Nevermind. As for the limit, it makes some sence, to keep uberships down to a limit. Still, you should be able to place parts to make most any ship. Ten weapons/drones I get, you really don't need more then that. As for the others, I dunno.
O.O you made the game impossible to play! Planet strength is way too high, and the cost of ships is insane. You cant even get a new ship with insurance.
As for ship designs, sure, you can make a cube out of core parts, being both strong and ugly, or you can show some creativity.
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/3820/scc1aganemnon.png
Not the strongest, but looks nice.
You can mount more then 12 guns, but your ship will only cycle 12 weapons at a time on a single enemy. I had a ship with 8 missile launchers, but it never fired a single missile cause I had so many other weapons.
Skarrface: That's just a hacked (and stolen) version of this game.
Now, there is a Flashtrek: broken mirror 2. It is still in beta with a fair number of bugs.
Starter tips: Be a non aligned.
Spam "t"ransport to planet while your still at your first system. Repeat about 100 times, until your player stats says Away XP 100
Make sure you are NOT carrying a flag on your ship.
Open your "m"ap and fly to Denmark, Gorn, Iconia, and Konael, beaming to planet each time.
Fly to Tholia and buy the Asteroid miners pass. do NOT click on any asteroids without this!
Fly to Bajor and grab Planetary access
Fly to flash and grab the habitat plan.
Fly to earth and grab a starbase plan.
Fly back to Denmark and build your starbase. This leads you to the plans for the light and heavy shipyards, the research station, and the defence and heavy defence cannons.
You should then be in a position to do most anything.
Vex is NOT easy to take. In order to lower the strength of vex, you need to first build a station there, preferably a habitat, then come back and destroy it. That will trigger the borg invasion.
Make sure to bring a LOT of firepower. Borg cubes are no joke!
My newest ships.
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/3820/scc1aganemnon.png
And its advanced version
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/3944/scc1aganemnonreinf.png
 "Zig Zag"){kind=icon}
 "The Enchanted Cave"){kind=icon}
 "ShellCore Command: Skirmish"){kind=icon}
 "Vacation Mogul"){kind=icon}
 "Broken Mirror 2"){kind=icon}
 "Valthirian Arc"){kind=icon}
 "ShellCore Command: Ep1 Final"){kind=icon}
 "FlashTrek: Broken Mirror"){kind=icon}
 "Factory Balls 3"){kind=icon}
 "Punk-o-matic 2"){kind=icon}