Star port types and how they are used - help needed!

[Erithtotl]

Following some of the advice here, I typically make one small space port, stack all my research and construction on it and build it on my starting planet.

From there I redo the defensive base, add construction and medical/entertainment facilities, lots of defenses, and build those on all my planets.

I can then use these to refit and refuel my fleets as well as defend my planets.

Problem arises that only the original 'small star port' shows up on the space port/construction yards list. In addition, it seems like all civilian ships are only built at that one small star port, making military construction slower. I'm starting to wonder if this has other AI ramifications as well. I'm guessing this because I've noticed that all the 'empire lines' between my colonies go straight to my one central port, rather than jumping along routes between colonies like the AI.

I just now tried designing a second, lighter weight star port (ironically using the medium star port designation). Problem is, this doesn't show up on the planet or constructor build options despite being perfectly with acceptable building parameters.

Some information/feedback/advice on how to handle all this would be much apprecaited.

[henri51]

If you have multiple colonies, it may not be a good idea to build spaceports etc on all of them. And the original small spaceport should be eventually replaced by a medium or large one mostly to have more construction slots.

I had trouble too getting the medium and large spaceports showing up, so what I did was to temporarily automate ship design, and new types soon appeared. I am not sure what the problem is, but I suspect that it is the lack of critical resources.

Henri

[fenrislokison]

maybe i didn't understood well, but if i sum up:
- you have only one "small starport" on your initial colony
- you have redone the defensive base and build defensive bases on all your colonies
- you have equipped your defensive bases with constructions yards
- on the spaceport/construction yards list, you don't see your defensive bases
- all connections lines of your empire converge on your initial starport.

well... i maybe be wrong, but shouldn't you design and build starports instead of defensive bases?
Even if you can make them do the same thing as a starport, i don't think the game identifies them as such.

and on another hand:
- you have designed another starport, but it doesn't show up as a build option... aren't you talking about your initial colony? in which case, you should retrofit the small space port because you cannot have more than one starport per planet so the list doesn't show up starport build options if you already have one.
You can retrofit spaceport to upper design by right clicking on them and select retrofit to such design in the contextual menu.

and finally, constructors aren't able to build starports, only planets can.

hope this helps!