My fellow comrades in arms.
I have a question regarding ship design. I've noticed alot of designers place their modules right up to the edge of their ships, this to me seems like a questionable practice, as even one stray particle will cause the destruction of said module. And I've noticed this not just with cheap lasers, but expensive modules such as the fighter base and the MK-7, or even batteries which if destroyed wastes all the stored energy. The only up side I see to this practice is to lower ship cost, but it comes at a price I am not willing to pay.
Personally, I've taken a page from all the vanilla ships and have at minimum one piece of armor between my ship modules and the vacuum of space. So my question boils to this.
Is there a particular reason for this practice? Is there some practical advantage I'm missing? Or is it simply a matter of aesthetics?
For the few of my ships that have this style, it's for aesthetics. Having no armour next to some modules can sometimes look good depending where it is located and can sometimes give a cost advantage. But the expensive and useful modules? I can only see an advantage in looks for those, a death machine losing it's one powerful gun to a single stray particle seems like it would be too common, unless it's mainly a defencive ship.
I also mostly put one layer of armour around all module as well. As you probably know.
For me, there are two things that generally affect my ships design in this way, which are the ship size and aesthetics. As some people might know, many of my ships are actually attempts at recreating the ships from Homeworld (not including Hydraxil ships) and as such my designs are restricted to a certain design. This means that I have to fit the modules within the shape I'm given, and that can lead to some modules being placed on the outside of a ship. One example of the design affecting this is my Derelict Heavy Cruiser.
Example
This is what the PF design is.
(http://i.imgur.com/VZ09vZR.jpg)
And this is the original.
(http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/homeworld/images/e/e0/Karos_ship01.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110117213756)
This kinda forced me to put those MK7s in a vulnerable position, since that is where they are on the original.
The other thing is ship size. Some of my ships can be very small (for example, my Frigates) and as such, keeping the design as it is, putting a layer of armour around the modules will ruin the aesthetics. I do, however, always attempt to keep the Command Module armoured, so that it's not an instant KO when some particle breathes on it, which would make the ship useless. That said, there are two ships in my fleet that do have this vulnerability, which are my Carriers.
Example 2
(http://i.imgur.com/1uVTBH3.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/ChhLs1Q.jpg)
As you can see, these two have extremely exposed bridges. Whilst this is an aesthetic design choice, it provides an interesting balance to these ships. Having three Fighter Modules each, they possess an insane amount of firepower. It the bridge were to be buried deep inside the ship, it would be a lot harder to kill these things and as such would be a nightmare to fight against (or would make things too easy). Therefore, this vulnerability forces you to be extra careful with your Carriers, not dumping them on the front lines, instead favouring a "leading from the rear" approach that ensures they do provide the firepower you need, whilst needing other ships to protect it. Kinda like the Carriers in Homeworld.
Anyways, that's just my thoughts. I could probably ramble on, but I feel this post has become too much of that already. So yeah, this is a peek into my personal design philosophy. (If you have any questions, feel free to ask). *cough*
I design my ships based on my "mood" ... there is no rhyme or reason.
There are inherent advantages to each type of construction. While most of my ships have 1-4 layers of armor at every turn, smaller, less armored ships have higher speed, lower costs, and can hold more offensive items/tools. Heavily armored craft are the opposite, trading offense, speed, and economic availability for more bulky and defensive traits. It all boils down to the ship's intended purpose.