Losing hours of loving care.

Frusterating me to no end.

from GalCiv2 Forums
Okay... so i'm sitting here, in a new game. It's a gigantic galaxy, with intelligent opponents. I'm expecting to get my butt kicked, but last a long time through the game. Who knows, maybe even i'll win! HAH!

So i'm going through the effort, every time I get a new hull design, I laboriously spend 30 minutes or an hour or so on each ship, making it look truely badass and intimidating, following a scheme that I enjoy. I do this for my transports, I do this for my trade ships, I do this for my small fighters, colony ships... everything. If i've got a purpose in mind for a ship, I spend a good amount of time working on it to make it strikingly beautiful and fearsome looking. I go ahead and save them in a 'raw' form so that I can have them sooner too, in the next game I play, without having to research certain techs. Call them 'prototypes' if you will.

However, here's the problem. I spent ALL this time designing these ships... and I lose real fast. That's okay, i'll start a new game, same race and everything, and use the same ships I spent so much love and attention to detail on!

Nnnnngh. Sorry, no ships available. Where I should be seeing the colony ship, light hull ship at the beginning of my new game, I instead see nothing. This is weird, because I *KNOW* they should be there, since the ships have nothing on them except special visual pieces. Nowhere to be seen.

So now, all my hard work is wasted, and I have to start all over from scratch. My ideas gone, my morale suffering, and my game about to go out the window(oh wait, I dont have the hard copy yet, thats still in the mail).

I have the latest patch. This game was made using the latest patch. Where are my ships?
21,924 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your designs are safe and sound. In your newer games you don't have the technology that you used to design those ships yet, so they don't show up. Climb up the tech-tree again, and you'll soon see them, don't worry
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Er, yeah. I've noticed some ships require tech research even if they don't utilize that tech... (I've got a tiny chassis, devoid of all equipment, that needs Kanvium and Singularity Drivers II... *gulps*)

Not sure of a way to fix this other than research the prerequisites... by that time though, you'll probably have just made a new vessel...
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your designs are safe and sound. In your newer games you don't have the technology that you used to design those ships yet, so they don't show up. Climb up the tech-tree again, and you'll soon see them, don't worry


But my friend! I have the technology I used to design most of the ships at the very beginning! A generic transport hull with jewelery on it, and thats it... same with the light hull. THose are available from the getgo.

yet I don't see my ships.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh....That's not good. That's not good at all. Unless I'm missing something here, it appears your designs really are lost for good. Sorry.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Just take a look in the GalCiv2/ships folder in your documents. If it's not there, it's gone.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, when I load an old saved game that had the ships, they're there. But I dont know why I can't use them in a new game.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
*ahem* From the changelog that's been posted:

https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=164&AID=104660

+ NOTE: Your ship designs from 1.0D1 and before will NOT show up in this version. We have updated this version so that the ships contain their own unique version ID so that when we do FUTURE updates, your ships will still work. But we didn't implement this until now (now that we have seen the sophisticated ship designs people are creating). So we apologize in advance for that, but it shouldn't be a problem going forward.

CLARIFICATION: Your ships in your SAVED games will work fine. It's just that ships designed in 1.0D1 won't automatically show up as new designs in 1.0X. If you have a design you really want to keep, just load up the saved game and resave the ship.


It's generally a good idea to read the changelogs for patches/updates.

Peace & Luv, Liz
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It seems that the sandbox games and the campaign keeps two different sets of ship designs (one is .shipclass and the other is .shipcfg).

Some of the small and tiny hull designs don't show up until you get Advanced Hulls.

Might the empty prototype designs have been saved over with some added components?

There might be something in the game that remembers what tech level the prototypes were designed at and requires that level of tech for some reason.

After designing a few ships in the campaign, I noticed they weren't in the sandbox at all. So I recreated them in sandbox immediately upon starting the game. The ones I created on turn 1 show up every time. As I progress through the game, more show up, but I really don't note when this happens or what techs are required.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Remember that the updates are optional. They may change some things that you don't want changed. As far as access to your ship designs, it seems that they're currently working on a fix for that "million ships of the same upgraded class" bug that fills the quickbuild screen with junk.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
*ahem* From the changelog that's been posted: It's generally a good idea to read the changelogs for patches/updates.

Peace & Luv, Liz


Excuse me, I don't mean to be bitter... but that seems a bit rude.

And if you'll READ my initial post, I said my game is patched to the latest version, and the game/ships were made only after the latest patch.

I read the patch notes, and I was fully aware of that issue. It is not relevant to my problem though.


Some of the small and tiny hull designs don't show up until you get Advanced Hulls.

Might the empty prototype designs have been saved over with some added components?

There might be something in the game that remembers what tech level the prototypes were designed at and requires that level of tech for some reason.


Never thought of that. I made sure the prototype designs had no special added components on them. However, they were designed later on than the start. Hmm... something to consider.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, ship designs only show up for the same race type. If you design a bunch of ships for the 'human' ship type, they aren't going to show up when you play as the torians.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, ship designs only show up for the same race type. If you design a bunch of ships for the 'human' ship type, they aren't going to show up when you play as the torians.


Yeah, I was playing the exact same race. Nothing was changed. Exact same everything, just a new game.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Raziaar: Sorry, I was going off this comment you made:

Well, when I load an old saved game that had the ships, they're there. But I dont know why I can't use them in a new game.


Which to me sounded exactly like the comment in the changelog on how ship designs in savegames will work fine, you just need to resave them. We had a communication problem, and I apologize.

One thought I have is:

Are you building your ships in a Metaverse game and then trying to access them in a "regular" game, or vice-versa? The two are separate, and ships built in one won't show up in the other.

Peace & Luv, Liz
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When I said old game, I meant the latest game I made... which in fact was after this latest patch, since its the only time I actually really created a game.

And I have only done everything so far without metaverse, in sandbox games.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Mmm. I have to admit that I'm personally at a loss, then. I've built a couple new ships of my own in the latest patch (although I did make mine playing the Metaverse), and they show up for me in new games.

The only thought I have left is: I wonder if maybe in order to make a design "stick" you have to make an actual working version of it (with modules, weapons, whatever) and build it at least once. Did you build any of your ship designs? Or were they all just empty "jewelry"?

Peace & Luv, Liz
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just take a look in the GalCiv2/ships folder in your documents. If it's not there, it's gone.


Did you check here? If they are not there then sadly they are gone. I lost a bunch during the first patch.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
maybe you pressed done instead of save and they all disapeared .........just an idea
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To answer all the latest questions. Yes, they're still in the galciv2/ships folder in my doctuments... the ships are still there technically, since I load the saved game I used to create them(even though I lose shortly after loading that), and they're still there. That saved game was created only after the latest patch was installed.

And I did create at least 'one' of each design. In fact I created more than one of each design.