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Originally Posted by Anthony
Is there some reason you're focused on RPG spaceship design systems? Unless you're using the system intended to work with whatever RPG you're using, a non-RPG designer will be just as usable with your game as an RPG designer.
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Lately, I've been running fantasy games, not sci-fi ones, and weakness in a lot of games' rules for spaceships is a major reason why. So I could be convinced to try running a sci-fi game I've never run before if it has a good spaceship design system. Also, while I am not 100% opposed to using war-game spacehip rules in an RPG, war-games and RPGs are designed to do different things, so many war-games make poor RPG supplements. I recognize there are exceptions.
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Also, what is it you want out of a design system?
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I think the thing I really want is a system that leads to nice in-universe explanations for why ships are built the way they're built.
Transhuman Space actually does this pretty well in some (but not all) respects. For example, the long skinny Space Dominance Vehicles with thick armor caps on one end are the kind of thing a munchkin would build, but they make total sense in-universe. OTOH the fact that in the core THS book, at least, coilguns come in one size and lasers come in two sizes is not great. That results in ship designs where the answer to "why is it like that" is "this is the only weapon size the game supports". So I maybe should have said up front that a weapon design system would be ideal—and if not that, I think I really want weapons tables that follow clear patterns which are able to be extrapolated.