The shipbuilding is limited in order to try and not break the game.

You can only have one cockpit, warp drive, fusion generator, and shield generator. You can't have dual core and double shielded guns with an cockpit strapped to them that obliterates anything in sight.

It is more like Fallout meets Cyberpunk 2077 in space with a complex loading screen mini game that doubles as a remote inventory, which you can spend hours customizing somewhat.

NMS's use of ships is far better, like being able to fly around from place to place instead of loading screen around. NMS's ship flying with SF's shipbuilding would have been ideal.

Hopefully modders will be able to fix the shipbuilding.