So what is this "cap" on ships being built?

[(/\)arped]

I've seen it stated around a few times that the factions will only reproduce ships up to some upper limit and then stop. Is this confirmed?

If so:
a) can it not be modded upwards?

b) if not, can it not be used as a "soft" cap - used as the maximum amount of ships a faction can have "in flight" at once. Wealthy factions should be able to build up a "reserve" fleet which gets depleted as they take on losses. The reserve fleet only exists in memory and can be launched from shipyards/Wharfs when appropriate.

The extra buffer of producing reserve ships should keep both the economy and wars flowing - and be a bit more consistent in pace as well (not such strong difference between war / rebuild sessions).

[furirkeeper]

I just noticed there are a bunch of asteroids in Tharkas Cascade labeled "Xenon", I sure hope they don't count towards their cap.
I guess it is a bug.