As it is now the core ship designs are pretty useless, unless you quickly need 1 defender totake out a troop transport or something..
How bout making it so that the core ships upgrade themselves whenever a new component research is done??
For example the starfury, which currently is exactly the same as the defender except for the hull/hitpoints, yet they both require the same maintenance (1bc), so its pretty useless..
What if it would automatically upgrade its engines (as new engines are researched and offer faster speed as long as it canfit on the ship), and its weapons (same thing there)?
Now we could have quick access to good ships with the latest availible tech that can be fitted onto it!
There could also be a quick-button next to the core designs, to swich between the best fit-able projectile, beam, or missile weapon and/or defence component that is currently availible.