How do you retrofit an annexed countries ships?

[XselenS]

I can't seem to figure it out. I have tried to recreate hull designs using the annexed countries ships hulls (like a converted battleship hull). But I cannot retrofit the ship I inherit via annexing a country. What am I missing here? Is it just not possible to retrofit designs that you never designed?

 

[GrandVezir]

Is it just not possible to retrofit designs that you never designed?

AFAIK, the only ways to refit a foreign design are to either:

• License the design from the country of origin, or
• Convert it to an aircraft carrier.

 

[Anaraxes]

Is it just not possible to retrofit designs that you never designed?

This is correct. If your country didn't design the ship that you own, you cannot refit it. GrandVezir mentions the two methods (that I know of): license the design from the country that did design the ship (difficult if you just annexed it) or use the ship in a carrier conversion (which isn't really a "refit").

The other case where I've run into the problem is the "Destroyers for Bases" focus. The UK gets a bunch of old US destroyers, which they cannot refit since they're not UK designs. At least in this case, it's usually not that hard for them to license from the US.

IMO, rather than outright prohibition of the refit, there ought to be a sliding scale on the refit cost of components which is lowered if you have the design. Any country that can build ships will be able to figure out a way to get some new 20mm AA guns onto their ship. It'd be easier if they had the actual design specs, measurements, structural calculations, and all that, but they'd get it done. I could say the same thing about, say, replacing a battleship's main gun turrets, except here "they'd get it done" is hugely more difficult without the design and support docs, probably as expensive or more than designing and building from scratch. "Minor" upgrades should be doable, "major" ones possible even if so slow or expensive as to mostly never happen (much like current major refit items even for the designing country).

For annexed countries, it might be nifty if there was a chance to capture the design bureau and get licenses for captured equipment from that ex-country. I have no idea what the appropriate chances would be on a historical basis. One of those bits of chrome that likely costs more research and development time that it's really worth, but might liven up games on occasion. (Forget Plan Z, we just captured the Admiralty...)

 

[twillie96]

Can't you open up the ship menu, then go to design and redesign from there?

 

[Corpse Fool]

Can't you open up the ship menu, then go to design and redesign from there?

Not for ships acquired from other nations.

 

[vermicious knid]

It isn't possible without modding the equipment files for the hulls.

I don't have the files in front of me to quote the exact syntax, but for say ship_heavy_hull_1 you'd need to add "can_convert_from = {ship_heavy_hull_1}"

It will disable achievements, but I can confirm it works.

 

[valisk]

As I discovered some years back, much to my delight and mentioned by others above, licensed production is the way forward, arrange a license from the originating country and you will then have the blueprints for that ship in your designer, you can modify these and refit the ships as normal. I assume you might need to release the original nation as a puppet or collaboration government to be able to license the templates in your case.

Can get a little costly, as from memory the modification costs on foreign templates are double your own, so you have to decide if it is worth the effort and xp, and what to prioritise, in my latest game, the Polish, Dutch, the French both Free and Vichy have all gladly handed over their Navies so that His Britannic Majesties fleet can better co-ordinate their use to keep the world free.

I may as a result license some destroyer templates so I can fiddle about adding sonar but maybe not, the French Carrier and Battleship blueprints will be the priorities so that I can mod them with effective anti-air. The heavy cruisers I will probably use as surface raiders in one of the few sea zone where I don't have wolfpacks roaming around.

At this point, I have well over 550 ships to tinker with, so I will likely focus on upgrading my RN ships (which I already have superior templates for, and cost less to modify) using the bulk of the unmodernised allied navies to keep the rump fleets of Germany and Italy honest, whilst my modernised battlefleet heads out to smash the Japanese upstarts.