Boy this thread has grown !!
It seems to me the issue is that everyone takes all these specialty ships over the regular line ships,.. why cause they are better.
How about restricting what people can buy ? When I go to a dealership for a car, the Lamborghini is not even in the lot for purchase. Is there no way to limit the ship selection to line ships with only "occasionally" there being some small number of specialty ships available. Do players always have to have like 20-30 ships to choose from ? What if for some turns of the game only line ships were in the dock for purchase, with an occasional specialty ship. Maybe some level of randomness to what is in the dock can be generated with some PHP code.
Again the reason that our navy or air force is not full of all specialty units (B-1's and Agies Cruisers) is that they cost an arm and a leg to build. The production costs do not reflect that, the BPV does not reflect the true cost to build a specialty ship only its equivalent combat value. If it did,.. players would not fly them cause they could not afford them. Of course if they are cheap and available they will be taken.
As aghast as I am to say this,.. I agree with Dizzy,... Starting to fudge with ship load outs seems wrong and a small patch for a much bigger issue.
In my campaigns folks often fly with line ships cause I set fleets at the start and I set mostly line ships. During the campaign when they get under way building stuff they can build whatever they want. Due to build rates we see only an occasional specialty ship.
Players like that cause otherwise you rarely will see a War Eagle in a game. In our games crap ships are flown and the battles are still a lot of fun. Plus it is much closer to realistic, if I dare use that term.