i know doubling the cost may be harsh but trying to repair something when you dont know "how" to do it would generaly result in an increased cost as you do "trial and error" before finally getting it fixed.
that is why not having the plans is from my point of view a restrictive measure on the fleet composition that is totally "in lore" as factions didnt deploy ships if they dont have the plans. (cannot produce them so it's not economically viable).
it give incentive in looking for blueprint, even buying blueprint location from pirates.
on the other hand it make some fleet composition less expensive than other, explaining why the many other fleets uses the cheap ships even if there are bigger ship floating around practically everywhere.
Finding an hyperion sound great but if you double the mainteance of a high maintenance ship it become such a big money sink that it's effectiveness would hardly compensate the cost.
the exception i made to the cost increase being based on the officer would be to give the option to still have some ship without plans in your fleet without having them impacting the fleet economy that much, but their numbers would be limited to the amount of officer you have at the moment.
that create a dilema as the officer could be better on a ship whose plan is known, but fielding a ship without plans and without officer woud hurt your economy more, so the dilema would be between "efficiency in battle" or "efficient economy".
in other word it's a balancing feature i made up to make the game challenging. in late game the challenge would be reduced as you would have looted a lot of plans, but at the early game even an Enforcer could cost you a lot to maintain as you start without it's plan.
