hmm, I was thinking most markets would only have stock/d-mod ships, with very few markets (pirates, independents, black markets) sometimes selling ships with some aftermarket modifications ("you see these thrusters here? mounted 'er myself! Fire 'er up in hyperspace and I swear you'll reach burn 11 in this bucket! Yeah, no, no sustained burnin' or nothing! Now, usually these upgrades come at a premium but... you seem like a nice guy with a nice crowd so..... 20 kilocreds for the whole thing, whaddayasay?)
maybe tri tachs or lion guards can also sell you some military surplus if you kiss up to them enough, kinda like the (XIV) from the hegemony
so @TaLaR, they would still work much like skins, just less permanent. I would not expect the rate of pre-modded ships appearing to exceed the current rate of d-ships/a-ships/xiv-ships showing up by much, if at all
@orost, I'm not sure if slashing OP is strictly necessary, but hey, talking about that kind of fine tuning is a bit preemptive, I think... That said though, we already do have free hullmods in the form of built in salvage gantries, heg reserve, XIV, etc etc