That's an interesting idea, although it would require proper scrutiny to find out if it really works. =) Depending on how the exterior requirements are set for different facilities it could render some ship designs completely useless, as there would simply be no good places to put certain modules.

What I'm talking about now is ship designs in terms of "looks". It is true though that there are optimal ways to construct a ship, to make path distances shortest possible etc. Is that a cube? Seems so.

Right now the square is just a canvas, like a canvas to paint on. It's not meant to be a design in itself, it is meant to function as a canvas and give the player the maximum freedom to design a ship, sandbox style. If the canvas itself was in some ship form from the get go it would actually be more limiting, it would force the player to build a ship like that.

We haven't dived deeper into this yet, but it has been on our minds for a longer time. We'll see how it evolves in the future!