Ship folder vs Shiptemplates folder

The ships folder holds all the ship designs you've made in your games, while the templates folder holds those you've saved as templates. You're free to dump any of them if you don't care to keep them. In particular, if there are multiple versions of one .shipcfg file only differing in the number on the end of the filename, the game will only use the one with the highest number (the older ones are leftovers from upgrading the design and resaving with the same name), so you can drop the lower-numbered copies without noticing any loss in-game.

If you're brave enough you can also take a peek at the files with a standard text editor like notepad. The files contents is in ASCII format (readable text) and you edit them to change the names of your ships or the .shipcfg files they are referring to. I use it to clean up my dirs by deleting all the lower-numbered copies and rename the high-numbered ones to zero.

Thanks for the info!

I guess I don't really understand the difference between saving a custom ship normally and checking the "Template" box. Looks to me like pretty much every ship I've customized for a race shows up in every game even if I don't mark it as a template. Maybe I'm just saving too many as templates and I'm losing track

What I'd like to have is a set of ship designs that show up every time I start a custom game. I'm not talking about armed ships, just the models. I want base models I can build off of each game but I'd prefer the ships I equip from those base models don't show up next game. As I progress through the tech tree and get bigger hulls I'd like to see my bigger models appear in my shipyard so i can "upgrade" these models with weapons etc.

So, I guess I'm asking if a ship saved as a Template will be available every game I use that race? And will the non-template builds I make in Game X not show up in Game Y ?

I want the same things you do and I use the following strategy:
Let's say, I designed some 36 ships (all saved as templates) and I created different versions from them with functional parts during the game.
I want to start a new game with only designs without functional parts and also only a couple of ships, so one colony ship design, one constructor design etc.
To achieve this I manage my designs outside the game. I copy sets of designs from the templates folder into seperate folders elsewhere named TerranFleet1 or TerranFleet2 for expample. Then I delete all designs and ships in the ships and template dirs. So there's nothing left. Then I decide which 'fleet' I want to use this game and copy them from the appropriate fleet dir in the templates dir.
This way you have a 'clean' dir without any previous designs with weapons etc. popping up. When you research through the tree your larger hull designs will pop up accordingly.
Managing ships outside of the game really indicates that the ship designer lacks some functionality in managing large numbers of ships with and without functional parts and grouping of ships.

One more thing: being able to design your own ships in this game is a GREAT feature and I spent many hours already creating my own fleets.

To answer your questions specifically:
1. Yes
2. No (at least, I don't think so)

Yes on the templates - that is what they are designed to do.

The non-template builds will show up if you have saved them to your hard drive unless you delete them in the relevant Ship folder. (Mod, metaverse or normal)

I will backup and delete the contents of the ship folder before starting a new game everytime. Doesn't take long.

If that's what you want to do, you could probably just make a batch file to delete the ships then run the game, and use that to start the game rather than the default shortcut.

I do...but I did not want to confuse those less skilled...

Here is a simple batch file to use. Simply copy the following 2 commands (The first one is actually one line - the forum post may show it as more) into notepad, change the paths to reflect where your ship files are, then save the file with a .bat extension to your desktop. Click on it to run.

move "C:\Documents and Settings\ME\My Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar\Metaverse\ships\*.*" "C:\Documents and Settings\ME\My Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatarbackup\Metaverse\ships *.*"

"C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\GC2Launch.exe"

Batchfile! Exellent idea, I never thought of it. Thanks Kryo and Statesman!

Great info guys, but I'm having a problem. I emptied my ships folder at:
C:\Documents and Settings\ME\My Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar\ships

And I verified that my custom ship templates are in:
C:\Documents and Settings\ME\My Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar\shiptemplates

Then I fired up GC2DA, started a new game, and my custom ships don't show up.

So I emptied my shiptemplates folder and put the ship files back in the ships folder. I relaunched GC2DA, started a new game, and there are my custom ships.

So I'm back around to wondering what in hades are the shiptemplate files for if I can't empty my ships folder and still see my custom ships when I start a new game with shiptemplates intact.

For the record, these custom ships have no guns or engines or whatnot, they're structures only, so they show up immediately at the beginning of a new game unequipped.

The templates folder contains those *specifically saved as templates* using the new template option in DA so you can easily separate them from actual working ships. If you didn't check that box when you saved them, they won't be available as templates, even if you didn't put any working parts on them. Which means they'll still be only in the ships folder like any other ships.

But I -have- saved these ships as templates; I've been checking the "Templates" box when I save them.

Conditions: Ships and Shiptemplates folders each have 16 files corresponding to the 8 custom ships I've made.
Results: Custom ships appear in new game.

Conditions: Ships folder empty, Shiptemplates has 16 files in it corresponding to the 8 ships I've saved as templates.
Results: Custom ships do not appear in new game.

Conditions: Ships folder contains 16 ship files corresponding to the 8 ship designs I've saved. Shiptemplates folder is empty.
Results: Custom ships appear in new game.

So, I just don't see what the shiptemplates folder is doing for me. Is something perhaps corrupted?

Are you actually looking on the templates tab in the shipyard?

AHAHAHAHHAHHAHAA no. My face is red at this time.