So this has come about due to the new ship limit rule: ( New Rule - Ship limits at stars - #30 by TheGuyWithTheFace ) but on one of my stars which is currently over the limit to generate new ships I was temporarily puzzled why I couldn’t build a new carrier, and assumed that the new rule also disallowed the building of new carriers (which is of course ridiculous and not true)… in fact it was because all my ships were already in a carrier and you can’t build a carrier without at least 1 ship, but this isn’t exactly obvious when you look at the star screen:
I think it would be useful (especially for new players) to make it clear why they can’t build a carrier… perhaps in the form of a message window when you try and click on it. Even if you click Read More there is nothing in that part of the Codex which explains the basic requirements for building a new carrier.
Same goes for the initial menu when you first click on the star. At the moment there is no build carrier icon at all if there are no ships there… I think it would be better to have a greyed out icon or something like this:
…again with a message window that says “You need at least 1 ship on the star to be able to build a carrier”
I remember having the same confusion the first time I played NP2 at the beginning of a game with stars that started with no ships, wondering ‘why can’t I build a carrier?’