It takes a variety of techs to be able to get a premade ship... but the ones you make by hand will always turn out to be better.

What I'll normally do is wait for a tech which is a significant leap above what I last fielded and then slap it on a new design.

I design my own ships and add a version number, like v1 Defender, v2 Defender....
After i research a new ship tech and im close to constructing a ship in a colony i go to the ship builder and see if i can make an improved design and if i can i make for example a v3 Defender.
You can change what ship a colony is producing without penalty, so id change production from v2 to v3 Defender

If you like the idea of ever winning a game, design your own.

Don't believe anything you see on the premade ships. Attack rarely matches to what you see on the ship - mass driver attacks when the ship looks to have missile pods, primative 1 attack defenders which look like they have a pair of phasors... everything on premade ships is eyecandy methinks. The colony ship had me baffled for a while too, but its definately only a single module's worth on the core one.

Custom designs >> core designs.

I agree with OldDocc about using tiny fighters, but I've recently discovered on the higher levels that the AI is much better at adapting than I gave it credit for. My fleets of 10-12 tiny fighters were overwhelmed in the later stages of the game by fourth generation Drengin Heavy Fighters. Needless to say this was a nasty shock to me, and resulted in the need for a better ship very very fast. Hence the Ship designer, which is another part of the true genus of this game. The problem with tiny fighters as my game dragged on is that the AI was building bigger ships and adding in more defense to their ships than the equivalent firepower that I was able to fit on my tiny fighters. Of course the military bases probably help a lot.

Besides I find nothing more satisfying than the first victory of your custom ship class over the enemy.

It takes 30 seconds to slap a couple guns, engines and defenses on a hull and get back to the game. You don't have to make them look pretty, just functional.

(sigh) Okay, I guess I'll design my own.
Just kidding. I don't mind designing my own, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something about the core ships. Thanks for the quick responses.

Miniturization techs aren't included in the "Other Techs Required" section. Try researching a few levels in that if you aren't getting the ships when you expect to.

-Dewar

** Where the hell is the technology tree that lets me build battleships?? **

You need to research medium, large, and huge hulls. Make your own ships from there.

You can "obsolete" core ships, which will get them out of your way for the game you are currently in. You're not supposed to delete core ships. But I agree, it would be nice. I like the names the core ships have, so it's mildly galling to have to name my own ships something a little less intuitive.

As for very quick design, you can use the PLACE button to have the computer pick harpoints on the hull for your stuff. It never looks pretty, but it is functional. I admit, I use the place button to put components on so that I don't have to do math to figure out if everything will fit or not.

I HATE core ships. They're weak, slow, and are never what I need for a given situation. The only exception is the combat transport, which I'm starting to dislike because it's too weak by the time huge hulls are researched.
Custom ships are designed for the situation, look better (even for people with no talent with them, like me), and add some pride to the game. "I just flattened your army, with my own ships. Now that's ownage"