I am interested in attempting to devise a Dynasty Generator, which would generate such things as Estates, Agents, Factors, Corrupt Officials in Hand, Enemy Officials, possible Heretic Ancestors, pre-existing trade routes, contracts, etc.

One idea I had was to use the beginning Profit Factor with a list of DYNASTIC HISTORY choices, very much the way ships are designed. Your Dynasty would have similar "skeletons in the closet' and "dark secrets" which give more points or hardware at the expense of more rivals, enemies, or corruptions.

any ideas?

Perhaps the way to start is to make a list of all the cool traits and qualities and important events etc that you can think of. Then assign PF values to them as you see fit to end up with a PF number and number of 'Dynastic Features' you feel is reasonable.

If you can only think of 5 DF, then each PF Mod might be +5/-5 and you start at a PF of say, 50. If you can think of 10-20 DF, then each feature might be +2/-2PF and you start at 40.

It sounds cool. You could also give extra/less Ship Points to begin with. Or ship traits. Or special equipment.

"A thousand years ago, your illustrius ancestor discovered a world of advanced Xenos and wiped them out. This world was traded to the Ad.Mech for various favours. The Tech Priests assigned to that planet were soon declared Hereteks, but the favours remain. You may start with 1 extra Xenotech device on your ship."

Something like that.

Agreed.

Using the ship construction system as a template will make it much easier.

More to follow.