You are 100% correct but having to do it to 100 starbases vs just a few yards is my issue

Yeah this is the biggest thing they missed on 1.7 - 'default shipyards' should be an option to set once for starbases. We pretty much all are going to be using our main shipyards to build big ships and don't want them spamming out constructors in the build up to war. I just played as the lovely Lord Vega and with all the extra starbases they can build around planets you have to remove the shipyards you don't want over and over and over as you build them Oh and heaven forbid you add a couple of constructor shipyards late game... i just don't even bother adding them to old starbases (which is suboptimal) but it would be a major hassle so just think meh.

That said....  I also think people are playing silly inefficient by never building constructors at their "main shipyard"

Simple math... lets say a Constructor X3 with three modules costs 3000 Manufacturing Points  and BattleshipX costs 20000 MP.

Lets say you have three ship yards     Super which does 15000MP a turn,       Ok which does 5000      and   Deepspace which does 1000.

Shipyards roll over unspent production for one turn.     unless you are able to build your best "battleship" in one turn then throwing a few constructors in there to let them build faster not only allows you to build up your infrastructure faster but does not have a large of a detriment to your fleet as many think.

If you look at the below example...  I have the top example with focusing on Fleet building...     the lower six rows show 6 rounds of Balanced building.

I get 4 more constructors in the same time...  and ZERO less battleships.

This almost always holds true.     in the long run it is better to let your better or closer shipyards build the constructors and build your infrastructure... over focusing purely on combat ships.

I have been using the constructor spam deliberately.  When I am doing a massive military research effort that will end with significantly improved ships, I hate to field half-way updated units.  So I deliberately build up a bunch of new economic bases which queue up a bunch of constructor requests.  As I plow through the military research, the big shipyards all build up overflow while processing the new queue.  When my military research is done. the queues all drain out and the shipyards start producing fully developed ships, all with a headstart on the manufacturing.  My shipyards that might take 3 turns to put out the new big ship manage one per turn for a couple turns.  This is worth the wait.  Meanwhile, the new economic bases just improve the ability to put out and support the new ships.

erischild Taslios

Good points and strategy.  I do the same things at different points in the game.  By the time i am in the mid-late game transition i typically have 2 mill yards that can crank out large ships in one turn and the Hyperion buildings all tied to one of them.  Also by this time many of my R/$ planets have yards and enough pop/mfg to crank out constructors in one turn.  So when I now want to build up a bunch of bases, queuing dozens of constructors, it would be nice and easy to first shut down the 2 mill yards first.

Ditto and all your efforts