So i thought i would write a little post on what needs to change about troop transports.

-option to build 5 at at a time
it is unacceptable that we can build 5 destroyers and frigates but not troop transports.
especially later on when we are only able to build 1 per turn....

-option to escape from combat ships.

i just lost 11 troop transports to a destroyer that the AI randomly built on a planet that i was going to conquer.
I have much better armor and shields, if there wasn' just the auto combat option i am sure he would not have been able to kill them all before the rest could retreat.
This is especially frustrating because we can only build 1 at a time instead of 5....

Does anybody agree?

Agreed.

Some info for you. Even if you had the best of shields it wouldn't matter (according to the shipblueprints file) they do not equip any. I modded them to use shields (along with the rest of the "civilian" ships).
Also, even with the shields because of the auto combat against civilian ships, it again would not matter if they had shields.
A work around would be to give them a weapon (pd weapons wouldnt work - they don't act like in moo2, as in they do not hit everything, they only hit missiles/fighters - tested this with a scout - it went straight to auto combat defeat, tested it again with a normal weapon and then you could get to the combat screen - although I have the scouts marked as non civilian in the hulltypes file).

So you would need to all of these...
a) give them shields in the blue prints
b) give them weapons in the blueprints (which would probably affect cost - and i haven't found a way of only giving them one weapon... so to keep cost low give the ship just enough weight capacity to carry one weapon, or game will fill it up with weapons to full capacity)
c2) maybe have to mess with space in the hulltypes or be flooded with weaponry and increased ship cost.
d) probably have to mark them as non civilian in the hulltypes file.

Again, modding something that you should not need to.
Oh yeh, and guess what, you can also mod the ability to mass produce any ship by modding (max = x1 or x5)