Ship Design Automation Problem

[sPOONz]

Ive hit abit of a road block in this game. Ive taken to designing my own mines or military ships but if I allow the a.i to automate designs as well I lose the needed designs. Yet I dont want to have to manually design EVERYTHING in order to keep my desired designs current.

For instance, Ive designed mines that fight back. The a.i dosnt improve on that specific design, rather it will design a whole new one without the defence benefits I want. The only way I can keep my design choice is to leave automation off yet that requires me to update each ship/station/etc myself everytime new tech is researched.

So it appears you can have it one or two ways. Design everything yourself or let the A.i design everything itself. Is there no middle ground? Can I not highlight certain units to be excluded from a.i designs decisions?

[ASHBERY76]

The january update with solve this issue.You will have to do it all yourself untill then.

[sPOONz]

Hmmm, ok then. Well thats abit of a design flaw in the game but its nice to know the issue is being addressed in a few weeks. I guess il go play Close Combat untill then. Thanks for the info.

[Evrett]

You dont lose your designs. They are no longer the "most current design" so they are moved off from the "most current" design list to a different list. There are two other design list you can choose to view. And if you dont want to do that just delete the AI design and yours will be listed as the most current again. Then turn off AI automation until you want your ship designers opinion again.

There is no requirement that you update designs for every new tech. You are choosing that level of micromanagement and you are choosing to use custom designs over the AIs. Thats personal preference not a design flaw. The ship design czar comes from a different political party than you which feels putting guns on mining stations is a waste of resources like carbon fibre you dont have mines for yet. She'd rather see those rare resources go to the guns on military ships and star bases so their construction isnt delayed.

[Bentley264]

Once you design anything for yourself, keep the auto design button off.  When it comes time to upgrade,  (for instance a new engine) simply select all of the current designs, and hit the manual upgrade button.  Your manual designs will be upgraded as well with the same theme, incorporating new technolgy as appropriate.  (fighter bays become advanced fighter bays,  Troop compartments change to Massive troop compartments, fuels cells change to ultradense fuel cells, standard armor goes to enhanced armor.  Hyper drives can upgrade to fast jump drives (great for civilian ship survival against silvermists.)
 
When you research a new component, notibly damage control and ion cannons, these will need to be added manually.
 
Try to save your designs at logical points to use in later games, particularly startup, and size 300.
 
I put 3 to 6 fighter bays on all my mining/research/resort bases - seems to work pretty well - except against a determined attack.

[sPOONz]

Ok, this sounds like a do-able approach. I like your fighter bay suggestion too. Thanks.

EDIT: Ive just noticed that since Ive been designing my own ships my strength in 'firepower' has gone through the roof. Have I just unbalanced my game massively in my favour or does that a.i take note and beef themselves up? I might have to add another 'house rule' and ban weapon design on ships.

[Heliot]

Cool how will the update change the ai design? Will one able to design my military ships manually and leave the rest to the ai? And if I build in my civilian ships a nova core will the ai leave it there and not change to a fusion reaktor?