Civilians are idiots.

[IveGotNoIdea (OP)]

Last month I saw message that some civilians have build "Freighter MKI - Copy" class freighter, nice thing if for one small detail, this design wasn't named properly (and locked) because it didn't have ENGINES. 
First of all, how they managed to build ship belonging to unlocked class?
Second thing - what I'm supposed to do with it? Leave it sitting on Earth's orbit? Order my fleet to blow it up (can I even do that?)? I can't simply order my shipyard to refit it so I'm out of ideas.

[Panopticon]

Unlocked doesn't mean unbuildable, it only means that design changes can still be made. As for getting rid of it I know there is a way but for the life of me I can't remember how you do it.

[Thiosk]

 

Yes, be very careful with freighter designs.  They'll build anything.  In my cleverness I created a tanker with 1 cargo space.  They built the CRAP out of them.

I lock, tool a yard, and then instantly obsolete any freighter that I don't want them to build. 

To remove the ship, build a tug with a tractor, go to the civilian ship sitting in earth orbit, and attach it.  It will revert to your control, then delete it.

[Marthnn]

As far as I know, any design that's considered commercial for maintenance purposes and includes cargo holds, cryogenic transport modules or luxury passenger accomodation is eligible for civilian liners. That is, regardless of any other junk modules or lack of non-vital parts (like engine).

The control you have is in setting a design obselete. Civilians don't want to build those, yet they are happy to own and use them. Careful with what designs you make...

I would also like to know how to delete old civilian-owned ships. Those 800 km/s nuclear thermal powered little cargos are clogging my game up and slowing installation transfers... My new ones are roughly 8X as fast, with 8X the cargo capacity.

Edit : Tug them into submission? Will do.

[Marthnn]

To remove the ship, build a tug with a tractor, go to the civilian ship sitting in earth orbit, and attach it.  It will revert to your control, then delete it.

So... correct me if I'm wrong, but this was a bug, fixed in a previous version. I can't tug civilian ships, I can't even select them in any menu whatsoever. They are not in locations list on the Task Group window, nor in Individual Unit Details window, even in System Map window they're not in the contact or ship lists when I right click on them. Had I any military ship, I wouldn't even be able to aim at them.

I'm stuck with those old civ ships, am I not?

[sublight]

In theory if you delete a class design all ships of that class get deleted too. That might take out commercial ships too.

Caution: I've never actually tried this, and would recommend backing up the database before trying, just in case.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

You could create a beam-armed 'toll station' to ah, thin the herd. You'll need a SM race to do it properly.  I suppose you could always transfer it to the Precursors, so it'd be an anti-civ berserker.

[Marthnn]

In theory if you delete a class design all ships of that class get deleted too. That might take out commercial ships too.

Caution: I've never actually tried this, and would recommend backing up the database before trying, just in case.

Good idea, but that doesn't work. I get a message saying there are still ships of this class in naval or civilian service, so I guess that has been fixed too.

Only thing left is SM hostile NPR, but it just feels wrong. I wish my civs could just scrap or refit those...

[Person012345]

No, the tug "bug" has been intentionally left in until steve programs civilians to replace liners.

Remember that the ship you want to tug has to be over the same planet as your tug (whilst it's loading goods for example). Then, go to the unit screen, select "miscellaneous" and it should come under the "create tractor link" drop-down menu.

[IveGotNoIdea (OP)]

And now it got better, somehow this ship with no engines has left Earth's orbit, it's going to one of the jump points in asteroid belt, it will get there in next 5947 days. . .   Can I still grab it with tractor beam?

[Thiosk]

And now it got better, somehow this ship with no engines has left Earth's orbit, it's going to one of the jump points in asteroid belt, it will get there in next 5947 days. . .   Can I still grab it with tractor beam?

They've embarked on a 16 year mission, to slowly go, where lots of people, have gone before...

[Marthnn]

No, the tug "bug" has been intentionally left in until steve programs civilians to replace liners.

Remember that the ship you want to tug has to be over the same planet as your tug (whilst it's loading goods for example). Then, go to the unit screen, select "miscellaneous" and it should come under the "create tractor link" drop-down menu.

Why, but a very big thanks to you, sir. I was giving up, I only used that tab before to transfer fuel. The civs won't know what hit them!

[xeryon]

Give them a little money in return to speed them along to the next ship construction else it might be a while till they build another.

[Marthnn]

Give them a little money in return to speed them along to the next ship construction else it might be a while till they build another.

I'll do it for RP reasons, but I have no problem whatsoever on that part. My cheapest designs are luxury liners, at 2500 BPs, while colonisers are at 5000 and freighters at 12000. I also went a while with colonisers obsolete, so the civilian liners built a lot of the cheap design. With Earth, Mars and Mercury set as sources of colonists, the civs keep doing luxury liner runs between those 3 worlds and generate a lot of cash. I think it's not really exploity, well-established worlds close together are bound to be inter-connected that way.

I have 10 different liners, each with between 6 and 64 ships in service. The less successful liner has an income of 7500 per year, enough for luxury liners after dividends. The ships mean tonnage is over 100k tons, and mean income per ship over 800 per year. I might design the next generation ships bigger so the total number of ships isn't too high, right now they are at 300. Maybe even outright obselete all designs until I need more.