Transferring Ship Designs Between Empires

[Theeht (OP)]

    I am starting a game with two empires that have just split apart, and I want them to have many of the same ship designs.    However, it would be a pain to manually copy all of them, and I can't find any way to do so otherwise.    Is there a way to do so?
    Also, not really related but not worth another thread, is there a way to SM civilian mining complexes or shipping lines' fleets?

[Vanigo]

Unfortunately, no. And it's not just because there's no button for it; there's an actual mechanical reason that wouldn't work: the racial techs. Even if both empires have an identical "Ion Engine E8" design (for example), the game models them as two different components because they were designed and researched by two different empires. I'm pretty sure there's no way for a component to be buildable by more than one empire. (I've suggested adding a "copy captured/salvaged component" option that would do this, but I'm pretty sure nothing came of it.)

[Naismith]

I think there is a way to do what you want. I haven't done much testing, so there may be some steps you can skip.

1. Design the class and components with the first empire
2. Create a ship of that class
3. Using the SM tech comparison give the second empire all required techs, including racial tech
4. Transfer the ship to the second empire
5. Have the second empire copy the class

It should now be possible to tool your shipyards and build the copy.
I should warn you that I only did this once for testing and never used the ship, so there may be some bugs I didn't find