The ship templates shouldn't be gone. If this game is like GalCiv 2, then the ships will still exist, they just will not exist in the previous saves (hence why you should save).

Something that Stardock did was to ensure that saved games did not depend on local data. So saved games also saved ship designs. You could literally take a save from one PC and load it on another PC and not worry about moving all your ship designs along with it. So saved data trumps local data. Unfortunately, they never included a good management system (for in game use) to deal with the problems you are complaining about. You could not load ships stored locally. If you suffer a crash, and have built ships between then and your last save, then your designs will still exist on the hard drive. You just can't load them into the previous save, but they will be loaded in the next game you make.

This is a good reason to rely on the ship designs that the game makes for you. They were temporary to begin with, and they are redesigned whenever you get new techs.

Ship design... importing... one game to the next was a little tough to get used to in GC2.... but it came after a little time.

As long as the final product is better then what it is currently!

If I save a bare-bones copy of my small-class ship design, it should show instantly in the ship-build possibilities at a shipyard.

This kind of thing.

If I save it to 'template', it should show up in any game I later play.

Currently, the new ship design only shows up as 'buildable' if I save it off of a current design and change it.

New (original) designs don't show up at all.