Reviewing Designs

[Somnus (OP)]

So I decided to start a game and allow it to assign my tech points as well as create ships and modules so that I could try to learn how to design things. While I can see ship stats and what modules they have, etc., I was wondering: is there a way to review designed modules? For instance, can I pull up a missile somehow and see how it was designed? What engine it has, what the warhead size is, etc. The same for engines and everything else. I know I can see racial tech, and I could play around with parameters in designing to try and match what the racial tech shows, but is there a better way?

[JacenHan]

I believe in the system map there is a button somewhere along the top right which does what you are describing. It's name escapes me, but it's symbol is a circuit board if I remember correctly.

[Somnus (OP)]

Yeah, that's the one that just lists the racial techs. It gives a minimum of information, but not enough to reverse-engineer the module, as it were.

[Erik L]

If you look at the missile design window, you should be able to call up past designs.

[Somnus (OP)]

Any way for other modules, such as engines?

[MarcAFK]

You want the technology report page, control+F7 (also visible under the empires dropdown menu).
This shows the basic details of all currently available systems, sorted by type, and obsolete systems are available with a checkbox in the corner.
You should be able to reverse engineer something by looking at the size, strength, power, and other details.
I realize this is exactly what JacenHan said earlier, but it's enough once you have some idea of the basic component strengths at different tech levels. The wiki really needs a list of what the different techs do to make reverse engineering easier, but most players just start a new game or have a test game and change the techs on the design screen around untill a system looks the same as the system they're trying to reverse engineer.