FB Ship Construction

I'm finally mucking into some actual ship construction for FT (other
than transports and such).

I have a question for the Shipwrights on the list:
1) What's the best way to estimate how many fire-cons are appropriate
for a vessel? By raw mass? By mass of weapons? By # of weapons
systems?
2) What's the best way to estimate how many PDS are appropriate for a
vessel? mass?
3) What is the best ratio of armour/hull/screens?
4) Beams: What mix of 3/2/1s? For example, I think DDs with 3s are
great - lots of punch. But most DDs use 2s. Am I missing something?
I'm trading long range FP for shorter ranged punch, and to prevent my
DDs getting popped before they can close.
5) Comment on any design differences between vector and cinematic and
any design commonalities (how to design ships that work well in
either).
6) Are there any systems to avoid like the plague (as poorly
balanced)? (Other than the obvious potentially unbalanced WG, NC, and
RF).

Some of these may be opinion based, admittedly. I just want some
opinions and the arguments behind them. I'm not entirely concerned
about min-maxing - I just want to produce designs with no glaring
flaws, or realize when I am "out on a limb" design wise.

Thomas Barclay
Software UberMensch
xwave solutions
(613) 831-2018 x 3008