Are the battleships useless ?

[jammi]

Like in the freelancer singleplayer, when you got intercepted by rehinland, that battleship appear from the cloud and you are like OHH NO

Following which two defector RM fighters (not even bombers) destroy it on their own, with four torpedos. Later you take out an entire RM fleet of battleships with a squad of four fighters (presuming your wingmen die). Single player isn't a good demonstration as to why our battleships should be stronger.

I'd also be strongly against any kind of system that requires manual intervention from the administration in order to approve battleships. Discovery has never had a particularly healthy bureaucracy, and placing that kind of additional burden will either cause it to snap, or people to quit as their applications are either ignored for months or processed haphazardly.