Welcome to Ship Construction Forum!

The best advice for new members is to buy a used ship. Yeah, you probably will inherit some old problems, however, unless you buy a real wreak it is easier to reverse engineer a working boat for repairs than to design a new build.

Keep in mind that the term 'kit' that is used by Battlers' Connection and Strike Models is a little misleading... It is a collection of parts that you can use to can make a floating hull. It is a long ways from a working ship. You've said that your building skills are good so a kit would be a great foundation - just don't think you are getting something with all the parts or even nice instructions on how to get a fully functional ship. It is little more than the materials for a hull, deck and superstructure. You will still need all of your cannons, CO2 plumbing, propulsion, electronics, radio, etc.

The cost of a ship is a hard question to answer. The basic rules of thumb are ships are more expensive the more turrets they have and the smaller they are. So a big ship with fewer turrets is the least expensive and a small ship with lots of turrets is the most expensive. I recommend you do the following: determine what the largest ship is you can reasonably transport on your own. Then decide what your budget is. Then either look for a used ship that you can handle or consider building the largest ship you can transport with the fewest turrets.

Most importantly: come and meet some members and look at their ships! Talk with members about what they like and dislike about their ships. You will learn a lot doing that.

Historically the warships in our club have cost from $600 to $900 (or so) used. I think Charles has about $1200 into his USS Missouri and I put about $1100 into my BB HMS Lion when they were new. Even though those ships are older I think prices have been pretty steady over the years; cannons are more expensive but electronics are a lot less.

Let us not discuss the cost of building Nassau... lets just say it was very expensive.(and the money is still going out)

Ships with stationary cannons are less expensive than those with rotating turrets... Ships with non-reloading torpedoes are cheaper than ships with reloading cannons... Unarmed ships are dirt cheap. I would guess it is possible to scratch build a new unarmed freighter for $100-$200 and not have cut any corners.

Did I ever get around to answering your questions?