Slitherine

Hi folks, does anyone ever upgrade carriers? Example here Lexington 42 to Essex 44. This would cost over 400 points! I could get a lot of nice units for that.
The main properties of a carrier are the number of aircraft bays, speed and air supply - all the same for these two as far as I can see?
Maybe if the cost was 50 points or so I might consider it? Am I missing something - or is the upgrade cost far too high? Cheers,
Chris

Just noticed the Lexington is damaged - but if I repair it first the upgrade is still 360 points.

Upgrade to another unit class always leads to high costs, even with tanks. Find ours here in the game unfair

If you upgrade a unit to a later version of itself it costs much less. For example, if you were updating a Lexington 42 to a Lexington 44 it would be much cheaper. In the example you list you are changing to a totally new type of ship, an Essex class carrier and that costs as much or more than just buying a new carrier. The only benefit is retaining a unit experience. I find that upgrading a unit isn't worth the cost, unless it's heavily damaged. When you upgrade, the unit gets fixed for free.

That makes sense. Thanks!

Rogue5108 wrote:If you upgrade a unit to a later version of itself it costs much less. For example, if you were updating a Lexington 42 to a Lexington 44 it would be much cheaper. In the example you list you are changing to a totally new type of ship, an Essex class carrier and that costs as much or more than just buying a new carrier. The only benefit is retaining a unit experience. I find that upgrading a unit isn't worth the cost, unless it's heavily damaged. When you upgrade, the unit gets fixed for free.

An upgrade is connected with damages with costs. Always. and they are the same as repair and upgrade individually as far as I had remembered.

Even when considering upgrading from something like an Essex '42 to an Essex '44, it's difficult to say whether the price is worth it because it's somewhat based on your game style. If you are surrounding your carriers with cruisers, battleships, and aircraft to make sure that the torpedo bombers and dive bombers don't get close to your carriers, then upgrading your carriers to get better defensive capabilities probably isn't that important and you might be able to use those hard-earned resource points on some other shiny new weapon. But if you don't have many ships to escort your carriers, then investing in carrier upgrades might be something to consider.

If it helps at all, my preference is to set up a strong defense around my carriers if I expect to get attacked. Aircraft carriers are expensive to buy, expensive to repair, and take damage pretty easily--and it's spectacularly annoying if they get sunk! If any aircraft are on board when a bomb hits, they also take damage--which just adds to all the repair costs. And on top of all of that, if you are playing against the computer, the computer is going to ruthlessly go after your carriers in most scenarios. So, if you invest in more escort ships rather than concentrating on upgrading your carriers, you might save on some repair costs and you can always use those escorts to attack other ships or pound away at some poor, helpless land units!

Even if you upgrade within the same type/line, i.e. Lexington to Lexington and so on, I found the upgrade cost often inattractive for a +1/+2 stat increase, often of not primarily attractive stats.

Some units like Infantry benefit greatly and its a must have for them, improving the air defense of a Carrier for a very hefty price is not worth the price and often so much that it is out of question anyway.

It's not just carriers, for many units like tanks e.g. buying a fresh new unit is often way more cost effective.