We have more important things to research than increased shipbuilding speed. Plus, seeing as we're producing small ships, more yards is a better strategy than faster yards.
Hugely disagree. There are two priorities in making the most out of FACs. The first is maintaining a hefty speed advantage, and the second is maintaining a hefty tonnage advantage. Once we've upgraded our engine tech to ions, we're either looking at a several years project to increase engine tech again, or a several month project to gain a 40% increase in shipbuilding, slipway building, and refit speed. Unlike the other industrial techs, shipyard research offers huge, immediate advantages. Advantages which couple nicely with the inherently fast FAC construction speed. Ton for ton, FAC designs tend to build every bit as fast as larger ships. But the shipyards for FACs build much, much faster.
This is a recommendation to the other players, not an order. Research priorities should be as follows.
1: Finish Ion Engine technology.
2: Finish Composite armor technology.
3: Design and research the new generation of FAC engines.
4: Research Shipbuilding Rate 560 BP.
Recommending that the new generation of FACs field a 3-layer thick level of armor.
Future considerations: The enemy knows we have mesons. They are almost assuredly going to build a generation of lightly skinned warships. We should look into getting salvage ships so we can use the infidel's weapons against them. Not necessarily reverse engineering them, simply peeling a few off their wrecks and building some FACs around them.
Recommended industry use:
Do not build more meson PDCs. They cannot defend our shipyards, and if we lose our shipyards we will have lost long before troops try to land. Put every industrial complex towards building additional naval shipyards. These new shipyards should retool to the newest FAC design and begin building slipways. We have several years worth of minerals already in our stockpiles, and we've still got mines running. We have plenty of leeway to expand our shipbuilding capability.
Building more shipyards IS a gamble. It's less effective use of our surface industry compared to building components unless the shipyards survive for at least 3 years.