Figuring Out Shipyards... and a Modding Lesson

I had a productive weekend modding so here is a quick update.

I spent most of the time cleaning up Imperial Navy / space structures including adding in a new shipbuilding system. There are some nice complex ones in other mods but I wanted to keep to something simple if possible while still making holding key planets of great strategic importance.

Please see the previous posts on the types of shipyards and a list of shipyards by planet / manufacturer.

I have implemented the light and medium shipyards and tonight I will finally finish the heavy shipyards then test the system with a mini run-through.

I ran into some serious engine bugs trying to get this to work the way I wanted but I eventually found a compromise.

Space structures and ships must have a <Space_Station_Minimum> value set to 1 or higher to show in the proper build area. If not they show in the ground buildables section, which is bizarre - hard coding ftw! I was able to work around that though without having to implement anything crazy, you need at least a lvl 1 space station to build them - the space station hold population (ie. the workers who will be building structures or ships)

For example:

1. To build a Vindicator-class Heavy Cruiser you need a SFS aligned planet + at least 1 Medium Shipyard.
2. To build an Imperial-class Star Destroyer you need a KDY aligned planet + at least 1 Heavy Shipyard.
3. To build a Tartan-class Patrol Cruiser (corvette) you  need a Damorian aligned planet like Esseles + at least 1 Light Shipyard.

I think that is a good compromise solution that works well. I will do some more testing after finishing the XML for the heavy shipyards tonight.