Pretty sure it does list the techs needed, since 1.1 I believe. Make sure you're all patched up already.

At any rate, the core ships are pretty much junk. You're far, far better off designing your own, and won't make it much farther than the lower difficulties if you don't.

I wish there was a way to list all my CUSTOM designs and what techs they need.

It is difficult to plan out my research, when I don't know what I need for the next level of XXXX design. I have about 100 custom designs per weapon and armor layout. A more easy to manage HUD would be welcome. Maybe for Dark Avatar.


Another idea is a Custom Shipyard. A place to design ships where "current" tech doesn't matter. You design them with "any" tech in mind, and they appear when you get to that tech. I hate having to play a "junk" easy game, slowly researching all the techs and designing things to my liking so in my "real" games they are spread out where I want them. Heh, I just like being organized like that!

For example:

You go in and design a ship based on assumed technologies. I pick that I know this level of miniaturization, I pick that I know this level of weapon, armor and propulstion tech - then I build my design and save it. This could even be available outside of the game itself.

Master of Magic had a custom magic item designer that was separate from the game. I don't see why GC2 couldn't have a custom ship designer that bent the rules a bit. It would make playing so much less of a headache