Shipyards is an add on to Galactic Civilizations that allows users to design their own ships from the components. Galactic Civilizations 2 ships with a few dozen pre-made ship classes for users to build as they achieve the appropriate technology. These components such as warp drive, phasors, Xanthium armor, etc. can be put together to design a brand new ship. Shipyards v2 also allows users to turn on and off the ability to build the pre-made ships. The player now has the option to just build the ships he or she designs.
Players can trade or steal ship designs from each other as well.
Also bundled with Shipyards 2 is Galactic Civilizations v2.1 which provides enhanced governors who can automatically choose and build social projects. They build these projects in the order you choose from a master governor dialog. Many players have asked for this feature to greatly reduce micromanagement in the game. Users who prefer to micromanage their planets still have the option to build their social projects on a planet by planet basis. 1 will be made freely available to existing Galactic Civilizations 2 owners in early April.