New player struggling

[Growltigga]

Andy,

To retrofit a ship, highlight the ship on the main system screen, then click on the 'green triangle' like icon on the order bar and this should bring up a list of spaceships in that sector, together with a list of options, the main ones being scrap, retrofit and mothball.

Retrofit allows your ships to be remodelled and upgraded to a different design. The only caveat is that you cannot retrofit to a ship which costs more than 50% of the base design.

So, what does this mean? - as soon as I have advanced military training and have built ship training facilities, I will build light cruisers/destroyers with my current tech. When I have reached a major milestone in tech development, or bump into something 'orrible on the starlanes, I will upgrade my base design to incorporate all new kit and will then retrofit existing ships to that design.

Also, you can swithc designs should you rapidly need escort cruisers or planetary assault ships or whatever

makes repair modules very important

With regard to your management problems, try using waypoints (from the empire status window) for setting where newly built vessels marshal once you have built them, re the rest, it is probably just experience