When to Rebuild Ships?

[=7CAV=SPC.Henson.K]

When does it make sense to rebuild an old hull? And how do you do it?

[Klikkit]

It makes sense when you need to upgrade the guns to a better quality level or improve the fire control or to replace the engine since it is slowing do or add or upgrade AA guns or to slap on some missiles or float planes or whatever.

Just don’t try to keep hulls around forever. Armor doesn’t upgrade and eventually the ship will just be too fragile against more developed weapons. Eventually it is better to just build a new ship.

[Lucky]

When its marked with (O) near its year in service. Or anytime you want really.

You click with the right mouse button on its name and choose "Open design for rebuild". After that you create modified design as usual and save it. After that, use right click again and choose "Rebuild ship". New window will appear with the list of all applicable designs. Choose one.

[MAD-3R_Marauder]

Agree with all of the above, but I'd like to expand a bit on the "replace engine" thingy, since this is (for me at least) a tricky one.

1. Especially for large, fast ships, it's _extremely_ expensive.

2. While you replace the old engine with a new one, as @Klikkit said above, your armor will _not_ improve.

3. The underlying hull will also not be replaced and over time, the hull weakens, so it will take more damage during combat and might even spread leaks if put under high stress (high speed maneuvers, especially when already fighting leakage).

Personally, I have grown fond of reliable engines on large ships, since those keep their speed a few years longer.
I then don't replace the engines when the ship loses the first knot of speed, but do "normal" rebuilds (for guns, firecons and so on, as mentioned above) and only do an engine-rebuild after it loses the 2nd knot of speed (unless it's so old, it's no longer worth it, then it'll be scrapped).
And when it loses a knot of speed _again_ that's normally the time to finally scrap it.

[josmith]

Also note that you do not have to make any changes to a ship to execute a rebuild. Just open it for a rebuild and tell it to do the rebuild without changing anything. Doing this will remove the "O" flag from the ship but will not restore any lost speed.

[khorne8]

Originally posted by SSG Henson USA ret.:

When does it make sense to rebuild an old hull? And how do you do it?

Personally, I think of rebuilds as being either:

1. Ordinary rebuilds, performed every 10 years to remove the [o] tag and prevent the ship from incurring penalties.
   
2. Extraordinary rebuilds, which are performed outside of the standard 10 year cycle, to push a revolutionary technology to the fleet.

Rebuilds cost money, so I do not perform extraordinary rebuilds unless the technology involved is really going to make a huge difference and tensions are high enough with a rival nation that war is likely to break out soon. For me, fire control technology like Advanced Director is usually what merits an extraordinary rebuild. The only other example I can think of is carrier rebuilds in the late 1940s and early 1950s to accommodate heavy jets, which give such a power spike that they're worth getting out into the fleet ASAP.

When it comes to the ordinary rebuild cycle, I almost never rebuild engines. It's crushingly expensive. If you're ever tempted to do so, I recommend penciling out the cost of the rebuild versus simply building a new hull. That math is not flattering to engine rebuilds.

So, I design ships for a service life of either 20 years (one rebuild) or 30 years (two rebuilds), with no engine replacement planned. In the third decade, ships will have lost substantial speed. So, I only plan for a 30 year service life if the design will remain viable even if it's two or three knots slower. This often means adding a knot or two to a design, so that for example where I might want a 28 knot battlecruiser in 1915, I'll pay for 30 knots so that it will still be able to keep up with a 28 knot battle line in 1935, once its engines have lost a couple of knots of speed.

The other outstanding candidate for non-replacement of engines are DDs, because after 20 years of service with the battle fleet, they can be cheaply stripped of their torpedo tubes and converted into valuable minesweepers or ASW corvettes. Who cares if the engines can't produce 30 knots any more? Purpose built KEs can only make 24.

[ThatZenoGuy]

Every 10 years, or when new FCS are researched.

[Sir Dunkyn]

On the build new vs. rebuild question, the factor I keep expecting to see discussed is the build time. If I can see that the Germans are determined to start another war in the next year or two, rebuilds become more important IMHO. If I can have a substantially more effective BB/BC in 12 to 14 months, or a brand spanking new one in 25 to 28 months (including work-up time in both cases), the time factor can outweigh the cost ratio question significantly.

For the record, I’ve been playing since RTW I and must have a thousand hours or more invested. It is easily my favorite solo computer game, “bugs” and all.

[Caratacus]

The best time to schedule rebuilds is just after a war when you should have enough of a period of grace to get them finished before another war starts. If those threat bars are in yellow or red don't rebuild.

Personally I stop building new battleships in the 1920s-30s and just refit them. As long as they are a decent tonnage (35k+) you can refit them every 10 years to a level that keeps them as relevant as they can be in the age of the aircraft carrier.

[Blyatman]

I usually keep my pre-dreads as raiders until they all die or get converted to light carriers

[V12]

The more I've played the game, the more I've done extensive rebuilds like engine replacements. I've found it especially useful on stuff like big protected cruisers, since CLs don't actually improve much until you unlock their dual/triple turrets. Any early dreadnoughts with coal powerplants get fairly rapid rebuilds since the "Stokers exhausted" speed deterioration during battle can be a difference-maker.

Jumping the late 1890s/early 1900s CAs and Bs up from 21kt to 24kt keep them useful in the early dreadnought fast battle line. Sure, they aren't going to duel a 6x2 12" dreadnought successfully, but as warm bodies/targets additional 12s to throw downrange in a mass fleet battle and lots of 6s to repel light craft, they're still handy.

[12/47]

IMO it is generally worth it to rebuild larger ships IF you think they are still relevant and can perform well in combat. For example in my current game in 1935 I just did a significant rebuild on a class of 1923 battleships. They were equipped with x9 14 inch guns and 14 inch belt armour, so I judged they were absolutely still capable of holding their own in battle so I put in a new fire control, upped the speed, and improved the secondary and AA armament.

Sure it was expensive and took some time, but it's not nearly as expensive or time consuming as designing and building a whole new class of battleships to replace them, and I can now donate the spare funds to building other ships.

At about the same time I scrapped a class of Heavy Cruisers that were as old as the BB's. I looked at the almanac and noticed they were just too slow and didnt have quite the punch or armor to stand up.