star trek - Why don't they just replicate ships instead of build them?

In Star Trek, it seems like they take forever to build ships. It takes months, if not years to make them. So why not just build gigantic replicators in space, then replicate the ship (excepting non-replicatable objects like the warp core)? This would presumably come with a huge energy cost, but would save massive amounts of time.

Answer

With regards whole ship replication, there are notes in the Next Generation Technical Manual. It states that replication of an entire ship would take too many resources/too much energy. The behind-screen notes say this is for dramatic effect as the viewer would care too little for the fate of the ship if they can just replicate a new one in minutes.

From Construction Chronology (P17):

Given the existence of matter replication devices (like the show's "food replicator" terminals), a very logical question is: "Why can't they just replicate entire starships?" The real reason is that such an ability would allow us to create entire fleets of starships at the touch of a button. This might be great for Federation defense and science programs, but makes for poor drama. For this reason, starship construction facilities (seen at Utopia Planitia in "Booby Trap" and Earth Station McKinley "Family") have been depicted as construction platforms rather than large replicators. We assume that replication is practical for relatively small items, but that energy costs would be prohibitive for routine replication of larger objects. (Jon Singer points out that if you could make a starship at the push of a button, you wouldn't need to....)

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