Building multiple ships from 1 shipyard

[doulos05 (OP)]

I'd like to build Freighters, Colony ships, Tankers, and Troop Transports from the same shipyard to save on ship yard space.  Here's the base Freighter I'm using.  I'll strip out the cargo and add Colonists, Fuel and Fuel Processors, and Troop Transport Bays respectively.

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Liberty Ship Mk. 2 class Freighter    70 000 tons     234 Crew     1333.7 BP      TCS 1400  TH 2400  EM 0
1714 km/s     Armour 1-151     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 12    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   
Cargo 50000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 50   

Joyce Orbital Systems 400 EP Commercial MPD (6)    Power 400    Fuel Use 5.3%    Signature 400    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 2 550 000 Litres    Range 123.7 billion km   (835 days at full power)

Pritchard Systems CIWS-120 (1x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Weston & Jackson Civilian LIDAR MR3-R10 (1)     GPS 210     Range 4.0m km    Resolution 10
Schofield-Turnbull Civilian Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
Glover Engineering Company Station-keeper EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

So the problem I have is, I'm never able to build more than 2 ships at a shipyard.  The original that I copied the design from and the new design.  Is there a way I can do that? What order should I copy from to do that? What am I missing here?

[MarcAFK]

Start with the colony ship, that'll be the most expensive, then you should be able to make freighters, troop transports and maybe tankers, though generally I find I can only make harvesters from the same yard as my tankers.

[JacksonTaus]

Make a hybrid design - one that's got a few cryogenic chambers and a few troop transport bays or something. It takes a lot of fiddling with. Then tool the shipyard to that design and build the variants.

[linkxsc]

Incase you didn't know (cause I had to be taught it by the forums) You can see what ships can be built from a shipyard tooled for a particular class in the design window, before spending the time retoolign the yard and possibly ending up with a bunch of designs that can't be used like you had hoped.
The DAC/Rank/Info tab has a box for other eligible classes, and is quite handy when planning designs for this.

On topic.
Last time I tried, using a colony ship as the "tooled" design, I was able to squeeze out a freighter, troop transport, luxury liner(lol) and the COL from the same yard. tankers can be problematic on that however as their cost is so "different" and it can be touchy, with you being able to do it with say, a standard Ion commercial engine setup. But next tech level, upgrading those engines, the designs stop being buildable.
I have managed to get all 4 major civvy ships out of the same yard before with the "tooled" ship being a ship with about 3/4ths the cryogenics as an actual colony ship would, and a bunch of fuel... and an extra engine. Haven't ever been able to do say a "engineering" MSP supply ship thats all civilian from the same yard though, simply too costly.

Meh, its always something to fight with. But personally I generally don't do my tankers the same size as freighters and colony ships anyways, as tankers might have to show up near battlefields, so they are usually much faster, smaller, and packing some CIWS.

PS
With a little work, if you settle on a 6-8kt "geosurvey" ship, you can easily manage the gravsurvey from the same yard, but did you also know you can often turn out dedicated thermal and EM scouts from the same yard? Another thread here I have a list of like 7 designs I managed to turn out from a single yard a little while ago, all of them small utility ships of various sorts.

[TheRowan]

Another tip I've found helpful is, using the colony ship as your base, tick "keep excess crew quarters" for the variants. They tend to have smaller crews, which leads to wasted space on crew quarters, but it also means the refit cost is lower (as refitting one class to another doesn't need to change the crew quarters) which means they're more likely to be able to be built in the same yard.

[iceball3]

I'll just crosspost this that I posted in another thread, simply because of how relevant it is.

