I'd recommend making a mine layer and heavy mine layer. The mine layer's name is probably going to be "Rebound", and it's gonna have decent maneuverability and the ability to set down mines. It's a rear only though. The heavy mine layer (I've made one, it's called Dead-Zone), is going to be a cube with decent armor and thrust. It'll also have four Mine Launchers and decent storage, but can also produce Mines in a pinch. There's one Mine Launcher on every face, centered for optimistic reasons.

I hope that wall of text helped you, Spooper.

No, I don't know how to implement custom factions into career mode yet. Besides, I want to have at least few ships for each danger level before trying to implement them.

Does the faction appear in Career mode?

cool ships, btw your battle ship wane is missing a door.