Ship Design Advice?

So… I’ve only played for an afternoon on Normal & am curious what build methods others like to use.

My most successful ship is a Churchill class cruiser loaded with torpedoes… creatively named “Torpedo Cruiser”. It’s fairly cheap and devastating in numbers.

The other interesting design is a Yamato class Dreadnought loaded with heavy armor, engines, heavy shields and a few Particle Accelerators. Its main role is to attract lots of attention quickly.

What ship-design advice would you guys share?