Ship Design is the greatest military art form of the 25th century. The crafting of a great ship design, that stands the test of time, is a tribute to all of the brave men and women that boldly pilot them. It is part engineering, part artistry, that creates a robust, effective design that can serve completely in the capacity it was designed for. A design that proves itself has hundreds of starships proudly bearing its name. A design that fails to meets its requirements is discarded as obsolete.

The first task of an Empire is to create starships to explore and colonize the galaxy with. But you don’t just build a starship, you create a plan, a design, upon which to build one starship and then many more. A ship design is a blueprint for the construction of a starship. It is a model upon which many starships can be built in its likeness. A different design is created to fill a different role. These roles are typically called design types because they represent the different types of designs that exist.

For example, an empire wants to create a ship to go and colonize a Rock based planet. You would first create a design (using the Designs Window) that has a colonization module for a rock-based worlds. Finally, you would construct (using the Set Construction Queue Window) a starship of this design (also known as class). When the ship is constructed, you would send it to colonize the planet. As new rock planets are found, you can then construct more starships based on this design. In the future, when you have new technology, you would create a new design, still of the Rock Colonizer type, using the latest components. New ships needed to colonize rock planets would be constructed based on this new design. The old design, which is no longer used, would be marked as obsolete. Thus, a cycle begins of replacing old designs with new design of the latest technology which can best complete the task at hand.

A ship design (and a ship for that matter) is a ship size filled with various components. First, a size is picked for this design. The size dictates how many components that will fit into the design. Next, you pick what design type this design is of. This is a general classification for the design. Next you pick a name for this design. The name must be unique among all of your designs. Now its time to start putting components into the design. You select ship components to add into the design. As components are added, the tonnage remaining in the ship will decrease. When it reaches zero, you cannot place anymore components on the design.

There are a few types of components that are required for all ships. The key control components are the Bridge, Life Support, and Crew Quarters. Without these, your ship cannot even function. Next, a ship (as opposed to a base) needs some engines for propulsion. After that, the components are up to you. If you intend the ship to fight, you might consider weapons. The components and ship sizes you have available are determined by your current tech levels (see Research). Whenever you achieve new tech levels, you should consider creating some new designs that use the new components that are available.

The heart of ship design is the Designs Window and the Create Design Window. With these windows you can manage your existing designs and create new ones.

The movement of Starships through the galaxy is a crucial part of any Empire’s efforts. Ships can be moved from planet to planet and from solar system to solar system.

Each ship that is built can move at a certain speed through space. This speed is described as movement points that the ship has to spend in a turn. A ship can move one square at a cost of 1 movement point. When a ship’s movement points are expended, it can no longer move in this turn. Next turn, it will receive its full movement points again to spend. Left over movement points from one turn do not carry over to the next turn. For each order that a ship can execute, there is a movement cost that goes along with it. See Orders for more information.

Movement points are calculated by examining the number of undestroyed engines a ship has. Each non-damaged engine generates one movement point for a ship. There are also other modifiers to how many movement points a ship receives a turn. If your ship has zero supplies remaining, then your ship will only receive 1 movement point per turn. If your ship no longer has a Bridge, Life Support, or Crew Quarters, then you will receive only 1 movement point.

Some engines will also give you bonuses to the number of movement points you receive. For example, the Contra - Terrene Engine I gives a ship +1 movement points per turn. This bonus only applies, however, if all of the engines on the ship are at the same level. Having one engine on the ship that is lower than a Contra - Terrene Engine I would lose you the bonus. The bonus applies after total movement is calculated. So if you have a destroyer with 6 Contra - Terrene Engine I's, you will receive 7 movement points per turn.

To move a ship, you need to give it orders. This is typically the MoveTo order. See Orders for more information on giving ships orders.

As ships move through space they expend fuel. In engaging in combat, the ship expends ammunition and energy. As time goes by, the crew consumes the food supplies that are aboard. Each ship is rated as to how long it can operate before it needs to come back to base and reprovision itself. These supplies are all consider "Supply" and there is an amount of it which each ship carry. When a ship leaves from port, it is fully provisioned or supplied. Each turn, though, it consumes some of those supplies. A ship’s supplies are used by any actions it undertakes such as movement or firing its weapons. You can view an individual ship’s supply amount by looking at the Ship Report Window.

Resupplying a ship is simple. A ship will automatically resupply itself whenever it moves through a sector containing a Resupply Depot Facility. These depots always reside on planets and are usually denoted by a small ‘R’ on the System Window. Resupplying takes no movement points and is instantaneous. Just move the ship through a sector with a Resupply Depot and presto, the ship’s resupply amount is reset back to its maximum or initial value. An easy way to do this is to use the Resupply Order which will automatically choose the nearest resupply depot to that ship. Also keep in mind that you can use the Resupply Depots that you own, and those of your allies (see Treaties).

To aid players in noticing when a ship is getting near to needing resupply, the Resupply Warning setting was invented. The warning is signaled to players by a small status icon appearing. There is one for "Low Supplies" and another for "No Supplies". If you see this icon in any window then you know that its time to send the ship back to a Resupply Depot. The easiest way to do this is by using the Resupply Order.

Inevitably, a ship’s supplies will get to zero before you can get it back to a Resupply Depot. This has some dire consequences for the ship. When the ship’s supplies hit 0, it means that the ships has run out of fuel, food, energy, and ammunition. Your ship will only receive 1 movement point each turn. In addition, if it is engaged in combat, it will on get half its normal shields and one combat movement point. Also, since supplies are needed to fire your weapons, you will probably not be able to fire many of them. A quick stop at the nearest Resupply Depot will rectify this situation.

A ship’s maximum supply amount is based on how much total supplies its components can store. Engines, as a standard, can store a certain amount of supplies. You can also increase this amount by adding supply storage containers to your ship.

Shields are generated by shield generators. Shields surround a starship and protect it from weapons fire. Each shield generator on a starship generates a certain number of shields for that ship. When combat is entered, a ship puts up its shields to defend against enemy fire. The shields take damage points instead of the ship, and when the shields reach 0 damage points remaining, incoming fire will hit the ship. Shields get automatically regenerated anytime a ship enters combat. For example, if a ship has 50 shields in one combat and take 40 points of damage, its shields are now at 10 damage points remaining. If that ship then gets into another combat, its shields will be back to 50 damage points again. Keep in mind that shields are generated by shield generators. If a ship’s shield generators are damaged, then it will have less shields to generate. During combat, shields will not be regenerated unless the ship has a Shield Regenerator Component on board.

There are actually two types of shields, normal shields and phased shields. With the development of phased weapons, phased shields were invented to stop the phased weapons. Phased weapons pass through normal shields as if they were not there. Phased shields, however, will stop both phased and normal weapons from doing damage to the ship.

Be aware that there are weapons that skip both normal and phased shields. These weapons are of the type Weapon Damaging, Engine Damaging, and Shield Generator Damaging. These weapons cannot be stopped by any means. Sorry!

When an Empire wants to create new starships it needs to construct them. Construction is the process whereby an Empire converts its resources into actual military vehicles. The construction of new war ships cannot take place just anywhere, however. Construction of space vehicles can only be made at locations where there are Space Yards. The space yards are the actual construction crews that will build the selected item.

Space Yards can take the form of either a Space Yard facility, or a Space Yard component. So you can have planets build ships, or you can have other ships build your ships. A Space Yard facility for a planet merely allows you to construct ships as well as facilities and units on the planet. A Space Yard component means that a ship or base can construct new ships in space.

See Construction Queues for more details.

As ships move through the galaxy, they’re going to take damage. This is usually as a result of enemy weapons, but it can be caused by meteors, mines, accidents, and a slew of other things. Now as your ships take damage, they are going to start losing their abilities. Its at this point that you typically take them back to a space yard for repair. Having your ship take damage is simple enough. Just move it within weapons range of an enemy ship and see what happens. Every weapon in the game is rated with an amount of damage it will do. This amount of damage is the amount of tonnage of your ship that it will destroy if it hits your ship. For example, if an enemy has a weapon that does 100 points of damage, then when this weapon hits your unprotected ship, it will destroy 100 tons worth of components. Each component is rated with a damage resistance amount. This amount is how much tonnage in damage the component will take before it is actually destroyed. For more information on the amount and type of damage that each weapon does, see Weapons and Damage.

When your ship gets hit by enemy fire, there is a progression of things that happen. First, if your ship has any shields, they will take the damage first. So if your shields have a strength of 10, and you take 4 points of damage, then your shields will be down to a strength of 6. When your shields reach strength 0, they go down. Meaning, that they are no longer there to protect you. Now incoming damage will hit your ship directly. First it will hit the outermost section of your ship, the Armor section. Once that section is gone, damage will pass through to your remaining components.

So now that your ship has taken damage, what’s that mean to you. It means that your ship has lost components and therefore lost abilities. If your ship loses an engine, then it will get one less movement point. If your ship loses a weapon, then it will have one less weapon to fire in combat. If your ship loses a shield generator, then your ship will lose the shields that the shield generator was generating. More dire consequences result from losing your Bridge, Life Supports, or Crew Quarters.

Repairing your ships is a necessity. That’s what space yards and repair bays are for. You can either move your ship to where there’s a space yard (which has repair capabilities), or move a repair bay to where the damaged ship is (repair bays are carried on ships or bases). Each Space Yard or Repair Bay is rated with how many components it can repair each turn.

Once there, the repair will begin automatically. The repair of the components on your ship is dictated by your repair priorities. This lists the order in which you would like components on your ship repaired. See the Repair Priorities Window for more details.

