Construction Ship Size

[Mermel]

I notices my construction ships exceeed the size limit of my military ships. Can anyone tell me if other limitations apply to constructors or if I am missing something else?

[Theluin]

All ships that are built at planets and not at spaceports use the max base size instead of the max ship size [:)]

[Algoritm]

I have a question regarding construction ships (didn't wanna open a new thread for it):

At the moment, I have my advisor suggest what ships to build, but I've started manually designing my ships and arming my gas, mining and construction ships to save building escorts and frigates.

My problem is that I still need my advisor to suggest the right time to build new construction ships, but I also get pestered with suggestions to build escorts, frigates and troop transports.

I now want to turn off building ship suggestions, but I'd first like to know how many construction ships I need, and when's a good time to build a new one.

[Panpiper]

My basic rule of thumb is if you have a greater demand for resources than you have supply of those resources, then you clearly do not have enough mines working, which is indicative of not having enough constructors building them. By the same token, having prices higher than the minimum on resources is also potentially indicative of insufficient mines, hence constructors. The problem there is that apparently for a few resources, it hardly matters how many mines you have, galactic demand as a whole is bidding so much for those resources that their prices remain high no matter how many mines you build. That said, at least the other empires are 'paying you' for those resource if you are the ones with the mines.

In truth I do not know for sure that that is how things work. There are no indicators that I can see anywhere to actually tell me what those mines are contributing towards income, if any. I have absolutely no idea really if the maintenance cost of mines is somehow being paid for with their production, or if some of them are operating at a loss. I find myself typically building a mere one or a few of most resource mines, and a virtually unlimited number of steel/gold mines, as a result of responding to price signals that demand exceeds supply.

In practice I probably have roughly as many constructors as I have colonies, and I grab colonies as fast as I can build colony ships. But the ultimate number has more to do with how many you can afford with regard to maintenance cost along with the maintenance cost of your military. Again, I am assuming that mines built on reasonably producing sources, the prices for which are higher than minimum, are not a net loss on the civilian economy.

[Apheirox]

Algorithm, just use the build suggestion popup to check if construction ships are being suggested. If none are, simply click cancel to not build any ships. If some are requested just replace the AI suggestions for frigates, destroyers and so on with a '0'. Doing it this way should require absolutely minimal micromanagement on your part.

[jpwrunyan]

I usually have one constructor most of the time. I build more when I want to rush research bases or resort bases or repair ships. I decide whether I need a mine if my expansion planner tells me I need to or if the galaxy demand is high for a resource.

That said, later in the game things change. First you need mines close to your remote colonies. Private sector ships may never deliver goods those colonies need otherwise. I have had colonies in the corners of the map starve for fuel which was annoying. Sure enough, no source of caslon nearby. Unfortunately, there were no natural sources to builf mines on so that game I was at the mercy of the private sector ai.

Now from there you will see a need for more constructors. If you only have one constructor it will be spending months just flying from one corner of the galaxy to the next building mines. You need more at this point to serve each region of your empire. You can probably just automate them though since late game nothing really matters anymore...