Shipyards are nearly impossible to use.

[skatche]

I want to either build a new ship or upgrade my starting ship. If I try to build a new ship, starting with a command module, it just drifts away. If I try to upgrade my ship, I quickly exceed the shipyard radius and can't add the modules I need for basic thrust. I've seen videos of people building ships without any issue while docked at space stations, as I am; I assume they were playing an older version. It seems like if I'm docked I should be able to build out to arbitrary size, and if I'm building a new ship I should be able to build it off the other docking port of the space station, so that it doesn't fly away.

[Artaani]

It is not necessary to be docked to shipyard if you want to use it.
Your ship just should be located anywhere inside a shipyard radius (yellow circle)

In the next version we will increase radius of shipyard so it will solve this issue (next version will be released today)

[Lemodile]

Some tips on making your life easier with using the shipyard:

• Your starting ship has a grabber, use it to grab the station somewhere near the center so you have plenty of building room.
  
• If you want to make a second ship, build a corridor from your current ship, attach a new grabber which grabs the station and split that off your main ship. You now have a secure location to attach a new command module to.
  
• If you want to build without grabbing the station, I suggest using a station in a higher orbit, it's a bit easier to stay close that way.

Hope this helps

[skatche]

The new shipyard radius is better, but it appears I'm running into a bug. http://oi67.tinypic.com/j8pszt.jpg I was trying to upgrade my thrusters at points A and B. I couldn't attach the new thruster at B, although I could put the old one back after selling it. When I attached the new thruster at A, it immediately broke off, with an explosion. This is pretty much the same thing that was happening with the old shipyard radius, so I'm wondering if there's something in the game's code that still doesn't recognize the new one.

The grabber idea is a good one, though. It didn't even occur to me that I could use it to latch on to the station.

[Lemodile]

Did this happen in a game you started after the update, or did you load an older save file?

[skatche]

Started a new game after the update.