I have created a custom faction and would like to get rid of the stock Drengin ships. I'd like to swap the survey ship and tiny scout with designs of my own, but using the same equipment.
Does anyone, anywhere have some advice/info on this?
Basically what you need to do is replace the ship reference in a file called shipclassdefs.xml.
That file is full of entries like this:
<!-- Begin Ship -->
<ShipClass>
<InternalName>DrenginStartingScout</InternalName>
<DisplayName>DrenginStartingScout_Class_Name</DisplayName>
<Description>DrenginStartingScout_Dec</Description>
<ThumbnailOverride>Temp_Drengin_Scout_Alpha_01.png</ThumbnailOverride>
<ShipDesign>Drengin_Scout_01T</ShipDesign>
<AIShipClass>Scout</AIShipClass>
<StrategicIcon>Scout</StrategicIcon>
<StaticBlueprintDef>ScoutStaticBlueprint</StaticBlueprintDef>
</ShipClass>
The two bolded lines determine where the game looks for the 'ship template' (i.e. what the design looks like). The italisized line is where the game looks for what parts need to be on it.
If you go in to your ship designer in-game, design a ship and save it as a Template, then you'll be able to link to that template's name (instead of Drengin_Scout_01T), and the game will proceed with using your custom-designed ships. If you want it to have different components, you have to edit the blueprint file referred to in the italic line.
The process for modding this is explained in detail in this post:
https://forums.galciv3.com/465834/