Military production is spent on constructing ships if the planet has a Star Port. Amount of military production is set by moving Production capacity slider and Military rate slider on Finance management window, and is represented by shields on the Colony Management screen. Each shield represents 1 bc worth of output. If the shields are in parenthesis, it indicates that they will not be used for ship production, and player will not pay for them. This will occur if: - the planet doesn't have the Star Port, or - the Star Port doesn't have a ship queued for construction, or - the military spending rate is set to 0%.