Was there ever talks of a non-carrier capital ship for the Knights? I have been really enjoying playing a game as a knight captain(using star starsector +, Nex, and most of the mod factions), and I have slowly phased knight ships out of my fleet. The Carrier is to resource heavy to really deploy, and really it isn't like it matters how much armor you have on your carriers. The paladin is fun, but isn't really armed that heavily. It has a hard time brawling with several capitals in a row. At this point my flag ship ends up either being a pocket battleship with three arondalights on the front, or a Corundum. The Paladin was a nice midrange flagship... but it isn't big enough to really act as the center piece of an end game fleet.
I wouldn't mind something stupidly expensive or with an insane resource cost...