The current AoW Version has all ship hulls available at the start of the game as Geo described, and there are no plans to change this. (in fact, it's one of the main things I liked about the mod idea). There is still a Ship Construction tech field. Researching it yields Crew Areas components that will reduce the maintenance of the vessel. It also yields increasingly more efficient SYs.
Check it out
{ here } .
Edit: My keyboard can't spell!
[ February 13, 2003, 21:42: Message edited by: dumbluck ]