As things stand, old ships will be scrapped even if new ships are not built.
Honestly thats almost better in my opinion. That would let you halt their construction, then wait a few years for them to trickle down and scrap ships, and then when you want to, give them the ability to build again. Probably have a big boom of new civvy ships about, and put them on hold again.
Never again will I click the civilian shipping menu and see literally millions of tons of civilian shipping clogging up my processor.
Edit. page finally loaded, saw civilian magazines.
Me just sitting here like "yes, yesssss, YEASSSSS" i cant wait, this patch is gonna be good.