The Ship Designer (Hotkey F9) is where players may create, update and customize ship templates and defense stations. If a ship of a design is under construction or being upgraded, the design cannot be edited. Many naval strategies advise that their empires deploy several types of warships to fill different tactical roles and face different opponents, and it is convenient for these to have different class names.
Clicking the Auto-Generate box on the lower left of the menu orders computer designers to continually update ship designs based on the latest technology research. Note that they do not take account of the enemies that the fleet is facing or may face, so it might choose components that an opponent can counter instead of a less up-to-date component that has proven successful. For example, the computer might auto-generate a design with an advanced laser that is statistically superior although the current enemy has heavily invested in shield technology that will heavily impair laser weapons but is vulnerable to attacks with the existing missile weapons.
Direct involvement in ship design is optional. An alert icon will appear if a ship design is obsolete, and a toggle enables automatic upgrading of components for player convenience. Stellaris can be played without touching this menu very often, but it is always advisable to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential enemies.
Every ship design has an associated cost to build. This is the sum of the costs of its sections and components. All of them cost 合金 and some advanced components also cost 戰略資源. The build time is determined by the ship type.
The base monthly upkeep of a ship is determined as a percentage of its total build cost. Civilian vessels only cost 能量幣 as upkeep, while Military ships also cost 合金. Upkeep is split into 2 parts:
Hull Upkeep: determined by the ship type.
Component Upkeep: around 0.833% of its build cost in 能量幣 and around 0.15% of its build cost in 合金. Strategic Resource will also increase upkeep by a bit.
If a ship design is edited, a fleet containing ships of that design can be ordered to return to a shipyard to upgrade. Upgrading will take all ships of a given name to the most recent design with the same name (e.g. a Victory-class will upgrade to the design for the Victory-class). Switching designs is done in the fleet manager via the Retrofit button - in this case, "upgrading" the fleet will switch all ships of the appropriate hull type to the newly selected ship design. This is useful for maintaining two designs of a type and switching between them.
If you delete a ship design that is currently in use, ships in a fleet will automatically be designated for a retrofit to the most recently changed ship design of that hull type. There must always be one design per hull type. The upgrade button will send the fleet back to a shipyard to change designs. (e.g. if you have a fleet of Victory-class corvettes and then make a Constellation-class of corvette and delete the design for the Victory-class, all Victory-class corvettes will be automatically marked for upgrading to the Constellation-class)
The upgrade cost is the difference in build cost between the new ship type and the old ship type. This will refund resources if the new design is cheaper or uses different strategic resources in construction. (e.g. Hyper Shields require 異星天然氣 while Dark Matter Deflectors require 暗物質. Switching from Hyper Shields to Dark Matter Deflectors will cost Dark Matter but also refund Exotic Gas to your stockpile.)
Power is generated by the ship's reactor, as well as any Reactor Booster components the ship might have. Many components and subsystems require power to operate. A ship design cannot be approved if it has a negative power balance.
Excess power will give a small bonus to the ship's evasion, speed, and weapon damage using the following formula: [math]\displaystyle{ \text{excess power bonus } = 10\% \cdot \left(1 - \frac{\text{required power}}{\text{supplied power}} \right) }[/math]
Menacing ships are only available to empires that took the Become the Crisis ascension perk and reached the required Crisis Level. Menacing ships' cost and upkeep are not impacted by installed components, but they can be reduced by percentage modifiers. They only have one section each.
The capabilities and statistics of a ship are based not just on the ship's type but on what components are equipped to the ship. Most components have an individual cost that adds to build cost and to upkeep cost for ships with upkeep costs. The initial cost may be in 合金 or any of several strategic resources, but upkeep costs are limited to 能量幣 and 合金. Downgrading components or leaving slots empty can lower the build and upkeep costs of ships of that design. When changing components in a design, ships can be upgraded at a shipyard for the change in costs (downgrading designs is also done with the "upgrade" button, but will return resources). Upgrading ships when you do not have sufficient resources will cause them to wait at the shipyard until the resources become available and upgrade as soon as the resources become available. If you have neither reserves nor income of the required resources (e.g. you have 0(+0) 暗物質 for Dark Matter Thrusters) then the ships will idle at the shipyard indefinitely.
All Ships have similar Core components, displayed on the right side of the star-background part of the ship designer UI. Most of these slots cannot be left empty (the exception being an FTL Drive, but this component is necessary for inter-system travel; a ship without one will be stuck in the system it was built in). Immobile ship types (Defense Platforms and Ion Cannons) have limited slots to reflect that they are immobile. Titans and Juggernauts have an additional slot for auras. The article on core components goes into detail on what options are available, what stats those options have, and any special mechanics related to the components.
All Ships have slots for Weapon components and Utility components. These slots can be left empty. What specific slots are available will change based on what Sections are used in the design (see below). Weapon component slots are at the top of the star background part of the UI, separated by section. Utility component slots are on the bottom, also separated by section. There are a great amount of options for these types of slots, so please reference the articles on each type for what can be fitted in the slots as well as statistics and mechanics.
Each ship and station is made up of 1-3 sections, and each section may have its own design. Ship section designs vary based on where they are in the ship (bow, core, stern), while station section designs are all the same. Each section design has space for a variety of offensive and defensive modules. For example, one station section may be designed to carry a single L槽 weapon or four S槽 weapons. Changing sections is done by clicking the section name in the top-center of the Ship Designer UI, above the star background. Changing sections will reset all component slots to being empty.
To add an item to a module, click on the module (in the center part of the menu, identified by , , , , , , , , , , ) to see what items can be added.
The components that can be placed in , , , and weapon slots, as well as , , , , and slots, can be found on the Weapon components page. The components that can be placed in , , and utility slots, as well as slots, are found on the Utility components page.
All sections of the same type have the same utility slots, with only the weapon slots being different. Weapon slots trade at a fixed ratio, with the following being equivalent:
1×
2× or
4× or
8× or
The only exception is the Destroyer section Bow / Picket Ship, which lacks 1× or compared to the other sections.
Command Points
Build time
Base hull
Base evasion
Base speed
Upkeep
Become the Crisis ascension perk and reached the required Crisis Level. Menacing ships' cost and upkeep are not impacted by installed components, but they can be reduced by percentage modifiers. They only have one section each.
Upkeep
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) to see what items can be added.
