if there is interest and it is practical to do so, I will make them
I have been thinking of designing a plug with super powerful but extremely sluggish ships that appear in Nova as both invading forces in enemy systems and as defending forces, and would be available to the player as soon as the other capital ships are. (Archon's topic on ship classes gave me this idea.) Perhaps they could even come in fleets including dreadnoughts, carriers, destroyers, etc. This would also make the player have to worry more about domination of planets or incursions into enemy territory, because if you face one of these dreadnoughts in anything but another dreadnought or without strong escorts, you will die.
Also, to balance the plug, I would halve the number of mantas per bay. It would not do to have a dreadnought class of raven invade an auroran system, facing even two or three of the auroran dreadnoughts, if its mantas were only outnumbered by two to one. I believe that an A.I. manta could kill at least four auroran fighters before death, and I don' t think it would make much sense that the Polaris ships destroy everyone in the system every day but don't capture the station or advance further into auroran space. Since I want the border changes to be determined by the story lines, I want the fleets approximately balanced.
Then again, if the sheer number of fighters required to wage such a large scale battle interestingly is too high to be allowed in the system, or if the dreadnoughts are too large to pilot and obstruct the view of the enemies, I may have to rethink or discard my plans for the plug-in.
Here are some potential ideas for graphics ideas for if the plug is implemented:
For the auroran dreadnought, I thought of a bigger EV override merchant courier.
For the fed dreadnought, I thought of something like a resized anathema titan, but it could be many other things.
For the Polaris dreadnought, I thought of a slightly bigger raven.
For the rebel dreadnought, I have no image ideas. Suggestions?
For the Vell-os heavy cruiser (do they really need a dreadnought???) I thought of a bigger and slower version of Archon's ship in the newest release of the excellent storyline expansion plug Anathema chapters 1 and 2.
For the pirate dreadnought, I thought of something like two leviathans stuck together to make a long ship, then putting the engines from several leviathans on the back and making it look like a dark gray and leviathan-like version of Princess Leia's ship in "a new hope" with gray metallic polls connecting the corners of the engines to the frontal tip of the ship.
For the Wraith cruiser, I am once again open to suggestion.
If it is possible to make the plug, then I will begin work on the ship setup, balance, etc. immediately and will specify their stats and equipment. Unfortunately, as many of you may know, I am completely inept at graphical design and will need someone to execute even the simplest of graphical modifications (resizing for example) for me. I will link all the resources together and create all non graphics- related resources. However, if no one helps me, the plug will be very boring to play, and the chances of me uploading and publishing it are slim at best.