DeathReaper658 there already is a tutorial in-game, however if you wish to get advice on ship building... that is easy.
Explosive material:
Reactors
Anything with missiles in it
Do not put those on the outside!
Missiles on the side and cannons or lasers on the front (prefer cannons)
Use shields to protect your guns and point defense against missiles, you can surround your shield base even on the front of it (just get past the yellow and red line shaded area)
Engines either on the back or inside the ship, no front engines!
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have more than enough crew and energy (bars at the bottom right)
use energy storage a lot (they help but only in close proximity to something needing power)
That's the basic stuff I can give
here is an example of a good ship
to download it go to your Cosmoteer folder then go to the ships folder, save it as <insert name here>.ship