In Delta Quadrant: Horizons, space ships have several purposes. The most common is as a military unit, but there are other types of ship, such as colonization ships and drones.

Players can design their own ships using a variety of different components, but your empire must have researched the correct technologies for these components first.

Each ship must also belong to one of the base classes. This affects the amount of space available on the ship, as well as the ship's base defence and base speed. A full list of ship classes and details can be found on the Ship Classes page.

Once you have selected a ship class, you can start to equip the ship with any equipment you have the correct technologies for. There are many different types of equipment, each having its own effect on the ship's performance. For more information see the Ship Components section.

To begin designing your ships, you must access the Ship Designer . To create a valid ship design you must have researched, at minimum a ship class, and an engine.

Start by selecting the class you want. Then enter a name for your new design.

Next, you will see below are two fields. The first shows the design cost. This is how many production points will be required to build each ship of this type. The second is the available space. This is determined by the ship class, and will limit the amount of equipment that can be mounted on this ship.

To add equipment you must use the menu on the left of the page. You can expand the list by clicking the sign on the left. To close an open list, use the sign.

There are two types of equipment, the first can only be equipped once on a single ship. Examples of this type are engines, armour, shields and battle computers. When you have decided on the equipment you want, you can add it to the ship by pressing the button. It will then be equipped. If you then try and equip another component with the same use, then it will replace the previous selection. The second type includes weapons. You may equip as many of these on a single ship as you have space for. With these you can keep adding components by repeatedly clicking the button.

You will notice that in the centre of the screen is a list of statistics and weapons for the ship you are designing. You can remove all equipment except engines from your design by clicking the sign, either by the individual stats that they effect, or by the individual weapon name. You can also increase the number of a particular weapon equipped by clicking the sign next to the weapon name.

When you have selected all the equipment that you want, you are ready to save the ship design, so that you can then build ships of this type. To do this click the Save Design button at the top, and if everything is correct, the design will be saved. You should notice that it is added to the list on the right of the screen.

This list shows all ship designs that you currently have available to build. You may view the details of a design by clicking the sign by its name. You can also delete a design by clicking to the right of the name, but only if you do not have any ships of this type in existence, or being built.