I was not sure whether to post this here or in the Tech Editor discussion. Anyway.
Some people have proposed that the spaceship editor might be very similar to how Kerbal Space Program works. And I figured that it might actually work, were it for one condition. If you look at creations in KSP from different users, they all look very similar, since they all use the same parts. But what are the odds that all the space empires in Thrive will all use the same parts? Given this, I see no problem with slap-on parts when building the ship, however, the parts themselves should be designed by the player, or at the very least VERY customizable. There are few parts that could be universal for all the species, such as the detach thingies, as they do not have any visual impact anyway. So, if we combine the creative freedom of Spore’s customizability (applied to actual functional parts) with the KSP’s realism and its logic behind putting the pieces together, we might get VERY customizable ships with a creative freedom, while still being very realistic in its functionality.
Recap - imagine the multicellular editor, where you can place tissues, but still can also alter the individual cells as well. This is basically the same process, where you can customize/design certain parts of the spacecraft and then just slap it all together.
Also, speaking of Kerbal Space Program, it would be really cool if the “space expeditions” in the similar era in which we are right now would be also similar to KSP, where you have to carefully calculate and construct. But once you have more efficient fuel or whatever and develop even better technology, it becomes more and more easier, until you get to a point, where you can control the ship in first person mode similar to… well, any spacy game, where you control the ship, really. An example would be No Man’s Sky. This would make things like landing on the moon and launching satellites feel like a great accomplishment, making you feel proud, but once you get better with the technology, it becomes just as convenient as riding a bike or driving a car (IRL not in the game lol - NO BIKES IN THRIV!)