Missing civilian ship designs

[WCG]

OK, I'm in my first game of Distant Worlds: Shadows, playing an empire in the pre-warp era. I went into the ship design section, but when I close it, I get the following warning:

Warning: Missing civilian ship designs

You do not have any non-obsolete designs of the following civilian ship types:

Colony Ship

...

You may want to review your choices and ensure that you have some non-obsolete designs for the above ship type.


Now, I've researched Colonization, but not any of the specific planet types. However, the game says that each race gets one planet type for free. In my case, as a human, that would be continental planets. So shouldn't I be able to colonize a continental planet without doing any more research?

But I can't build a colony ship, and the appropriate tech doesn't show that it's already known, either. Am I really missing some civilian designs? (I can't seem to build a resort base, either.) If so, how can I "ensure" that I have some of these designs?

When I go into ship designs and set it to show me all of them, I can see designs for cruisers and capital ships, even though I can't actually build them yet. But I can't see a design for a colony ship (or a resort base) at all. So is this a problem with the game or not?

I'm confused.

[Shadow Tiger]

Have you researched larger construction? Colony ships are big because of the colonization modules. The inability to build certain bases argues for this as well. Check the bottom part of the Energy research section.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: WCG

OK, I'm in my first game of Distant Worlds: Shadows, playing an empire in the pre-warp era. I went into the ship design section, but when I close it, I get the following warning:

Warning: Missing civilian ship designs

You do not have any non-obsolete designs of the following civilian ship types:

Colony Ship

...

You may want to review your choices and ensure that you have some non-obsolete designs for the above ship type.


Now, I've researched Colonization, but not any of the specific planet types. However, the game says that each race gets one planet type for free. In my case, as a human, that would be continental planets. So shouldn't I be able to colonize a continental planet without doing any more research?

But I can't build a colony ship, and the appropriate tech doesn't show that it's already known, either. Am I really missing some civilian designs? (I can't seem to build a resort base, either.) If so, how can I "ensure" that I have some of these designs?

When I go into ship designs and set it to show me all of them, I can see designs for cruisers and capital ships, even though I can't actually build them yet. But I can't see a design for a colony ship (or a resort base) at all. So is this a problem with the game or not?

I'm confused.

If you get that message I am pretty sure you meet the basic needs to be able to design a colony ship. If you are on auto design for ships then check the empire options and see if the tick is next to the colony ship design, if your not on auto then you have to design one yourself. As a human you can colonize continental planets, just click add new in the design screen and design one from scratch, the process is made straight forward with the list of things needed being shown in red in the box at the top in the middle in the design screen. Just click the components to list alphabetically and the first component in the list should be a 'basic colonization module', as long as you have researched colonization, which you say you have.

Darkspire

[BigWolfChris]

Once you've researched the first colonization tech you can colonize any planet that the races in your empire can colonize (providing you have X amount of whichever race at a single planet)

The other colonization techs are for you to let races colonize planets they can't naturally

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: BigWolf

Once you've researched the first colonization tech you can colonize any planet that the races in your empire can colonize (providing you have X amount of whichever race at a single planet)

The other colonization techs are for you to let races colonize planets they can't naturally

They also double the population rate for the previous planet type. Also worth a mention is that you can send first level colony ships, in your case continental, to any independent, they do not have to be continental, so for example, you find a Boskra independent (volcanic) and they accept your colony ship and become part of your empire then as long as there is enough Boskra population in your empire you can then colonize volcanic worlds without the tech, this goes for all the planet types.

Darkspire

[WCG]

ORIGINAL: Darkspire
They also double the population rate for the previous planet type. Also worth a mention is that you can send first level colony ships, in your case continental, to any independent, they do not have to be continental,...

This is all good to know. Thanks!

Note that designs for colony ships were checked under automation. (The only designs I'd turned on manual were for escorts.) So I don't know why I didn't have that option.

But I created a new design for a colony ship from scratch, and after that, upgraded designs have been appearing automatically.

Oh, and the reason resort bases didn't show up anywhere is that I hadn't yet researched entertainment centers. Duh!

Thanks for the replies!