Having a delay upon ordering the mod to it actually being installed seems like a surefire way to make the Player not change them all the time, but if you're opposed to that then there are probably other ways. Here are some suggestions:

- Instead of a period of delay upon installation, there could be a period of adjustment, where the fleet suffers combat penalties for a few battles/turns where they get acclimated to the new gear.

- Or, if there are too many adjustments in a short time period, the fleet could get disgruntled or something?

- Make it so that after installation, a mod cannot be uninstalled for like 3-4 turns or so. The Player would have to consider the effects of the mod over a longer period of time.

- Alternatively, after the uninstallation of a mod, make that mod unavailable for installation (in any slot) in that fleet for N turns, because the hardware needs to be "resupplied".

- Some mods could only last N turns/battles, and then supplies run out and it cannot be used again until resupplied (there's a cooldown)

Perhaps you'd have to recall the fleets to some super huge shipyard so that they can all get upgraded, but in doing so leaves your domain vulnerable to attack for a period of time.

If you have a fleet/ship repair mechanic or your invisible supply mechanic, that can be delayed and/or take longer if you install/uninstall a modernization. The logic being the engineering/maintenance crews would be busy installing/uninstalling modernizations. I don't know if this logic fits the time scale of your game but it seems plausible. This way you can spam in times of peace but during or around conflict, you'd have to be more cautious with choosing a loadout.

To keep it KISS, a temporal penalty after upgrading could be that the fleet can't visit /attack planets that are not under the empire's control.

This would give a defensive advantage, as a defending fleet can be upgraded every one or two turns, though i'm not sure whether it'd work if you have multiple fleets.

OK, got it, thanks.

(of course feel free to post if you have interesting solutions, maybe someone else will need them too)

How about this?

The fleet on your coreward border has lasers and ECM. But you're mopping up the Cylons, and the Glurlons that were "helping" kill those evil Cylons have an abundance of ships down there. You don't want to send the whole fleet back for refits leaving your border undefended. Instead, you convert a few ships at a time over to the anti-radiation shield. You give your fleet a desired configuration, and it slowly starts refitting ships a few at a time over to the new configuration.

This could be modeled a few different ways:

A fleet has multiple configurations and each Configuration has a percentage attached to it. In this case we'll have a DesiredConfiguration of Lasers and Radiation Shielding. At first CurrentConfiguration (Lasers and ECM) is at 100%, but as turns tick by, the Current Configuration percentage ticks down, and the DesiredConfiguration percentage ticks up. This rate can be determined by infrastructure vs. difference in component costs.

Or you could split the fleet into multiple Wings. You can start out with a Wing of 314 Laser and ECM ships. You can have a Wing of Ships being refitted (worth 0 if combat breaks out). And a Wing of 0 Laser and Radiation Shielded ships. As the turns tick by, you move ships from Wing Refit into Wing Radiation Shielding- and move ships from Laser Wing into Refit Wing.

- Eck