Ship blueprint (design a ship without building the parts first)

[neliahawk (OP)]

how about a way to design a complete ship and all its parts in the design window, even without building any parts beforehand. 

basically you can add/create "blueprint parts" to the ship blueprint and edit them imediately (all values of the part design screen) in the design screen too. 
once the whole ship is complete you can send the blueprints for the parts to research to create them and once the parts are complete you can "convert the ship blueprint" to a functional design.  to change part values you could simply double click the part in the parts list to open the part design screen.

i.  e.   you build a size 4000 missle ship but decide the maintenance and ammo is too low and want to increase it to 5000.  .  .   but now you have to make a new jumpdrive for it too and stronger engines and all.  .  .   and would result in 2x makeing all the parts with the first batch a total waste, where when you would have made a blueprint first you could have changed the blueprint parts values imediately without building all parts for the size 4000 ship first and just research the final parts. 

think i explained it a bit wonky.  .  . 

[Erik L]

The biggest issue with that is that all of the part (or most anyway) need to be pre-designed.

[Gyrfalcon]

I agree the general idea is good - my way around it is a separate game where I SM the appropriate technology and design the ships there in SM mode so I can figure out how I want the ship built without creating extra (and sometimes very research-intensive) components.

[bean]

This would be a nice thing to have.  The problem comes from the way Aurora is built.  Maybe a switch to allow designed but not researched parts to be used on the ship.  That might work, and you can't lock the design until all the parts are researched.

[Bgreman]

I've been working on a standalone app for just this purpose for a long time, but I keep getting distracted by actually playing Aurora.

[Charlie Beeler]

I've got something that does most of that.  It's nothing sophisticated, just an Excel workbook that started with an extract of the tech systems table from the database.  There are sheets that select tech with a running research total, engine design with projected ship speed based on 25% hs usage, missile design, active sensor and missile fire control design, etc etc etc.  There a final sheet for ship design that is mostly manual input.

It's a long way from perfect, but it does let me research tech combinations to find the ones I want to actually pursue in game.

[Thiosk]

I long ago decided i'd had enough with ship design and now SM all racial tech as a matter of principle.  Post-antimatter costs so much RP that I don't believe it has a dramatic impact.

[Erik L]

I long ago decided i'd had enough with ship design and now SM all racial tech as a matter of principle.  Post-antimatter costs so much RP that I don't believe it has a dramatic impact.

I do the same thing.

[UnLimiTeD]

So how about a setting to get rid of that cost?
Or ramp it up on later levels, so it's meaningful to standardize.