I just want to say that this has been great. Although I started my current campaign before I found yours, you've given me a lot of inspiration. It's also provided a lot of insight (and feelings of dread) in terms of what to expect should I encounter an NPR that is bigger and badder than humanity. Of course you are also quite a good storyteller, and that makes it ten times better. I've really enjoyed following Admiral Foster's exploits and watching how humanity managed to hang on by the skin of its teeth.
I also really like how your ship designs tend to be multi-purpose affairs, and that even your Jump Tenders have teeth. I feel that this is how proper military ships should be, as it gives then extra capability and character. 
But I digress; on the point of design I do have a question. I've noticed that most of your main combat designs tend to have only 3-5 layers of armor. Speaking solely for myself this is half of what I tend to run on equivalent designs, so I'd like to hear your philosophy on that issue.
Thank you for your kind words! This campaign isn't over yet, I intend to take it out a little bit more then wrap it up, but I've been trying to form the Holy Roman Empire in Hearts of Iron 4 and that's been distracting me.
In general, my "standard" design philosophy, which tends to creep into most of my campaigns, is for light ship types, DD's and CL's, to have light armor, max'ing out at around 5. This is for several reasons, first, most of my campaigns tend to be a low to mid tech levels, which, to my mind, discourages heavy armor on all but the largest ships. In addition, in my thoughts, the smaller ships prioritize speed and sensors over armor. This campaign has gone in a direction that seriously affected the design strategy as well. The Republic's Navy has succeeded largely because it was faster than the Dregluk, which mandated a fleet-speed of 5000-6000 kp/s, which at low to medium tech means relatively light armor to achieve the needed speed. Speed is life!
In general, I tend to favor shields over armor in most cases, because shields regenerate and fixing armor means a time-consuming shipyard visit. This is the mind-set that I brought over from Starfire, and while it gets modified by events in each campaign, it is the ideal that I tend to drift towards.
Kurt
