I like doing some amount of design, and it'll probably settle down after the first turn, so I'm not too worried about burnout just yet. Right now I've built most of the easy nations, though. I have a friend who I'm trying to convince to join, so I'm leaving the FedSuns for last in case he jumps in. That leaves the Terrans, whose designs are already built(though they may need to be adapted slightly to our tech base), and some Capellan nations.
Sarna is heading towards an attack on the TGU, so they're not building ships this turn, only light craft that will be ready in time. The Liaos canonically had a level 4 shipyard within a few turns, so I'm trying to see if building that up makes sense at all. The budget is extremely tight, but maybe I can make it fly. Sian and Capella are closest to being free agents - I'm thinking one of them might make a deal with Liao to offer capital for shipyard expansion in exchange for the right to buy ships. We know that deal will be made obsolete by a merger, but they don't. Sian in particular may find that to be a good deal, because they're the richest nation with no yard space of their own, and a cheap Du Shi Wang in future seems better than an expensive rushed corvette design right now in some ways. Capella will probably prefer the early build, because they actually have the yards for it - a light ship would suit them, perhaps an aggressive commerce raider, since they know they'll be fighting asymmetric wars against most possible opponents.
I think that's everyone? So there's not much actual design work to be done, really. I just need to get some uninterrupted time. And on your side, I think you've all submitted your turns except for getting a final budget from Taurus.
EDIT: An update regarding my flying tree attack - repair techs should be out tomorrow, so I ought to be able to get this sorted by the end of the weekend.