Essentially the idea is to enhance the effect Support ships would have on a fleet. As for right now, freighters and tankers give extra cargo and fuel capacity for the whole fleet- why shouldn't certain combat ships give similar bonuses? Idea comes from trading-card style bonuses.
Spoiler
A Starsector trading card game! Imagine the possibilities!
For example:
1- Intredictor Bonus: Nearby enemy fleets have reduced travel speed and your fleet's Area of Operation is expanded (distance you have to get to enemy fleets before interacting).
2- Blockade Bonus: Similar to Intredictor, but is only granted when you have a large fleet- Enemy fleets have a much smaller chance to escape.
Side note:
Spoiler
Something similar was mentioned in the Fleet Encounter Mechanics blog post about large fleets not being able to disengage effectively- this bonus would give larger fleets more of an advantage to counteract that.
3- Phase Stealth: Phaseships do not appear in the fleet overview window that pops up when you mouse over an enemy fleet except at very close range.
4- Scout Craft: Player can zoom out farther on the fleet map. AI fleets have better reaction time to incoming attacks.
5- Advance Strike: Bonus granted by having a large number of strike craft, enemy hull integrity is lowered 10% and larger ships suffer CR loss-friendly strike fighters cannot be deployed for the first 10 seconds of engagement.
Much of the same idea will be happening with Officers I imagine, but this would be a nice addition to fleet mechanics and make the player choice of fleet build more strategic. Would probably also make fleet 'builds' seem more like 'decks' in card games, so player fleets could be emulated and matched against each other.
Now, multiplayer is time and time again brought up... but (humor me) what if it wasn't actually multiplayer? If 'fleets' could save as their own file types, players could upload fleets to a central server (Or simply swap them via third party means) and load other person's fleets. Players would not be actually playing against each other, rather playing against their fleet builds.
Evidently this can be done very informally via mission mods, but a central game element for it would be quite interesting, and would add some grand strategy to the game atmosphere.
Despite what you may think, I don't actually play trading card games- I just think they have some valid strategy concepts.
Thank you for your time.
EDIT:
I hereby dub this...
Faultyplayer
