The technologies I have available when I need to build a ship will vary from game to game depending on trades, how many research bonus tiles I find, etc... so I design new each game to get the best ship I can build with the techs I have. They aren't pretty - I normally just double click and let the system place components but it only takes a few seconds to design a new ship that way and they work just as well.

I've never used jewelry and I don't spend a whole lot of time designing ships but I do insist that my ships be symmetrical and have the engines in the rear and the weapons in the front.

Like most everyone has mentioned I play mostly in icon view but I will zoom in on occasion to take a look at the gee whiz graphics. I do find the ships that the AI builds often funny looking and lopsided. They often remind me of a lobster with one gigantic claw. Actually I find how they move kind of interesting as they rotate to turn corners to go around planets and such. I do appreciate the level of detail involved even though I'm in icon view 99% of the time.

let the system place compontents??

Life without symmetry is hollow. I could never allow the system to place a component and it be placed in a way that no sentient species would choose.   

I also stay in strategic mode most of the time but I know how the ships look. I get a big kick out of the ship designing but it is almost like a separate thing from the game playing.

The design templates are an absolute blessing to me because no, I can't be bothered to make ships look good myself. I appreciate the flexibility and depth of the ship designer, but in practice I'm here to play a strategy game, not use an art tool set.

Depends on mood for me. A lot of times I just double-click my components on and go. At others I have been known to spend 45 minutes designing my first colony ship before ever taking a turn. Just depends on how creative I feel.

While I greatly enjoy the strategy aspects of this game if find the added level of customizationW that the ship builder brings to be a fantastic boon to an already deep strategy title.

This is simply because I find it far more engrossing to fight epic battles when the ships involved have a bit of personality and of course a chance to appreciate my own handy work. Quite simply id rather let my imagination take hold, as its far more interesting, to me, to fight over worlds that I've named and with ships I've built, otherwise its just like playing super advanced mine sweeper and the game becomes a war of number instead of an epic struggle for domination.

But hey thats just me right, different stokes and such.

Lol in retrospect you guys are probably much more dangerous opponents then I am seeing as you have your focus.

I enjoy messing around in the ship designer, but then I'm a graphics geek. I used to do graphic design for a living. I like the challenge of trying to come up with designs that reflect each race's back-story and personality. For example, all my Iconian designs are intentionally very asymmetrical, and a bit klunky-looking, like they don't know quite what they're doing with their Precursor tech. All my evil race designs look mean and nasty... you'd know you're facing a killer race just by looking at the ships.

Most of that effort is spent on the military ships. The utility craft like colonizers, constructors, freighters and scout/sentries are somewhat individualized according to race, but fairly simple designs. It's more fun to work on the attack ships.

That said, I don't spend nearly as much time and effort as some folks do, based on what I've seen in the sticky posts here showing off ship designs. Aside from the time investment, I'm always a little worried that performance might start taking a hit, if I go too nuts with stacking parts on a hull.

I'd be more interested in custom ships if there actually were epic battles in the game. But watching ships float around aimlessly while the computer grinds through dice rolls doesn't appeal to me.

It depends on my mood. There are times when I start up a Battle of the Gods game purely to design a template and save it for "real game" use. I can use up entire 2 or 3 hour sessions just designing ships.

The main difficulty and artistry of designing templates is in hardpoint management. The editor essentially allows you to place any component anywhere, you just need to get the hardpoint in the right place in the right orientation.

Some of the longest sessions I've spent designing don't use a heck of a lot of parts - it's getting the parts in exactly the right place that's usually the challenge.

Whatever pops up into mind, i'll go for the nearest feeling of destructive gizmos as much as possible. I don't actually USE it often, just a few times to enhance with new stuff and better weaponry as they come along... may also sprinkle a couple of cue-wing-like-boosting-components to make it stand out form the pack when necessary. But, that's more for aesthetic than actual potential at war.

I mainly design any within a single framework & goal - eventual development of the X-Worlds fleets which will require good skills at shipyard handling; as i do agree, also, that placing components can get tedious if not outright annoying.
3D representation is a matter of perception while the mechanics provided by ship-parts to attach on a specific location (as in red-dots hovering and quite hard to clearly determine) are conditional to the cpu-evaluation status on my real intentions. If i don't get TO *THE* spot in reasonable time, frustration, double-click and bye. Point being, the deception outweighs the function itself.
Thus, a slow endeavor that requires patience.

In a game though, i won't be bothered by spectacular attempts at the nifty swell ultra-combat graphics... since i prefer strategy and tactics to great looking spaceships. Besides, i get no texturing. Old-card, but interface speed DOES matter in many places. Including the flashy travelers.

Gimme slick planets though, as it's probably why i'm soooooo intense on fixing the X-Worlds set of Homeworlds.

- Zyxpsilon.

Actually Designing ships is one of the most enjoyable parts of the game IMO, But I think it's just a matter of taste you either enjoy it or you don't. I wouldn't like GC2 half as much without the user designed ships.

Oddly, I use it more because of that. I'm designing a unique style for each race.