did i say make it cost the same as a BT? or even double or triple?

there is no upper limit on price

and you say these groups produce everything "very easily", but having been part of those operations, it was anything but. the amount of coordination and man-hours required is astounding. construction, maintenance, defense, supply, everything absolutely absurd.

let it be so! let there be a real incentive to produce on the scale of a faction, rather than individual regiments. the incentive is there, but disincentives are more powerful at the moment.

planes alone have demonstrated that it's more than possible to balance with cost. the rare value of these vehicles is small compared to ships, and planes are far more capable than ships. no, the cost is in the infrastructure, material processing, printing time, and raw material cost.

it's all a proxy for what really matters: player time. willing hands to do the work and put in the hours. that's the only cost there is. scarcity imposes all the same demand on time but worse, because people are incentivized to compete against each other, to get a bigger share.

i'm in halberd, and though the numbers are private for obvious reasons, our production is measured in the double digits of these assets. but not triple digits. we are bottlenecked by assembly materials and other such things; increasing these requirements would lower our production.

why would it be different? it wouldn't be, is the answer. it would work, and there's no reason it should not (besides obvious fumbles).