisons on less important colonies.

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

Or jettison cargo when they are in cargo at a planet. Poof! Gone.

Nice ways to dispose of figters)))

But even you get some minerals from scrapping... you had to spend your time untill all of them will be finished at constructors queues