We need some large industrials. Sub-capital class, somewhere between the current T2 haulers and freighters - with battleship agility, speed and stats.
A Consortium and ORE line (T1, T2 and Faction) would work well with the other industrial ships. The Empire haulers (medium and capital) could retain their niche hauling.
Which niches do the Caldari and Amarr haulers fill?
Blockade Runners, for starters. But they also have tankier options with the Deep Space Transports. This applies to all Empires - not just Caldari and Amarr.
I’m just looking for a few larger industrials. A basic T1 variant, a tankier T2 variant and a faster Faction variant. All with at least 100-200k m3 in cargo space and/or a fleet hangar. Maybe the Faction gets some launchers.
Assign ORE to the T1/T2 and Consortium to the Faction. I haven’t looked at the existing skillsets to see if any existing ones could be utilized.
I’d love this. It seems weird to me that hauling progression in terms of m3 is t1 industrial → DST → Orca??? → Freighter. It makes no sense to me that the only “large hauler” costs almost as much as a freighter anyway and comes from a completely different skill path.
And we don’t need to go down the whole racial/Empire route. Just three decent-sized (battleship) haulers: Ore T1 with a large cargo hold, Ore T2 with specialized ore/ice hold and fleet hangar and Consordium Faction with cargo hold and fleet hangar.