Ship Recovery
There's a few problems with the system as it stands, largely UI imposed. One that gets remarked on is how the number of ships that show up on the recovery screen can be limited by the size of your own fleet, presumably to avoid the player trying to go above the 30-ship fleet size limit.
I think it'd be a lot more sensible if that limitation was abolished and the limit on fleet size spelled out. On the ship recovery window, this could simply be a bar on the bottom of the screen going [current fleet size] / 30. If the player tries to recover more ships than they can have in their fleet, they simply can't click the "recover" button and have to deselect enough ships to go under the 30-ship limit.
The current system works fine most of the time, but it's a serious pain when you realize that the odds of you getting the opportunity to recover particularly nice enemy ships goes down the bigger both your and the enemy's fleets are.
I'd much rather a soft cap based on supplies/mo be implemented - 30 onslaughts aint the same as 30 lashers, all the current fleet cap does imo is encourage the player against having a diverse mix of hull-sizes.
In either case though, I like the idea of auto-mothballing ships gained from recovery that exceed the cap.
Hulks
A somewhat more radical suggestion: ships that are disabled but not recoverable instead become "hulks". You can still recover these (they show up after all the other recoverable ships with some particular indicator as to their status as a hulk), but they can't be used, acting much like mothballed ships, though rather than consuming fuel, they provide a significant burn penalty (and maybe disable Sustained Burn?) unless your fleet includes a Tug.
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Hulks could later be restored at any station (or outpost?) for a hefty sum, much like a D-mod ship. [...]
I suggested something along the same lines, but as an option regarding recovery. In my ideal way of things, when you're presented with a recoverable ship, you have three options:
1) recover it on the spot which takes time (Con-rig/salvage gantries can speed up); a flat investment of supplies and a requisite amount of heavy machinery, and crew to man it once it's done. This would be similar to the current recovery system, but more costly and inherently riskier
2) Bring its engines back on-line - requires a small, flat investment of fuel and supplies, and again, heavy machinery, plus a minimal number of crew - Wouldn't take time, but would incur a severe burn penalty.
This would be the player's primary means of ship recovery until they invest in a construction rig or tug(s).
3) Use a tug and tow it to a market in its disabled state, to recover it there for a heavily reduced supply cost/heavy machinery requirement (due to shipyard facilities). Has no investment or requirements except the tug, incurs no penalty. But it also means no repairs can be performed on that ship, it can't be deployed in combat, and will probably die if forced into a retreat. However, all things in your favour this'd be the most efficient and economical means of ship recovery, you'd just have to own (a) tug(s) which means less combat ships in the fleet - one of the reasons I want that supply/mo cap instead of "30 ships"
It'd be cool if there were certain ships (Eg. Metelson's R&M Hulk(?)) that could function as a tug for multiple ships.
Hull Conversions
I have a gut feeling that this is already in a design document somewhere, but I'm going to suggest it anyway.
There are a few ships flying around in the Persean Sector that are conversions of civilian ships, usually showing up in the hands of pirates and independents, though the Kite and Kite (A) are examples as well. As far as I can tell, these are not supposed to require UACs (with the exception of the Condor), being instead manual refits and modifications of UAC/autofactory products.
The player should be allowed to perform such conversions at any friendly station or outpost. This would presumably be governed by a Skill in the Industry aptitude, with Conversions being linked to specific hulls and every particular Conversion having a certain difficulty level, analogous to the current Salvage and Hazard Rating systems. Presumably these would also have some sort of cost in credits, metals, supplies, time (if time is ever to be made relevant) and/or some other resources or requirements.
Since it's part of the background and has an obvious niche (turning recovered civilian ships which may otherwise be worthless into proper clunkers), I'm guessing something of the sort is already planned, even if my suggestion is way off the mark on the specifics.
I'd like for this to extend to any variants of any hull, with the caveat that faction-specific variants require you to take that ship to a market belonging to that faction, OR purchase/loot/steal blueprints (Same fashion as mod-specs) from that faction to perform those conversions yourself.
Law and Order
Okay, so this one isn't industry, it's purely because I'm leery about starting two threads at once. Too spammy.
Basically, much like how having a reputation in the -1 to -24 range makes you more likely to be stopped for inspections by a given faction's patrols, having an overly militarized fleet would do the same, unless you have a 25+ reputation or commission with the faction in question. Overly militarized being defined as having either a high ratio of military to civilian ships (>1:1) and any military ship of cruiser designation or higher.
A rather more extreme suggestion is to count military-grade weapons as contraband if you don't have a positive reputation with a particular faction. Alternatively and less extremely, an inspection catching you with military-grade weapons (if you do not possess a commission or positive reputation with that faction) would reduce your reputation with that faction.
Naturally, pirate and freeport markets wouldn't care, and independent ones probably wouldn't either.
I see what you're getting at here, but the means you describe would be tedious to deal with. You could have bounty-hunting licenses from factions that enable you to be armed in their territory, but getting there to get the license would probably incur those penalties since you're likely already armed - as would, in the case of your suggestion as it is, most of the actions you can perform to increase relations with a given faction. Getting around such a system would require the ability to, say, leave part of your fleet in hyperspace or on the fringes of a system while you fly out with your "balanced" fleet to interact with their markets.