2 is clearly the frontrunner to a hostile takeover- stay away from all costs.
1 trades profit now for a good buddy later. Getting in good with the law now is probably worth it if we don't take option 3.
3: Right now, assuming that production is additive (we can make 10 haulers with 3x3.4=10.2 parts) we could produce 79 ships in that time if we didn't add any lines or docks. Adding two docks would bump that up to 84*. That'd leave us 16 short, getting us a penalty of 32k, for a total profit of 48k, which comes out to ~571 a ship. That's actually pretty good at current prices, so it's worth the money, and is stable. The 30k advance would cover the dock expenses.
Adding THREE docks and two lines (which we could just barely afford with the advance- lines now then docks) would get us 89** ships. 11 short, 22k penalty, total profit 58k, ~651 a ship. Even better.
Getting a loan would let us build a fourth, fifth, and sixth dock and four more assembly lines now to get the whole 100*** ships. This would be no penalty, but 25k in interest. The total profit would be lower than last time, but we'd be in a MUCH stronger position. However, we wouldn't have cash to cover the interest payments. Unless we could negotiate something with either the bank or the Safe Caravans company, this option isn't available.
* 9 this month, three months of 10, three months of 11, and one month of 12. We'd lose five from not having the docks.
** 9 now, 3x 10, 3x 12, 1x 13
*** 9 now, 3x 10, 3x 15, 1x 16, though there'd probably be overflow that I can't be arsed to calculate
In conclusion, I say take offer 3. Attempt to negotiate more payments forward or a better interest rate/repayment schedule. If you can't do either, buy three docks and two lines. Turn one line to the engine and another to the hull- we can turn these lines into something else when the deal's over.
...crap. We can't do this because we can't afford to pay salary! Um. I guess we can do the first part option, where we build two docks now with the advance. We have 16k to last us for 8 months, which will cover salaries (which are 9600 for the duration.) We can use the final payoff to start building what we discover.
Only trick is this'll make for a boring eight months where we just sit and R&D. They may be pissed that we're 16 ships short, but oh well- it's covered in the contract.