Greetings,
I recently created my first custom ship with the ship designer at the main menu. I noticed that you can select your custom civ fleet style, but the color scheme and ship appearance (pipes, hexes, etc) is not accessible. Here is the process I went through to get the ship uploaded for others to use with the right color scheme I planned for it.
1. I designed the ship in the ship designer from the main menu. It wouldn't let me use the color scheme i wanted so I just picked one. I saved it as a template, instead of a ship design.
2. I was then able to go to my custom civ, verify my new ship was in the proper fleet slot, and upload that civ update. I noticed in the screenshots of the custom civ, the color scheme I used in the ship designer was in the screenshots instead of the active color scheme on the custom civ.
3. I opened a previous save with access to the tech needed, but the design was not accessible.
4. I created a new game, teched up to be able to design the ship, and successfully uploaded it with the proper color scheme for the matching custom civ. Fortunately, it's just a freighter. So it didn't take very long. If it was a huge ship it this would have been a very long process.
5. Went back to the custom civ fleet page, updated the fleet with new color scheme made in game, and updated the custom civ.
Thank you for all your time and consideration. Loving the game.
I wonder if there's a faster or easier process for this. I'll bring it up when I speak with the team
I prefer not to use the stand alone ship designer from the main menu. In my experience making ships for both GC3 for 8 years and as a Stardock contracted ship designer for GC4 the best way to create ship designs is using the ship designer in game with the custom race civ in play your custom ships are meant for. I am Rand Johnson and you'll see my name in the GC4's game credits under ship designers.
This way you have access to all the appearance settings and custom color settings in the civ builder editor prior to creating your race and the ships without having to reset them every time you create a ship switching main menu ship designer to civ builder. Just design ships while in game ship designer with custom race your creating. Less hassle, less tedious and no need start a new game every time you complete a design to update civ.
Creating ships in game with race your making ship for also makes it easier to save your designs specifically for the civ that will use them.
I also have cheats enabled to unlock all techs so all hull size scales are available with in game ship designer. This way I can just make ships without having to play the game with race I am making ships for.
Save game OFTEN so you don't lose designs and always be sure to save designs as both ship design and ship template. Your designs will not show up in Fleets tab of civ builder to make a ship set style unless they are saved as ship templates.
Don't create your ship set style until all have completed making every ship design from tiny scale to cargo scale. Adding as you go can cause the ship set style to error forcing you reset it from scratch.
For me this has always been the best and easiest way to make ship designs for the custom race you intend to have use them
Hope this helps and happy modding.
Thank you for your assistance on this one. I do hope this gets to be a little more intuitive. Custom civs with full ship fleet layouts is pretty exciting, so I hope to see more modders!
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