RiftHick
Posts: 54
Joined: 2/23/2015
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I can only find some dated text based guides for this but I'll try to keep it as brief as I can.
Creating ships, bases and stations might seem daunting but it really is simple once you've done it a few times. Ships and bases/ stations are designed in much the same way as each other though obviously some components are meant for either ships or bases/ stations and not really the other, many components are just universal in that they work just as well on ships as they do on a station. If you are going to be largely managing your designs manually then remember to make sure update/ retrofit columns are set appropriately you can do this by clicking the specific column for each individual design in the "Design Screen" in my game the hotkey is f8.
This design screen will give you a very basic overview of all your latest designs, including things like sizes, maintenance costs, how many current exist using those designs...etc, when you select a design it will highlight the whole row, then you will be able to make use of the buttons at the bottom of the design menu. A design can only be edited if nothing is using or set to use it (it might read "0" but there might be something out there getting around to retrofitting to it..etc) the game will tell you if this is the case, manual update allows you to edit a design regardless it will start you with the design as it currently is you will be able to change all components, amounts of each and things like your image that represents the design. Auto update takes what the design currently as and using whatever logic the game operates on will "update" the design with newer/ better components provided the components already have some basis on the existing design, in other-words it will not but put torpedoes and hangars on a design if the design as missiles and no hangars...etc. I would not use the auto update button until you have all important components on your designs and even after you do I would recommend that you double check each and every one of the designs after you use it just on the chance it decided to put the wrong shield/ armour/ reactor/ engine type on your design so yhea it can save you time but sometimes it can create needless work. Delete design is self explanatory, as for copy as new this allows you to take an existing design as a basis for creating a new design for example I could do copy as new using my Defensive Base design to quickly make an Starbase that is as a baseline identical to my Defensive Base I can then alter the Starbase design how I see fit potentially saving me time. Add new allows you to make your design completely from scratch without using anything as a template or baseline.
The editing screen itself is very straightforward and the screen does tell you all the relevant numbers you would want to know of your designs and will tell you if there is an issue with the design (insufficient power, lacking potentially useful components or just plain too big for current size allowance). On the left of the screen is a vertical sub menu that holds all your researched components (both "obsolete" and latest) to see all together you just uncheck the tick box above this sub menu. Once you have a component in this menu selected you then look to the immediate right of this sub menu to the left/ right pointing arrows, the right pointing arrows are the ones you need to concern yourself with they add the selected component to your design. >X5 adds 5 of that component to the design the single > adds a single one, when you make a mistake or want to remove components from a design select the component on the right sub menu then you use the left pointing arrows again the <X5 would remove up to 5 of that component while < removes just one.
Once you think you are done with the design (no conflicts, no problems...etc) take a look through the various numbers to make sure you have the required ability, power and the so on so that the design isn't partially effective at it's intended task then name your design and save it. Congrats you have finished your design, as for a basic guideline for designs then I suggest that before you finish/ cancel your current match that you take a record of all the important designs that the AI as made in your game and and try to use them as a guideline as to how much of what component to use, sometimes because components can be very different you may have to go off of size, power usage and firepower figures of your designs to be sure that they are comparable as you will have to take into consideration differing component sizes and energy requirements. The designs will be pretty simple early on as you lack size allowance and components for your designs so it might take you a few ingame years before you can finish the basic design depending on how advanced you set your start.
You can also save designs so you can use them later on or in later games, I don't use that feature so can't really say much more than that but I can see the value in that feature for speeding up the beginning of a brand new game when all designs are basically the same anyway. As for building them you are only incharge of building state stations and ships, you do chose where mining bases go but the private sector pays for everything when it comes to private sector ships and bases and the private sector will make their own ships. Becareful not to bankrupt either by building too big and/ or expanding too fast.
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