So in the shipyards there is a button that allows you to upgrade any ship to the current design.
This button is useless
The reason this button is useless is that it only works on the stock game built designs. Anything that I have custom built is a unique snowflake that has no "upgrade path"
When in the ship designer I have the option to "use this design" and I can name it whatever I want and call it totally new...
But there is no option to take an existing design and upgrade it so that the game sees it as an upgrade.
Why not?
Why is there no way to designate that my medium ship with warp engines is an upgrade over the exact same ship with Ion engines?
Is there a reason mechanically why the game treats every design I make as a unique snowflake?