Building Ships

The starport can be set to build the same ship model after finishing the current ship. IIRC there is a checkbox in the options menu to change this, although this is "on" by default, so you would have needed to change it to get any other result. As far as setting the starport to build 3 colony ships, then a constructor, then 2 survey vessels - no, you need to do that manually. It's rarely a problem past the firt part of the game anyway.

For launching ships, try using waypoints. Set the waypoint, then use the little yellow target icon on the planet thumbnail (highlight planet, the target icon is on the thumbnail on the bottom left of the screen) to set the planet to send completed ships to the waypoint. Empire-wide changes can be accomplished in the civ manager/governors tab.

I agree. The Governor controls for controlling galaxy-wide ship production is way more useful than a build queue.

I disagree. The lack of a proper ship build queue is utterly insane.

It is a very basic feature, and I'm still a little bewildered that we've gone through several patches and two expansions and it hasn't made it in yet.

Makes me wonder if adding one would be particularly difficult due to something specific to the game...

Build queues are of questionable value in a game where you can (and should) update your ship designs as you research new technologies. Queuing ships for production means you would often be building older designs that don't make full use of the technology you have available.

While the benefit of constant design updates is obvious for warships I can attest from experience that there are few things more frustrating than having the AI beat me to a colony or resource by a single turn because I neglected to upgrade my colony ship/constructor design after researching ION drive - or forgot to tell the yard to build the new class.

If micromanagement is a pain, try reducing the number of stars in the galaxy - fewer colonies will reduce the amount of micromanagement without significantly altering the strategic balance of the game.

I would have to check but I think the social build queue updates when you research, in fact annoyingly so in many cases due to the terrible higher tech factories and labs. Irregardless... I am certain, because I do this all the time, the single build location for ships updates when you design a new ship using 'upgrade' from a ship that is already being built. So I do not see that a build queue, properly done like the social build queue, for ships would pose a problem with ship upgrades at all. In fact much less painful since ship upgrades can be mildly annoying when you are set back a few weeks but you still wind up with a useful ship unlike the labs and factories.

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Sorry, I am a noob, maybe I do not know what I am talking about, just love the game.

The reason I don't much miss a build queue is because DA military action is unlike most other TBS games like Civ IV where having a build queue is rather elementary.

The reason is twofold:

1. Ship designs are individualized. This means that you have as many as 4 or 5 different ship designs per enemy Civ and each other these require constant updating. It would actually be a pain to have to update your queues every time you get a relevant tech. In Civ, the units are pre-designed and auto-update. Since updates in GalCiv are not predesigned, such a prerender is not possible.

2. If you play even Large galaxies, the number of ships you eventually have to move around to get into fleets is just too much. The rally pointing is a great feature, but you can't really take advantage of it unless you have Governor assignments. In essence, Governor function takes over the auto-update and build queue functions. You assign entire systems to build a certain type of ship and waypoint the system to a system-wide or multisystem-wide rally point. If you need another ship type, just ask the entrie system en masse to retool. If you have an update, same thing.

I'd shudder at having to build queue 70 planets and then having to reassign the queues two turns later from a good tech deal.

have you never designed a new ship from an existing one using the 'upgrade' button in the shipyard? this _automatically_ updates all ships of the original design currently under construction on all worlds from the old design to the new design. in my immense map game this saved my sanity. well, to the extent that was possible!

JMiddleton: Were you addressing me? If not, I apologize.

I crave a build queue mostly for flavor reasons. I enjoy having my fleets consist of a mix of large vessels escorted by smaller ones. While perhaps not the best way to win the war, it is how I enjoy the game most, which is more important than winning.

Currently, to get a mix of ships, I must either queue a new one each time a planet finishes something, or use the somewhat absurd workaround of having planet A build a particular ship and have planet B build a different one and have them meet at a common rallypoint.

I suppose if you have no qualms with your fleet consisting of just a single ship type, then the current system works well, but I'd like a little more...

Having fun should be the most important consideration in any game but in my experience a mixed fleet is weak and the AI will exploit that weakness.

Small ships escorting large ships is a fairly recent innovation in naval warfare. The escorts are purpose designed for air or submarine defense because the capital ships are vulnerable to these threats. Combat in GalCiv II more closely resembles a slugfest between "ships of the line" from the Jutland era. Small ships have no business anywhere near that kind of battle.

I build nothing but the best ships I can - depending on the circumstances I may upgrade, decommission or trade older ships. If I'm at war, they often die in battle.

At my present level of skill, I'm almost always outnumbered by the AI but usually have a technology advantage. To maintain that advantage I need to update my ship designs with every new military tech I research. That's what the AI does and it won't take long for it to overtake you if you give it a chance.