A couple of questions

[ghealy]

Several builds back I noticed a new button in the design panel 'Update Old Design'. I can't find anything in the Pedia about this, thus my questions.
- This is only for an old design created during the current game, not one created in a previous game?
- I am currently building a design - two units per turn for 19 turns remaining. If I modify that design and click on 'Update Old Design, do I need to save the revised design for it to work?
- Also, do I need to add the revised design to a production line, or will the units not yet produced in the list of 19 remaining automatically be produced to the newer revised design?

Appreciate any insight, TIA

- Gene

[MatGB]

Right, it's fairly new but was done at a point I was busy with other things so I'm not 100% sure who did it (a relatively new contributor IIRC). You're right that the Pedia/documentation/tooltips need updating as I'm also not 100% clear on what it all does however...

The Update button only works if you've lodaed an existing design from your empire designs. When you click update it effectively does three things: 1) delete the old design, 2) save the new design 3) put the design in the place the old design was in the producible items list.

It doesn't update existing items already being produced (for a start, that would be open to abuse of the whole research time + build time balance).

At the same time, the ability to move designs up and down the list was added (and this needs some extra UI work I think), so producible items is no longer listed by 'earliest saved design' first, you can rearrange things.

That's basically the full extent of my understanding of it, if someone (the creator) can expand that'd be grand.

Also, if someone wants to submit a PR that expands the in game explanation of it that would also be grand (tooltips are good for this rather than Pedia I think).

[ghealy]

Thanks, Mat, for the quick reply. Just so I'm sure I understand.

If I create and save a design - a Robotic hull, add 3 mass driver weapons, one armor plating and an extra fuel cell. I add this design to the production line on a planet with the necessary Orbital Drydock, setting it up to produce one unit at a time and repeat for twenty times. As the game progresses, one ship (Ship #1) is produced, leaving 19 to be be built. During this time I research shields. I go back into the design panel, select this design and replace the extra fuel cell with a shield. Click on 'Update Old Design'.

The ship (Ship #2) currently being built will not have the modified design as it was in production at the time of the modification. But will Ship #3, the next to be built after the modification was saved have the revised design? Or do I need to add a new production order for another batch of ships?

[Cpeosphoros]

The ship (Ship #2) currently being built will not have the modified design as it was in production at the time of the modification. But will Ship #3, the next to be built after the modification was saved have the revised design? Or do I need to add a new production order for another batch of ships?

The latter.

[dbenage-cx]

But will Ship #3, the next to be built after the modification was saved have the revised design? Or do I need to add a new production order for another batch of ships?

(No, and Yes). You would continue to produce the old design as long as it remains in queue. Any additions will use the newer design.
From my understanding, the old design is not upgraded, rather a new design is created and the old is obsoleted (An upgraded version of the old design).

A tooltip would certainly help, but I think the confusion may largely stem from the name duplication.
By default the upgraded version has the same name as the original, although you can modify it before hitting 'upgrade'.

Maybe this should default to pre-pending some keyword (upgraded, improved, new) to the name?
Could possibly append a version token instead (MkII, v2.1), but that might be pretty error prone unless it is a separate attribute.
Personally, I tend to keep the unmodified name. It does get confusing on which are older designs, but they are easily spotted by stat differences.

[ghealy]

Thanks for all the replies.

Before the change, I'd build 'Ship1', If I did a slight mod such as add improved shields, I created 'Ship1a' . If I did a significant upgrade, say from mass driver weapons to Laser, I create a new build and name it 'Ship2' I'd stop building 'Ship1' and start a new build of 'Ship1a' or 'Ship2' as the case might be. So really the new Upgrade Old Design does nothing for me.

Now it would be worth something if it automatically set the new revised design as the next to be built in the production line. (Shrug)

Again, thanks for the clarifications.

- Gene

[LGM-Doyle]

Thanks MatGB and dbenage-cx for handling the question.

I added the feature.

MatGB your description is perfect.

If there are problems with the UI, then please post them as a github issue. As the developer, I use the feature as I expected it to be used when I wrote it and so I don't see any problems. The problems may be spectacular, but I don't experience them.

I added a github issuehttps://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues/671 for the tooltip and documentation.

The intent of the feature was to keep the list of producible designs in the order the player wants, with a minimum of UI fuss, while allowing regular fiddling with designs. I like designing/upgrading ships. I don't like deleting the old ship and then scrolling down to the bottom to find the new ship.

I intended the feature to be fairly general. There is no way for the game to know why you are updating the design and to figure out when you want to replace all queued production. A lot of tech has restrictions on build location or desired pilot species. For example, hulls, armor (asteroid based), robotic shields, colony modules etc. I decided to confine the changes to the screen that you are looking at, no mysterious changes on hidden windows.

ghealy, I agree that automatically making the changes in the production queue when that is what you want and it is permissible is desirable. However, I didn't think of a UI that worked.

dbenage-cx, I did consider automatically suggesting a new name, but like you I almost always keep the same name.

[MatGB]

I hadn't observed that you could change names on update, that's actually useful and I've now started using it.

One thing that the design list definitely needs now though is a delete all selected/mass delete of designs function.

That or the ability to load only saved designs of a specific hull type from your saved selection (this'll be less bad when Robotic Hulls cease to be a prerequisite for an essential tech, obviously, but it'll still be annoying)