La Volpe
Sage
If you're looking to design a solar system from scratch, I wouldn't worry too much about making it 100 percent realistic. You can get into some pretty complicated stuff that even scientists researching them for years don't really understand. I'd just create some parameters that look semi-realistic, then run with it. You're probably not going to include a full description of the composition and orbit of each planet, and even if you did I doubt anyone would try to run a simulation of the formation of your solar system.
I once tried to do something very similar to what caters is doing now (i.e. create a whole solar system from scratch), but it eventually just ended up with me spending weeks on end discovering countless new, complex, and frankly fascinating things about solar systems and planets (and not understanding very much of it). There was just so much stuff that I had to know that I was getting nowhere with the actual story.
I think that you can get a 95% realistic world/solar system/energy weapon/etc. with a reasonable amount of research. But to cross that last 5% to make it a 100% realistic takes a lot longer. And I've found that it takes a lot of fun out of a story. I like to handwave the few details that could possibly cause my entire premise to be faulty. But maybe that's just me.