Best advice I can give is to do preliminary thinking and sketching. Usually on the fly, and makes for a fun mental break in an otherwise busy schedule throughout the day.

Time is important, don’t waste it on hours of idle time loaded in SE experimenting with shapes when you could have done it over coffee or lunch with a notepad.

Some other tips: * start with blocks to get the shape, don’t mess with conveyers or thrusters until after * do not overthink or doubt your initial vision (from the notepad), huge time sink. Build what you imagined, modify after it’s done. * organize your ship terminal like no tomorrow. Name, group, hide in a methodical and organized manner. Great for complex setups with subgrids/timer blocks.

Time: no idea, but inversely proportional to how much forethought I put into the design before even touching the game.

Happy building!