It is nice to feel that you are really into the world, at times finding crappy ships that only a cheap suicidal person would buy, sold for half a penny.
Except that the costs on those "half penny" ships aren't reasonable vs. what a decent ship costs, amongst other problems.
A Pirate (D) Kite, for example, is worth
maybe 100 credits; it's a throwaway hull good for laughs in a fight, where it's only utility is that it might get off some AI-annoying chaff missiles before dying, if you give it a Timid pilot (seriously, try it with a half-dozen of them, it's amusing).
Does it, the rough equivalent to a used '89 Corolla with a blown head gasket, cost 100 credits? No, it costs almost as much as a perfectly-nice (if still-basically-useless) Kite. Which makes it useless, rather than a viable throw-away ship.
What I'd really like to see is something analogous to real-world effects of military gear vs. civilian gear, in terms of prices. In the real world, an old tank (say, a T-54) can be had for very cheap- less than $30,000. It's still deadly dangerous; it's just not useful on a modern battlefield. A modern tank with all of the fixin's costs roughly $5-6 million. Why? Because relatively-small improvements in weapons and sensor tech, mobility and armor
really matter. A modern cruiser could kill a small fleet of WWII ships fairly easily but costs more than 5 WWII cruisers did to build in real dollar terms; this is just how things work in the real world.
But a Hyperion doesn't cost a million credits (like it should) and a XIV Onslaught doesn't cost 50% more than a stock Onslaught (which is roughly what the XIV bonuses really mean for a capital ship, in terms of real combat value).
When money actually matters and there are sources of drain, I presume this stuff will get a serious balance pass.
But let's get to the meat here, in regards to the specialization issues. Alex tried a bunch of experiments with 0.7 and they've been interesting and largely fun.
Anyhow, I totally approve of the Safety Overrides hull mod... except that, frankly, I can't see a single reason
not to take it thus far, because the bad parts don't outweigh the good. If there was a Hull Mod that majorly buffed Venting that was incompatible, perhaps; if there was a Hull Mod that drained Hard Flux that was incompatible, perhaps; but I've put it onto every ship in my fleet, other than a carrier that needed staying power; the increase in survivability and kill-power means that if I take Hardened Subsystems (which is practically a must-buy with current CR degradation rates anyhow) then it's a win-win, other than some increased supply bite at the tail end of the fight.
It's kind of like ITU, where it's a must-have buff for a Cruiser or Capital, because who
doesn't want ultra-kiting for half the price of that other Hull Mod?
This kind of illustrates the fundamental problem with the OP / Hull Mod system in general; by being a catch-all system, it's largely become something where a lot of potential buffs are ignored because they simply aren't good enough for what they cost (looking at you,
Blast Doors), and others have had to be nerfed to pretty ridiculous extremes (
Augmented Engines) because, well, because it was becoming a must-buy (I think it should cause a small constant CR drain rather than the sensor nerf, myself- long-term cost vs. short-term gain, but I digress).
Perhaps the right way to get things sensible is to have far fewer Hull Mods, but make them matter a lot more in terms of buff / nerf, but make them cost enough OPs or have enough mutual incompatibilities that the player has simpler but starker choices.
Safety Overrides probably shouldn't be compatible with Hardened Subsystems, for example (but SO probably shouldn't have the huge additional CR drain at that point, because basically if you buy one, you practically always buy the other one).
I'll bet that, with a bit of work, we could get things down to maybe 8 different "paths" that would be sensible; everything from "this gives you a shield tank that's slow" to "this gives you a Hammerhead that can dodge missiles". Then it's simpler for new players to get into and there is less clutter in that UI.
Or simply nerf the Hull Mods until strapping more dakka / Cap / Vents on becomes the way to success again, lol.