Please, if you have ideas, great, thats what we're here for, but how about putting them all down at once in stead of piecemeal? Thats what becomes frustrating for me, I make changes, move things around, get what I believe is a good design, and along comes a whole new set of changes. Maybe I'm just tired. *shrug*
I follow Erik on this one. on my shipbuilding ed, we work in spirals with the project. you start on the outside, make estimates, and go to the next step. you keep doing that until you are back on the first step, but now closer to the center, and revise your original assumptions. then you do this again for every step. and in the end, you see your ship is too heavy or not stable, and you have to go 3 circles back! everything follows on the previous, even the things you do first. and those are simple merchants most of the times, don't even think anything can be simple on an naval vessel
that is the main reason no vessel is ever the same. every problem has about 3 or more solutions, but every solution has it's own problem.