OOOOH! ALL OF MY YES!! this is
exactly what i was hoping for when you mentioned a new industry combat playstyle: building large fleets of disposable low-quality ships recovered from previous battles!
and along the way it gets rid of the arbitrary boarding limit weirdness, alleviates the issue of ship availability in the late-game being too reliant on RNG and not enough on credit cost, and provides ways to make ship losses in general less frustrating... wow.
also, i think it will help a lot with making pirate campaign runs viable/fun! not only is the swarm of captured, half-broken ships thematically very fitting, it also means the lack of access to good ships through military markets becomes much less crippling.
a bunch of random thoughts:
1) since a few people mentioned that losing battles is still just as punishing as ever if you can recover ships only from won battles: you mentioned
a while ago that you were thinking about making all battles produce a debris field that fleets can then pick through, rather than immediately giving loot. is that still a thing/possibility? with ship wrecks now becoming a pretty big deal, and the ability to keep specific ships in your fleet from ever being destroyed completely, debris fields could provide an opportunity to recover some of your losses even after a defeat or retreat.
depending on whether the enemy fleet who got you is sticking around to pick through the debris themselves (pirates probably would, patrols and traders probably wouldn't), you might have to hide somewhere nearby until they're gone, but could then return to see if there's anything left for you to salvage. even if the enemy took the most valuable wrecks and pieces for themselves, you might still be able to partially recover your losses through stuff they left behind, especially if you're already specialized in this industry combat playstyle.
2) i agree with what others have said regarding the (D)-ships in the current version, i think it would be a lot better (particularly for new players) to clearly label pirate-specific ship versions as such, in a way that will not be confused with the recovered d-mod ships.
and somewhat related to this, i would also really like to see some way to visualize the scrappiness of recovered d-mod ships, both because it would help with making this combat playstyle feel more distinct on more than just a mechanical level ("fly, my rust buckets, fly!"
*maniacal cackling*) and because i feel restoring a ship to pristine visual quality along with mechanical quality would feel a lot more satisfying.
3) you could add increased weapon recovery chance to the Armored Weapon Mounts hullmod. i understand not wanting to put it together with the guaranteed ship recovery of Reinforced Bulkhead, to avoid making that one feel like a requirement (and i actually feel it might need a bit of a nerf, maybe to something like 30% increased hull, more in line with Blast Doors). but for some loadouts, the weapons are quite a bit more valuable than the ship they're on, so it would be nice to have some option to at least make recovery more likely, even if not guaranteed (for that specific loadout, in addition to the overall increased chance from the skill).
4) since autofit has an option to automatically apply Reinforced Bulkheads, could you add one for Blast Doors as well? seems like that would also be a good idea to have on many of the recovered disposables.
5) if all d-mods from ships like the pather skins can be removed while keeping their beneficial built-in ones, i think those ships could use some nerf to their base stats. i do like that capturing and restoring these ships can be a way to produce a more powerful version (since it takes a bit of luck, work, and more credits than just buying an unaltered version), but getting a
15 OP frigate hullmod for 0 OP instead does seem a little bit crazy. ^^
6) with these new features about making low-quality ships worth fielding as the player that are currently only really useful as low-difficulty enemies: can Buffalo MK.II get some love as well?
like reduced cost and maybe even a bit beefed up durability? i believe lorewise, it's supposed to be a weak but cost-effective alternative to proper military ships, with above average armor to partially offset its poor mobility and lack of shield. but in reality it's not ever worth buying. it actually has significantly
less durability than other, shielded destroyers (less than a Hound, even!), only 120 seconds PPT for some reason, and yet it costs almost as much as an Enforcer...
i just have a sweet spot for these ultra-low-tech combat conversions of civilian ships. Mudskipper MK.II is a deathtrap for anyone unlucky enough to crew it, but cheap enough to potentially be worth using as the player, especially if we have a guaranteed way to recover it when it inevitably gets blown up (albeit at the expense of some supplies and added d-mods). but Buffalo MK.II just isn't really worth using, and that makes me sad. :/
7) you could still keep marines for boarding, as part of the new system: make a portion (something like ~20%?) of recoverable ships cost marines to recover, with the benefit of adding no or less d-mods to the ship and maybe increasing weapon recovery chance. with how the new system works, it should probably just state a number of required/consumed marines rather than a probability of success based on the number of marines in your fleet, something like "boarding and capturing this ship will require a team of at least 50 marines, with expected losses between 5 and 20 marines". the average cost of 'consumed' marines would be lower than having to restore the ship at a port, but still high enough to only do it for ships the player wouldn't treat as just disposable cannon-fodder, and with the added requirement of shipping a large number of marines around.
this would probably be more about flavor that any significant gameplay impact, so i understand if it's just not worth figuring out the exact mechanics and numbers, but i still quite like the idea of keeping some troop transports filled with marines around for boarding opportunities.
anyway, i'm excited, in case you couldn't tell. or, well, i was excited already.. but now i have another thing to be excited about! \o/