Hi, I've been playing spaceo for some years now, I have some comments on this topic, first it is quite confusing as many said and secondly why do everything a computor can do for you? If you want to design ships go to this website, you only have to enter the size of the ship and it will tell you how to design it:
http://home.comcast.net/~sjfebf22/SO/ShipDesigner.htm. It is pretty usefull if you want to design bid ships, but never try it with small ships.
Georges 20000