Having fun with this playthrough after 119 years and several real world hours of playtime.

I am very confused, shouldn't this be several years and 119 real world hours of playtime? Or am I playing this game wrong? 

For the ship designs I wouldn't say too much, in the design forum a long comment might be warranted but in an AAR there are too many roleplay considerations for any discussion of what is "best" or "optimal" to make sense. The one thing I will say is that the ships with shields should really have more shields and cut down some of the armor mass, strategically there are too many advantages to shields to have ships flying about with 10+ armor layers and only 1-2 shield generators. Particularly for anti-missile warfare, where the best defense is not to get hit anyways as if you can get hit once you can get hit 1000 times, no armor accounts for that!

Post feedback, critique, commentary, and thoughts here!