To start, I am really liking the game. But as a new player, there are questions that need answering that are nowhere in the manual.
First off, when the game offers a new ship design for construction availability, the new design is often something I can not make if I designed my own ship. Either the game designed ship has more things attached then the hull will allow or (i've had this as well) the ship is using components I haven't researched yet. Bug? Quirky feature? What's the point of me designing a ship if I can't engineer one of at LEAST equal abilities?
Second, what's this "Focus" and "Ship design focus" dialog supposed to do?
Edit: OH! And do the computer players get to "cheat" like this as well? (in reference to first point)