Specific ships for minor factions

I like your idea ! Why faction minors would have no vessel, no defenses they are so weak and defensless !

And why minors faction do not increase their population, or do not colonize their system? That doesn't make sens !

That's exactly what my biggest wish is!

I feel like if this idea wasn't already part of the dev team's plan, it should be! It does take away some of that immersion and great story when they all have the same ships, and like you showed in your pics, they already have ship designs for both the Amoeba and the Hissho! This is a great idea for them to work on (maybe as a stretch goal? I know making new models is tough) and I think they would only need to make one small ship for each minor faction.

And the idea of being able to use their ships - brilliant! Just like minor faction units in Endless Legend!

In addition to the ability to use minor factions ships there should be a way to customize loadouts of said ships. As of now there is a chance to get say Horatio racial ship through a quest while playing other major faction but you won't be able to customize it's loadout in any way.

In a way this is exactly what an assimilation in EL was good for: To be able to create troops of this type of minor civ. Why not ships? They could have unique strengths like others too. I would generally say they would be a little better small ships. Like an attack, defense or scout ship with one more slot or more specialized slots or so. Depending on the minor civ. Definitely agree.

As a sidenote I recreated the "missing" factions from ES1 with ES2 variants and the closest I get to amoeba ships are Unfallen. And for Hissho I would have to take Horatio, even though they have a lack of slots.

This would certainly get rid of most the dozens of shuttles, knives, scrapers, etc. that I always find in the marketplace...having access to the ship design would be a wonderful option to give us some way to defend ourselves without needing to go into the development wedge.

As an alternative, what if they simply produced ships automatically at no upkeep cost to you?  Holding several minor civs could give you a respectable patrol fleet over time--certainly not enough to go stomp a Craver, but enough that you're not completely at the mercy of pirates and other raiders.