Grettings -

It seems I cannot quite understand the ship upgrade process. For some reason my simpleton brain cannot figure it out. So, here I am asking for help . . .

I will explain as best I can:

Let's say I have a ship. I will dub it "DethKillar." I want to upgrade it. So, I select said ship in the shipyard to upgrade. It is a stock ship, provided by the game, no upgrades whatsoever. I want it to shoot, so I add a lazer. I want it to have shields, I add a shield. I save as "DethKillar II." I can then upgrade select all other Dethkillars and upgrade them as well. 

But, it seems when I select the DethKillar II to upgrade with more goodies, it starts with a defualt ship, sans shields, weapons, etc. It seems to be the hull only. Is that correct? Is it possible to upgrade an upgraded design?  . . . If that makes sense.

What happens if I save it as the original filename after upgrading? If it is a standard Stardock provided ship will it overwrite that permanently in all future games? Also, I read that as new technologies are discovered, they are integrated into your ship designs. What that exactly means, I can only guess. For example: I discover a new shield technology, are all of the ships automatically upgraded with the improvement if they already have similar shields?

I know this is much more simple than I am making it. At any rate, thanks for any input.