Every ship in Starfarer is unique, every ship seems to fit in a role, has it's own weaknesses and strenghts.
But sometimes, you have this ship XY that would be really great... if you just could add all the Hull mods/weapons
to it and maybe tweak something a bit, but in reallity they are kinda bad...
And all ships are certainly great, but when faced with a Tempest or even a Hyperion they just are "outdated" as the game
would say it. (comparison of frigates)
Seeing the Buffalo MK.II Destroyer brought up this idea
MK.II... Mark II... improved version
that should be the case with more ships
I think there should be different versions of every ship, simply more recent models
not upgradable per say... because there is no upgrade button
but the station could sell different versions of the same ship (for increasing prices ofcourse)
there could be an MK.I, which is the normal version that we have right now
but there could be an MK.0, a prototype version, which is really weak compared to Mark I,
a Mark II, which is slightly better and so on, until at a certain Modell, the ship can actually
compete with all the recent versions
the look of the ship stays the same, it's easier to implement and makes more sense, it stays the same type of ship afterall
But! the models should keep some of the unique weaknesses and strengths a ship has
things it could affect:
- Ordnance points
- Weapon mounts (maybe change ballistics into lazors
- Flux
- speed
- other characteristics
- providing hull mods without costing ordnance points
let's do an example
Hound class frigate, everyone knows it
Cheap, fragile, medium speed ship, no shields
no real strenghts, but cheap
weaknesses: no shields, blind spots on the rear and the right side, is totally boned when engines die
MK.0
Prototype Version
-has a small weapon slot on the front instead of the medium sized one
MK.I
current model
MK.II
Improved engines
+10 Top speed
+10% maneuverability
- grants the hull mod Insulated Engine Assembly for free (because if it blows up you are the easiest target in the game in this ship
)
MK.III
-improves the generator so it can support more systems (Ordnance points +6)
MK.IV
- improves the turn radius of the second Turret (the small one) so that it can cover the right side aswell
- also grants advanced turret gyros to the back turret (only the back one and it won't stack if you take the hull mod aswell) to deal with the bigger radius to cover
MK.V
-ads a small sized missile mount to the right side of the craft
-also grants +5 Ordnance points to allow you to equip the missile launcher properly
It would still not be a top craft... but it would be a cheap ship which you can equip for every situation
and it could fight against other frigates without beeing outclassed
