I used to make specialized "People Mover" colony ships in GalCiv2. These ships never settled new planets they just shuttled people to spread out the population. 

Very cool! I will be making one of these badboy's today, I'll call it Edladner's Eye in your honor

This a game mechanic that always sort of eluded me.. I get moving people around to improve another colony, or because that one has too much population pressure and is unhappy... but when I am playing the galactic malevolent turd, I always think to myself "who cares! I will eat your babies if you are non-compliant!"

Ah thats a good one too! So you can just park this little guy ontop of each of your planets and presto, no more worrying about ninja transports??

Did those in my 1st Designer session.  But I come from Malfador's Space Empires series, so I'm familiar with the concept of bin-packing ship designs to optimize functionality for cost.

I further specialize my czers and ctors with exactly enough range for the planet they target (I count the hexes), and whether to pay for 1 more engine or not.  Rule of thumb: if it saves 1 turn, then you paid +10 mp (Hyperdrive) to get the colony 1 turn early, which is surely worth it.  By Age of War, my Designer has about 20 different configurations each of czer and ctor, and basically nothing else.

• Double-ctor (several configurations)

Early-game ship design is ... kind of bland.  GC3 is a platform for fleet combats, so there's not much to do in peacetime.

Genre mash-up modding possibilities abound!

• Space trader, c.f. Lavamind's Gazilliionaire.  You build a Trader ship, and race other empires' traders to buy cargos cheap and sell them dear.  It's almost RPG-like, with your ship as a "character".
• University student.  An RPG-like setting, where you role-play a Student, and you go through Schools to gain Skills.  I made up this niche as a totally different Thing To Do in the context of a galactic empire at peace (i.e. when I got tired of the space trading niche).
• Rock star?  Maybe you're a band, and you travel from gig to gig.  Could dovetail with GC3 tourism improvements, e.g. you hope someday to sell out a Stadium.

It'd be funny as heck to twist GC3 into a peacetime game-within-a-game.  Wars would be punctuation that temporarily interrupt service ...

That reminds me of those scenarios in Civ 3(?), where you played the hero going from town to town and saving it/doing stuff/meeting the local ladies

Interesting concept for a mod though, I can see the Drengi fleet chasing after your rock band because their metal concert wasn't brutal enough

Benevolent: You host a charity rock concert to benefit starving Stardock Developers.

+10 Benevolence, -50 Credits, increased attendance at your next concert by 5.

Pragmatic: You put on a show that caters to your local audience tastes'.

+10 Pragmatism, +30% Revenue from concert, and:

[IF Altarian Audience] Hitting those angelic high notes causes your throat to be sore, unable to perform another concert for 3 turns.

[IF Human Audience] Humans love to complain about everything, lose 10% Popularity for 3 turns.

[IF Drengi Audience] One of your band members lost a limb because they catered to a Drengi's taste quite literally, he will recover in hospital for 3 turns.

Malevolent: You rent a bunch of bats and all band members eat their heads on stage.

+10 Malevolence, +30% Revenue from concert, +15% Popularity, Benevolent civilizations ban your concerts for 10 turns.

Galactic event: Wrong band arrives at rock concert.

Instead of the 'Angelic Soothing Singers Collective' the band 'Disaster Area' performs their most successful concert ever. 10% of the population of the planet on which the concert is held dies. Damage and medical costs increase planetary maintenance by 10% permanently.

The ultimate culture bomb!

Are you on a mission from God?

don't try that strategy in multiplayer ok? You'll lose.

Excellent reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! +1