Firstly, I think people may need a little more info:

You mean one for the whole game, or just have one fielded at the same time?

Is this the only ship they will field at all?

Do you want Capitol Ships available?  (If not, make it cost 16 Capitol Ship slots)(Question for that, were this to be the case, anyone know if you can set a game to start with a certain ammount of fleet supply points or cap ship points?)

Those, in my opinion, should be answered for anyone who may have an idea as to whether this can be done, and if there's not a direct way, perhaps somebody can find a back door, like dedjal's suggestion.

That said, I'm not a modder.  Try asking one of the Distant Stars mod staff, they may know.  Ryat and Draakjakkt come to mind.  (Not sure if I spelled the second right...)

-Twilight Storm

First capitol ship is free--make the cost of that one completely ridiculous.  Then there will be only one.

Riviaguy- that sounds pretty awesome, actually. Except I'd planned it to be 'One at a Time,' not 'one ever.' as in, they can have one out but if it gets fragged it's replaceable... still, I might do what you said here

One ship at a time, might be accomplished by using the spawn ability of the fleetbeacon, which is predominantly used by the vasari, however i have seen some mods give this to the other races as well.

But if you spawn a ship this way, you can determine its lifespan, i believe, same as spawning from combatturret, though combatturret spawns only frigates (you can build "like" capitals here (frigate equivalents, but without leveling) and other frigates of course)

say a lifespan of 900 seconds = 15 min. Have the respawn time, at whatever cost you want and set the re-spawn time to something after the 900 second life of the ship that was made.

It has been sometime since i looked at the fleetbeacon, so i may be mistaken on the ability to limit lifespan. You could consequently make the hull/shields a particular value if you expect the ship to only survive a particular time. Say at half normal value, those ships may only last one or two encouters (even with Pirates, especially in Diplomacy where they are so powerful!). And have the re-spawn time out enough that there would not being any overlap with a ship that has already been created.

The destruction of a "special" building or craft to create the ship is interesting, and i see no reason why it wouldn't work, except how do you control the re-creation of the buildings?

hmmm....

Interesting problem.

Would be fun to look into it though, 

Let me know if you get anything workable.

I can look as well and let you know if i find something that is worth trying.

Take care,

-Teal

p.s Tymestar.... nice idea!!  

Hmm inspired by the others I think it is possible. Make a spawn ability which subtracts health from the spawner and apply a buff to the created frigate which will heal the module when the frigate is destroyed by using ApplyBuffToLastSpawner. That way if the person try to make a secound ship while the other still is there he will loose the module instead.

The only flaw is that you can use healing abilities, but you could give the module a redicolous amount of health.

Twilight- I don't think so. I think all you can do is make it invulnerable- but it still takes healing.