What techs go with what ships?

The AI designs its own ships. It will always name them for their function though. The only exceptions are the ships it gets from random events.

Select the various techs that you research. Many will give a list of what you need for a certain ship.

Example: Open "Research Screen" and click on "Sensors IV." One entry in the information box will be NEW SHIPS, with the entry "SURVEY SHIP--4 techs needed" and a list of the techs.

Many techs will have lists of ships like this. If you want to see most or all of them, try looking at the various propulsion techs, as most ships need certain engines. This will give you a list of ships and what you need for them; just research the other requirements and the ships will appear under "All" and "Core" in your Shipyard.

Edit: Yes, but doesn't the AI base its designs off of the defaults he's looking for?

You don't want to use the standard ships anyway, they mostly suck.

If I had ever seen a default ship that was even half as good as I could build with the same technology, I might pay attention to them. It's like they only fill up half the available space. Two-speed colony ships, indeed.

Oh, I agree they suck. The first ships I designed were Fast Colony Ship, Fast Constructor, and Fast Survey Ship. I figured I wanted them there FAST (plus, I wanted to toss a little extra colonists into the colony ship, and a few more sensors and more range into the survey ship; does the constructor benefit from more modules?). I still want the option of making them...

As for checking each tech in the tech tree, the problem is five turns (or ten or twenty...) later when it becomes time to select the next tech. At that point, I've forgotten what techs I need for each ship. (Memory isn't my strong point...)

So most of those ships the AI makes are custom?

Ahhhh... Found it in the Galactopedia thread. There's a program there that lets you see the components and required tech for each of the starships.

And they suck... Really. No defense on a lot of those ships? It's a straight slugging match: "I shoot, you die! You shoot, I die! How many ships do you have left? Okay, I shoot again! Hah hah!"

I'm pretty sure the default ships are only available for the races with the Terran style anyway. That or my Custom Race (used Torian design) didn't get to use any beyond the defender and star fury because it was a Custom Race.

Rather than use the core ships create new designs based on your current technology. The core ships are very slow; you'll want at least a warp engine on your attack vessels and by mid-late game on a very large maps you'll want two hyper-warpIII engines. Speed is critical to attack fleets even with the first strike advantage going away in v1.2!