I've used Bryce5 for space pirates and starship shipsets. I also used it for the "Csgith" race in Lord Kodos'mod.
You can have a look at them here :
http://sotas.clan.st
and here :
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=23;t=009390
I used Doga for the spacesharks (so it's possible to make different looking shipsets with Doga... but it takes time !). Bryce is much powerful than Doga (you can make boolean volumes, and then texture options are very powerful).
My first shipset, the pexlerr kingdom, was made with... a pencil, a scanner and Photoshop ! (it has been tedious as hell !!!)
Now I would like to learn to use povray ( for future SEV shipsets...).