Very new here, how do i design a ship?

[billyfig (OP)]

I just started playing and all i can do is research so far

[DFDelta]

First you have to research the technologies you want to use in a certain ship component. (e.g. Fuel useage and engine type for an engine)

Then you have to design the ship components, if you are in the research tab it is one of the many buttons on the bottom of the menu. I think its "Design Tech".

There you design a "blueprint" for a component (for example a engine) that must then be researched. (The engine would then be amongst the many other researches in power&propulsion.)

Once the "blueprint" is researched you can put that component on your ship designs in the F4 menu.

In short:
1.) Research tech for component
2.) Design component "blueprint"
3.) Research "blueprint"
4.) Put component on ship design.

[Erik L]

The wiki has a good (though somewhat out-dated) tutorial. http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Basic_Ship_Creation

[Nathan_]

design involves quite a bit of trial and error, due to the large # of components that can be designed, and hence ships that can be made. On both the f2(economy) screen, and the f5(design ship) screen there are button labeled design and design tech respectively. Pressing either brings up the design component window. Provided you have the technology necessary you can build a component to your specifications, at which point that component appears in the appropriate tech list as a racial tech. At this point you need to have a researcher research said tech(or you can delete it if you want to redesign the tech). Then after it is researched you can design a ship with that component.

Once you have your ship designed find an appropriate shipyard, meaning the shipyard has capacity to build said ship, AND is able to build the design. Commercial yards can not build warships for instance. Naval yards can build all ships but are the most expensive to add tonnage to so it is generally best to limit such yards to small civilian scouts or military vessels. Once you have such a yard you have to retool the yard to build the design. If this is the first retooling that is free, otherwise you get to pay for, and wait for the yard to finish. Be sure you have the TNE resources required to retool the yard, duranium and neutronium in the desired quantities.  This shouldn't be an issue for your first ship design but it will come up.

Once you have researched the right parts, designed the right components, expanded and retooled the appropriate shipyard you can build your ship, again provided you have the appropriate TNE resources to build said ship.  After that it will be in the Shipyard TG(or another TG if you specified that) and you can move your ship to a different TG or just order it around as you want.

[Cocyte]

Designing a ship is a difficult task.
Designing an efficient ship is a few order of magnitude harder. 

Perhaps you should peek and grab some ideas in the "fiction" subforums.  Steve's design are fully described, including their intended roles and their weaknesses (most of the time found in the heat of the action)

Don't try to copy the ships however, you probably don't have the technology nor the huge shipyards needed for some ships (my largest military shipyard is still far from being able to build those behemothian carriers, even with 20+ years of continual extensions. . . )

[Waldschrat]

Hello. 
I've got a problem with the Full Summary View information. 
As soon as my designs reach 1000 tons of size the detailed information disappear and i just see the class name "Bismarck class Freighter    6". 
So when i add one bigger module i dont know how the failure chance is and the maintenance stuff and that makes it very hard to design a effective ship. 

how can i view the detailled information?

Solved - Had to change my Language Region.