The way SE4 does it is nearly worthless.
By the end of the game, all you have are ships with maxed out tech; all of your old designs are obsolete and deleted.
So when you start a new game with the race, you have nothing but a pile of designs that you won't be able to build for half a century.
In SE3, I'd have a separate file for colony ships and transports, early warships, and Stellar Manip ships. You would load whichever file you wanted at the time.
Perhaps an alternative would be a "Auto Design" button, which will have a minister fill in the components for you?
You'd click create, give a size, name & design type, then hit auto design.
SE4 runs the AI to fill in C&C, engines, typical weapons & equipment.
A full design minister is too much for me; he throws out all of my elite designs and puts in one of every type, whether I need it or not.
------------------
The latest info on
Pirates & Nomads (forum thread).
-<
Download V2.0>-
-<
Download V1.6>-
-<
Download compatible EMPs for P&N v1.6>-
-<
SJs latest AI Patcher>-
Visit
My Homepage