It is actually viable to tool a shipyard to produce both commercial geosurvey ships and military gravity survey ships, with a bit of trickery. This seems nearly impossible or quite inconvenient normally due to how calculating differences for necessary retool though: that being you need a percentage of "differences" to be lower than a certain amount per the cost of the vessel, "differences" being new components and hull changes.
So here's the secret strategy to make it so you can in fact build these two from one shipyard: You build a 'dummy' vessel like so:

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Interim - Frame Blueprint: 315 Series class Science Vessel    4 900 tons     67 Crew     464.8 BP      TCS 98  TH 180  EM 0
1836 km/s     Armour 3-25     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/1/1     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.09 Years     MSP 119    AFR 96%    IFR 1.3%    1YR 37    5YR 548    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 16 months    Spare Berths 0   
Cryogenic Berths 1000   

180 EP-C Directional Ion-Pit Drive (1)    Power 180    Fuel Use 1.97%    Signature 180    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range 93.2 billion km   (587 days at full power)

CIWS-120 (1x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Active Search Sensor MR11-R81 (1)     GPS 1701     Range 11.3m km    Resolution 81
Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour
Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
It has all of the components that either the geosurvey or gravity survey vessel would have. This is what you tool your shipyard to, but not to build any of these. I included cryogenic berths for reasons you'll see in a second.
Once this design is made, copy it thrice, and design the following via subtraction, that is to say, only remove parts, don't add any (significant amount of) parts.

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Interim - Geo: 315 Series class Geosurvey Ship    4 250 tons     50 Crew     320.2 BP      TCS 85  TH 180  EM 0
2117 km/s     Armour 3-23     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/0/1     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 47    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 16 months    Spare Berths 1   

180 EP-C Directional Ion-Pit Drive (1)    Power 180    Fuel Use 1.97%    Signature 180    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range 107.5 billion km   (587 days at full power)

CIWS-120 (1x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Active Search Sensor MR11-R81 (1)     GPS 1701     Range 11.3m km    Resolution 81
Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Interim - Gravity: 315 Series class Gravitational Survey Vessel    4 300 tons     55 Crew     332.8 BP      TCS 86  TH 180  EM 0
2093 km/s     Armour 3-23     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/1/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.5 Years     MSP 97    AFR 73%    IFR 1%    1YR 22    5YR 324    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 16 months    Spare Berths 0   

180 EP-C Directional Ion-Pit Drive (1)    Power 180    Fuel Use 1.97%    Signature 180    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range 106.2 billion km   (587 days at full power)

CIWS-120 (1x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Active Search Sensor MR11-R81 (1)     GPS 1701     Range 11.3m km    Resolution 81
Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Interim - Transport: 315 Series class Science Vessel    4 150 tons     42 Crew     226 BP      TCS 83  TH 180  EM 0
2168 km/s     Armour 3-23     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 34    Max Repair 34 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3   
Cryogenic Berths 1000   

180 EP-C Directional Ion-Pit Drive (1)    Power 180    Fuel Use 1.97%    Signature 180    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range 110.1 billion km   (587 days at full power)

CIWS-120 (1x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Active Search Sensor MR11-R81 (1)     GPS 1701     Range 11.3m km    Resolution 81
Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
If it was all done correctly, you will be able to retool a single naval shipyard with the frame blueprint design, and be able to build any of the three derivatives, like so:

Very useful, in my opinion, particularly when just starting out, and you have decided against giving yourself survey vessels using Fast OOB (or said survey vessels get blown up).
You can probably get away with pulling this off with some other designs and whatnot, but this is the most dramatic and reliable instance I've noticed this tactic working.

[Ferret]

Does it matter what order you design ships intended to be built from the same shipyard in, or which design you use Copy Design from? Or will Aurora sort it all out in the end - if you design ships A, B, C, D and E it doesn't matter in what order you design them, the same-shipyard eligibility will be the same?

[iceball3]

Does it matter what order you design ships intended to be built from the same shipyard in, or which design you use Copy Design from? Or will Aurora sort it all out in the end - if you design ships A, B, C, D and E it doesn't matter in what order you design them, the same-shipyard eligibility will be the same?

The order you design them doesn't matter, just using the copy method makes it easier to meet parameters as you are copying all the components except for the ones you want to be different.