Also, I see nobody caught this part..
'I've read the commercial shipping tutorial and did similar ships, but apparently the shipping lanes dont use them and it lists 0 ships there. '
Yup, there won't be. They now make their own designs independently of you. I guess when they do there is a checkbox on the ship design screen that you can tick so you peruse their designs (I have a short screen, never seen it
).
I was going to type something else, but I forgot...oh well...
Oh ya. To get them to actually build ships they need to see a demand for it. Personally I usually hand them a few extra thousand steve bucks at game start and then eagerly await their cluttering up my screen. Not sure how the new civ fuel harvesters read demand (do they need an existing need like for other ships or do they just say 'oh, sorium, mine!') but the cargo/colonist ships need a colony that has a demand. Mars makes a good choice (even if mineral poor (or empty), just for the extra wealth the new colony will create with it's shiny new colony smell and pop growth rate combined with the ease of terraforming (take years, honestly, let the civ line(s) ship infrastructure and colonists and build up capital and ships), throw a few infrastructure on there and then drop of too MANY colonists. So now you have a colony that has a need for infrastructure. I find that this usually gets the civ shipping lines interested rather quickly, and they will have a tendency to pop out freighters (waaaay more useful then colony ships in my mind for the contract potential) more then colony ships.
That and honestly, who cares how much they whine and cry about not being able to suck near vacuum as they slowly (well, somewhat rapidly) expand from the low pressure. ONLY MAKES YOU STRONGER...till your eyes pop out, your intestines squeeze out your arse and your lungs creep out of your mouth while your ear drums squirt blood rather far in the low gravity and pressure. ONLY MAKES YOU STRONGER.
This post is rather cluttered, but I'm rather inebriated, so it's all good. HAVE FUN.