How long does it take to increase the capacity on your Commercial Shipyards in order to build those freighters Waresky? Do you design a smaller class so the civilians can do their thing?
Its not as bad as you may think. Larger shipyards can be expanded more quickly than small ones so the rate at which capacity can be added increases as the shipyard gets bigger. For a military shipyard the formula is as follows:
Build Rate Multiple = Capacity / 5000
Build Rate Multiple= 1 + ((Build Rate Multiple - 1) / 2)
Actual Build Rate = Build Rate Multiple * Racial Shipbuilding Rate
So assuming a racial shipbulding rate of 1000, the rate at which BP can be spent on a shipyard per year is as follows:
Shipyard Capacity 5000 (which is the baseline size)
BRM = 5000/5000 = 1
BRM = 1 + (0/2) = 1
Actual Build Rate = 1 x 1000 = 1000 BP
Shipyard Capacity 10,000
BRM = 10000/5000 = 2
BRM = 1 + ((2-1)/2) = 1.5
Actual Build Rate = 1.5 x 1000 = 1500BP
Shipyard Capacity 20,000
BRM = 20000/5000 = 4
BRM = 1 + ((4-1)/2) = 2.5
Actual Build Rate = 2.5 x 1000 = 2500BP
Shipyard Capacity 45,000
BRM = 45000/5000 = 9
BRM = 1 + ((9-1)/2) = 5
Actual Build Rate = 5 x 1000 = 5000BP
As you can see, a shipyard of 45,000 capacity can increase in size to 50,000 in the same amount of time a shipyard of 5000 capacity can increase to 6000. It will still cost 5x as much though.
Steve