When you click on Warp Drive in the tech screen you can see the ships it enables like Dreadnought (5 other techs) and then it shows the five other techs you need (Large Hull Building, etc).


This post is 55% helpful and 45% inaccurate.

What worked for me on abundant world was:
Military: 2 engines,fill up with weapons. I prefer the largest hull since they last longer.
Colony & constructor: one module, fill up with engines. Rely on military/resource starbases to extend range.
Scout: even mix between engines and survey modules (level 2)
Transport: min 2 engines,max troop modules

In coarse galactic I've got beaten because my research was way slower.
Get atleast impulse drive. Moving slower makes your ship outdated when they arrive.
You started a cakewalk, medium/large galaxy?

why are you so worried about finding all the core ships? they all suck except for the colonizer and constructor right at the beginning, and I usually just obsolete core designs because they'd otherwise clutter the Shipyard screen and the starport governor screen.

Also, as far as finding out what the enemy has in thier fleets, I use scout ships (which are blank cargo hull ships crammed with sensors, if you don't have Kryo's hull mod, just use whatever cargo class ship is available) to look around at thier worlds and in thier region to see what weapons and defenses they have.

Dealing with ships can be confusing at first, but you settle into a strategy pretty quick once you've played a few games. Great tips in the previous posts. Main thing is to outpace the other races then you have the resources to build bigger ships with more weapons. As stated earlier, specialize in one line of weaponry at first. I like missles myself. Do well in the initial planet grab. Once you've beat the AI there, you've got a good chance of winning. Your fleets will generally be more powerful no matter how you build them (lots of small ships or less large ships). Run your attack ships in fleets as large as your logistics allows and sacrifice some range and speed for weapon levels until you have good miniturization, hulls, and logistics. Use diplomacy to keep the AI from attacking before you're ready (trade and diplomacy techs). If you use a few good strategies in the beginning, you'll find you can beat the game easily at Normal and even Challenging difficulty regardless of how you build your fighting ships. And you do have to micro-manage your planets. The AI does not do a good job of utilizing their planetary resources even at higher difficulty levels. That gives you an opportunity to get ahead right from the start.

Ship designs?

I use the standard constructor and freighter, but most everything else depends upon what techs I have on hand.

Sometimes I like playing with the ship designer, but mostly I just double click what I want on the ship and end up with something lopsided and ugly, but takes only a moment to design.

I guess the real problem is that each ship requires a lot of different things:

Two engines
One (or more) support moduals
The specialty item that defines the ship:

Could be weapons
Could be colony modual
Could be troop transport

Then you might also need some defense.

Sid Mier (creator of civilization computer games) said the secret to good game design is 'interesting choices'.

I guess that's why I LIKE the ship design challenge in Galciv II.

Every game I have to adapt my ship design to what I NEED and what I HAVE.

The Drengin are trying to extort money from me, I know that means they are going to decare war soon. They've got Enhanced Logistics, Medium Hulls and Harpoon Missiles, but no shield techs and I've got beam weapons.

I have INTERESTING CHOICES on how to counter this threat.

I can research a missile defense tech, or more powerful weapons, or better logistics or a better hull size, or maybe even more military starbase techs or possibly I just need an advanced support modual or engines or a miniaturization tech to squeeze just a tiny bit more stuff into my existing hull.

Whatever I decide, I'll have to do it immediately, which means I won't have everything I NEED, but I can quickly make some INTERESTING DECISIONS about what I can use that I HAVE.

Maybe I'll rush-build some existing ships, but probably I'll quickly hop into the ship designer and quickly make something that is the best I can do with existing tech to counter the specific threat that the Drengan are presenting.

So... I have medium hulls, but most of my fleet doesn't have my highest beam weapon, or my fastest engines. With just a little more logistics, I could get an extra medium ship into a fleet, so that's what I'll research. My newly designed ship has a little missle defense, one or two of my best engines, a support modual, and as many of my best beam weapons as I can fit. I just double click what I want, and let the ship designer auto-place the items.

Now for more interesting choices... I've got a design that will help me when (not if...) the Drengin attack. I'll get started on producing this design, but how much money do I have? Can I afford to rush-build a few on the border of my empire and the Drengans?

Maybe a better answer is to grab an older ship with the same hull size and update it to the new design... only takes a week or three. Do I update ALL of an older design to counter the Drengan threat, or just a couple of ships?

Interesting choices.

My advice?

Play a few more quick games on Tiny or Small maps at a difficulty level that you are comfortable winning at. Normal. Maybe Challenging. Save Tough for later.

When you are obviously going to win, just alliance everyone, win, and start a new game. That prevents the tedium of mopping up the galaxy.

Your objective is to gain familiarity with what techs you NEED and how to get accustomed to how the game flows... what the game is going to MAKE you need.

Go Neutral. Get the Neutrality Learning Center early in the game and out-research everyone. Tech advantage is HUGE in this game.

And that's probably what your real problem is... you don't have tech advantage, so you don't have good choices to make when war comes to your system. It's pretty frustrating trying to fight a war when you don't have half the techs needed to build a fleet that can respond!

Good luck!