Ships can carry what is termed cargo. Cargo can be one of several different things. It can be population, fighters, troops, satellites, weapon platforms, or mines. Moving cargo is essential for getting non-space worthy items from one planet to another. Both ships and planets can store cargo. Planets have a certain capacity for storage which is based on the size of the planet. Ships have a capacity which is based on the number of storage components they contain.

To get cargo from and to your ship is a simple process. You can give ships the Load Cargo Order or the Drop Cargo Order to load or drop cargo from planets and bases. The easiest way to transfer cargo is to use the Transfer Cargo Order. These orders are given in the Main Window - Commands section.

Once your ship is loaded with cargo, it merely needs to move to where it wants to go. Cargo has no effect on the ship what so ever. If your ship takes damage, and the cargo components are destroyed, the cargo will be lost as well. Cargo such as population and mines can do nothing while they are being transported. Troops can be dropped during Combat onto enemy planets to attempt to take them over. Fighters can be launched during combat to battle enemy ships.

All ships require basic necessities to function. Each time a ship resupplies, it picks up fuel, food, ammo, and other materials needs to operate. These materials don’t just appear out of the air, they have to be provided by the ship’s owner. That’s you. This requisition of needed ship materials is handled through the empire paying a certain maintenance cost in resources. This maintenance cost is equal to 25% of the ship’s cost that has to be paid each turn for the ship to remain operational.

If an empire can’t pay its maintenance fees, then a ship will fall to pieces each turn. Of course which ship is anyone’s guess. Maintenance is paid first, before anything else. This means that if you can’t pay all of your maintenance, you won’t have any resources to spend on anything else. This is a severe liability when it comes to running an empire. You won’t have any resources left to spend on new constructions. To get a listing of your exact expenses for the turn, see the Empire Status Window.

Orders are given to ships to have them perform various actions. To have a ship move, you give it MoveTo orders. To have a ship colonize a planet, you give the ship Colonize orders. A ship maintains its orders in a list which you can view in the View Orders Window. A ship can have multiple orders at a time. The ship attempts to execute each order in turn and when it completes the order, it removes it from the list. The majority of ship orders are given through the Main Window.

A ship remembers its orders from turn to turn and will use its movement points at the beginning of each turn trying to complete these orders. Orders that you give ships will remain with that ship until it has completed the order, or cannot complete the order. If a ship has orders to move to a sector, and it does, the ship will clear the MoveTo order, and then attempts to execute any other orders it has. If, on the other hand, the ship cannot reach the destination location, the orders will be cleared as well. If a ship is blocked by enemy ships, or gets into combat, it will clear its orders.

Fleets are groupings of starships which move as a cohesive unit. Designating a ship as part of a fleet means that you wish for it to remain with the other ships in the fleet as they move. It has long been known that individual ships are easy prey for enemies, but large groups fare much better. Effective use of fleets will help keep your ships alive as they battle enemy forces.

Your empire is allowed as many fleets as you want. Each fleet is identified by a name which you give the fleet. You can have as many or as few ships belonging to each fleet as you want. In fact, you can have no fleets at all, or have all of your ships as part of one huge fleet. Fleets are best used when the ships within each fleet have the same goal in mind (and usually the same orders as well). Each fleet also has a certain formation and strategy which it follows.

All ships that are in a fleet pool their supplies together. As the fleet moves, supplies are shared amongst the ship so no one ship is without supplies.

Ships that are part of a fleet behave identically to all other ships, with one difference when it comes to movement. When a fleet of ships moves, they will stay together. This means that as they execute their orders, they will wait for the slower ships in the fleet. Fleet ships which have movement points will not leave a location if it contains a ship that belongs to their fleet and yet has no movement points remaining.

For example, you have 3 destroyers and 2 escorts who belong to fleet 1. They are all at the same coordinates and are given orders to move to a distant system. The destroyers have a movement of 6, while the escorts have a movement of 5. When the ships execute their orders they will begin moving towards they’re destination. When they have moved 5 squares, the escorts will be out of movement points, but the destroyers will have 1 movement point left. Because they belong to the same fleet, the destroyers will not move out of the sector containing the escorts. You would be able to look at them and see that the destroyers still have 1 movement point left, but they will not use it.

The ideal situation for fleets is in keeping together groups of ships that have different movements. If your fleet is a convoy that is protecting some slow transports, you do not want your defensive ships to leave your transports behind. If all of the ships are designated as part of the same fleet, they will do so. It is also good to keep fleet ships in the same sector, and give them the same orders. If they have different orders, you may end up splitting your fleet. Once the ships are away from each other, the fleet designation doesn’t mean much.

You specify which ships are part of a fleet by using the Fleet Transfer Window. You can also get an overview of all of your fleets in the Ships Window.