Now, basic info about design mechanics:
I want format like that
Name
Desired volume
Team Who will work at the project. In order of preference (First one will be the head designer, the second is his assistant and so on. Note that only head designer will get full copyright rights and that you are the only one who will not get huge penalties in most rolls )
Estimated time How much you plan to spend on designing. That will affect quality of the finished design. Standard design time is 1 month*size category (drone month, fighter two and so on). You can work faster or slower and no one forces to rush anything in production if you dislike finished design. Bad rolls may ruin all time plans. Typical turns are month long
General description of the idea Most important part. Ship will be based on that.
Priorities You have 5 priority points that you may spend. That's may be anything you want, broad or narrow. Examples: AI, maneuverability, point defense laser, power consumption, complexity, $cost, IC cost. Note that you can't directly say - improve maneuverability in expense for armor, that's what general description for. Priorities work in another way, team will look for possibilities to improve desired characteristic but that that will create disadvantages (possibly hidden) in other, semirandom areas. Priority can be negative. Example: Neglect armor. Armor will be worse. But you will get some random bonus(es) in other semi-random area.
And the last thing: Every engineer can work in two projects without penalties, so it's a nice idea to have more than one R&D project on-line