Regarding Faction flagships.

[Rommie]

Link flagships to player bases, and add the probability for equipment being lost if the ship is destroyed. If equipment for said ship is produced via player base supplies. And if the ship is not destroyed, but simply damaged, the repair costs would be high.

You'd imagine that to make a faction flagship, in theory you'd need the following things...

A maxed out POS.
then you manufacture the various 'components' of the flagship, with their own costs. (actual amounts can be decided)

I have no idea what Trading factions would want. Barges would be probably the thing, as you've said.

You're assuming that faction flagships need to be big. They need not be. Hypothetically, the LN flagship could just simply be a Liberty Dreadnought with similar handling, but souped up powercore and hard hitting turrets.

These ships are not to be balanced in the traditional sense of the word. Considering the costs you need to make and fly one, You'd imagine they can really dish out damage against opposing capital ships. LN flagship could maybe take on 3 turtles and win. Or so.

Going by what you've said, what stops trading factions like FTU or Gotti.Inc to make such a thing. 'Gotti.Inc' claimed to own 19.7 bil in credits. Coupled with the manpower, maxing out a POS and building a flagship wouldn't really be such a big issue.

The hypothetical scenario of a buffed LN Dreadnought might work in theory, but in the field, as soon as such a ship would appear, the opposition would bring from twice as many forces to three times as many as they would, just to score a kill on the flagship.
Therefore, using the flagship in combat turns it into a money sinkhole, while not using it makes building it in the first place, a stupid thing to do.

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