Could someone give me a quick-n-easy definition of "line ship"? Where is the cutoff between plain ol' ship and line ship?
Generally it's the, uhmm, line ships...
Anything with a tag of CL,CW,CA, the "base" ships of a class
So (for Feds) a NCL is a "line ship"
An NCD (drone variant) NEC (escort) NVS (strike carrier) are not
Some people (myself included) generally also throw in the command variants (CLC in this case)
some players just keep it to the basic class hull.
Another interesting idea Chuut- but again (imo) not really going to work
a few extra spares doesn't really make up for the 6 + points of extra power the CF will give you
Or the alpha strike/hex flipping ability of a droner.