[AgentZero]

Got an idea for a faction for you. The MicroStar (or MS) Empire. Have the biggest ships in the game. Their ships are also the slowest, and filled with components that don't actually seem to do anything and the components that do seem to serve a purpose don't seem to do it very well. MS Ships are also very heavily armored, yet against actuall weapons the armor doesn't seem to do much. The armor is usefull though, because MS Ships have extremely poor sensors, and thus tend to crash a lot. The only advantage the MS Empire has is that they have a lot of money, so any time another empire builds a better ship, the MSE buys it off them and suppresses the design. :-D
Obviously I'm not serious...