Got some time tonight and decided to jump on the ol' spaceship for a little while. After working a little while with the curves for the "framework" of the ship, I remembered the old trick I discovered a while back and showed how to do in the "Ivy growing on a Greek column" bit where you add a shrinkwrap modifier to the curves to get them to line up flush against an object. So here's what I've come up with at the end of tonight's session: