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Please add a new ship role "Carrier". Whenever I try to create a fighter carrier it overrides the other design as the latest design in that role (e.g. in the Capital Ship role).

It's a good idea Overlord, you should wishlist it

Definately on my wishlist also. For now the best thing to do is to go to the design screen and select 'show non obsolete designs'.

I thought this was on the wishlist somewhere already. I would like to see several more types come out: Light Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, Strike Cruiser, Escort Carrier, Fleet Carrier, and Missile Boat or Frigate. Probably also need another transport type like Assault Transport.

A couple more roles would be nice. Yessss.

More categories (that the AI respect) would indeed be beneficial when it comes to making some specialist types.

A local defense cruiser may want more speed, quicker jumps, more firepower, less defense, than a cruiser for the main battle fleet. You may want special ships as carriers as mentioned.

When I tried to do all designs myself, I started to want an inheritance tree (with multiple inheritance no less) for different lines of designs.

Auto upgrade is nice. Auto upgrade is not nice when the AI changes all civilian ships to a hydrogene based reactor and you want them on caslon. Lots of clicks to undo.

I know a fair bit about programming, forgive me...

Example:

An escort has two maxos blasters, a hab module and one reactor (and some more).
A frigate is an escort that has four blasters and an extra hab module.
A destroyer is a frigate that has 6 blasters and 2 reactors, and an extra hab module (for a total of 3 habs).

Change the escort blasters to shatterforce, and frigate and destroyer also changes, they inherit all info from the escort. Then you change the frigate back and instead of saying four blasters, you say 4 maxos blasters. Frigate and destroyer changes blaster type. The escort is overridden (and still has shatterforce).

Imagine at the very top you have type of vessel and role. Top roles are civilian and military, top vessels are ship and base.

An escort is military and a ship. Military tells it to have a blaster of some type given, ship tells it to have one each of a type of engines, shields, counter measures, targeting systems, repair bots, blasters, hyper drives... Some of these are also on civilian ships of course.

So when a new reactor comes, and I want to have the civilians on caslon fuel and the military on hydrogen, I modify civilian and military... And all designs are updates as long as they don't override their parent type (they can override the number and still swap reactor type).

I am afraid that such a system would confuse those that don't know object oriented programming, though

I would like more ship classes as well along the lines of Sabre21's suggestion, but accompanied by another change.....tonnage limits on each class.  Say an escort is limited to 100, a frigate 200, a destroyer 300..etc....etc...etc.    The numbers aren't my actual proposal they are just for example. 

I like being able to use whatever weight I want for the classes. The game gives me labels, and I work within them without having to deal with I feel to be artificial restrictions.

Both options have merrits, having tonnage would certainly make the boundries between classes more clear and bring up new decission making. But I also like the system as it is now, I'm 50-50 on this one.

I don't think tonnage limits is a stupid idea, but then we would need more categories.

The construction yards are:

230, 300, 400, 500, 650, 800, 1100, 1500.

Let me put up some random numbers.

An escort is max 100.
A frigate is max 180.
A destroyer is minimum 190 and maximum 300 (and can be made from start, and will grow with better yards by the auto design).
A light cruiser is from 301 to 499. "we have now research <somewhat bigger construction yards> and are now able to build light cruisers".
A cruiser is from 501 to 650 and is a powerful force.
A heavy cruiser is from 651 to 800 (decide if limits are up to value or inclusive).
A capital ship is 800 to 1100
A super dreadnought is above 1100.

I would be offended by an escort at the size 800.

This could be a sneaky way to limit our silly 800+ size troop transports from happening.

A sure weakness about the categories here, is that it does not make sense for a culture to develop light cruisers before they make their first cruiser...

Don't use "show latest", only use "show non-obsolete". Especially military crafts are useful in several different versions. Versions to leave on auto, version for fleets, versions for invation fleets, etc.

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I don't think tonnage limits is a stupid idea, but then we would need more categories.

The construction yards are:

230, 300, 400, 500, 650, 800, 1100, 1500.

Let me put up some random numbers.

An escort is max 100.
A frigate is max 180.
A destroyer is minimum 190 and maximum 300 (and can be made from start, and will grow with better yards by the auto design).
A light cruiser is from 301 to 499. "we have now research <somewhat bigger construction yards> and are now able to build light cruisers".
A cruiser is from 501 to 650 and is a powerful force.
A heavy cruiser is from 651 to 800 (decide if limits are up to value or inclusive).
A capital ship is 800 to 1100
A super dreadnought is above 1100.

I would be offended by an escort at the size 800.

It is just a name. You can do whatever you want. Personally I have started using limits based on life/habitat units

Escort: 1-2 life-support/habitat
Frigate: 2 life-support/habitat
Destroyer: 3-4 life-support/habitat
Cruiser: 5-8 life-support/habitat
Capital: 6-10 life-support/habitat

You are of course right, and the life-support/habitat limit is a good idea for a private system.

I have spare spots anyways, as I tend to avoid frigates and escorts. That is, when the tech level is high, the frigates start packing some punch.

I am a big ship guy

Based on this distinction I never go beyond destroyer class [:)]
that makes me a small ship guy? But offcourse size is not important....isn't it? [:D]

Another thing I would like to see accompany tonnage limits is that component sizes would shrink as you advance them technologically.&nbsp; This would then allow that escort of 100 to become much more deadly as you advance yet still remaining within the tonnage for it's class.

two comments on this as we could have two models for this:

1) the MOO2 model where researching a superior tech would also miniaturize the underlying techs

2) the SR2 model where there are several models for each component - a smaller but more expensive one, a cheaper but larger one and so on

ORIGINAL: Data

two comments on this as we could have two models for this:

1) the MOO2 model where researching a superior tech would also miniaturize the underlying techs

2) the SR2 model where there are several models for each component - a smaller but more expensive one, a cheaper but larger one and so on

You mean something like a commercial version of a component, a bare bones version, and a military grade or something? That has merits too and really either model would be welcome to me.

yes, well put
you should wishlist this

ORIGINAL: Data

Based on this distinction I never go beyond destroyer class [:)]
that makes me a small ship guy? But offcourse size is not important....isn't it? [:D]

No it is not! Spamming tons of small ships is super fun! Fast nimble and cheap! [8D]

You can make these different classes now.

I have a special 'AWACS' Frigate with heavier shields and point defence weaponry, but carrying many different sensors including the crucial LR sensor... and different orders to stay away from all battle.
I have stripped cruisers down to get the construction limits...
The biggest problem with that is that I cannot easily tell them apart. My frigate looks like my AWACs and so on...

I agree that it would be ideal if the images available supported those different classes

IGard had an excellent idea of putting another family out there for extra ship hulls...