I'll note I've seen a number of alternatives to s-mods proposed on these forums. Obviously the original Loadout Design providing blanket percentage extra OP, story points that just give bonus OP, story points that just give bonus hullmod OP like this, introducing a whole new set of hullmods which can only be added with story points and prevent cheaper OP versions from being used, and so on.
At the end of the day, s-mods or other OP increasing mechanic are all intended to give the player's fleet a boost compared to typical NPC fleets (as opposed to specifically challenging encounters). They're there to make the average part of the game easier, as well as be a progression mechanic, just like skills. However, there is a big difference between story points and skills in the fact that story points can be spent and lost.
Since they can be spent and lost, and to avoid the tendency of some players to never use an item you only can ever find X of in a game, they are left as continually grindable (unlike like skill levels). This of course leads to a tendency of some players to grind enough to do whatever they want with them in game - essentially eliminate the need to prioritize by grinding more. The only options for a progression system are cap it, or let it be grindable to the point you can do anything, with some sort of time scale for that.
Fundamentally, if I'm at the point where I can grind Ordos without losses, I don't need to grind Ordos anymore. At that point I can defeat the unique Dorito bounty and the Hypershunt taps, and then as far as I'm concerned, the game is over because the only thing left is doing the same thing over and over with a fleet that is in theory only going up in strength. Success is not in doubt, and thus it is boring to me, and I restart. I find far more fun in trying to beat a pristine Destroyer led fleet with a base Wolf and Kite than killing my 50th Ordo fleet or NPC 400k bounty fleet with a human piloted and fully kitted Radiant and support, simply because success is in doubt. I feel elated in success, and a desire for improvement in failure. Where as I just feel the 50th Ordo is more like a job.
Rather than seeing a rework of the story points (and thus the skill system yet again since they're tightly intertwined), or a rework of s-mods to another similar system which is just going to be Auroras with +5 effective OP and Dominators with -5 effective OP compared to before (and fly basically the same as before), I'd rather see a fully fleshed out mission builder that lets players test different fleet configurations, skills, player builds, and fine tuning opposing forces to their hearts content (and also easily pass opposition and test fleets around to other players). One of the issues that seems to come up with these threads is what about people wanting to try out different fleet compositions. Or new players spending story points poorly.
Rather than the campaign, which is intended to be a progression and resource based challenge, which also has to deal with ship availability, d-mods, credits, colony production, and what not, you just provide a full mission "super" simulator with access to all the bonuses the campaign can provide, to both sides. At which point testing becomes easy and free. No need to deal with ship availability, blueprints, d-mods, credits, colony production reloading if it doesn't work, etc. In the campaign, if I want to try out 5 Odysseys in a fleet, and don't have the blueprint or colony heavy industries, it's a giant effort to be able to acquire them.
Anyways, back to s-mods. I view s-mods in their current incarnation as allowing for more variety in fitting, despite statements that everyone builds in the same 2 s-mods (which is more like 6 s-mods for me) and that there is no decision making involved. I come to that conclusion since I tend to look at the final ship builds, not the ship build with nothing fit but 2 s-mods. At which point the set of viable builds are larger, in a similar way that the number of viable builds is larger with a larger OP budget.
When comparing these proposed systems, I like to see how final, fully load ship builds are different, and look at how the ships fly, as opposed to the exact way the numbers get crunched under the hood at the fitting screen. If I've got the current s-mod system, or a +30 OP for hullmod system, my Dominators are getting Heavy Armor, Expanded Missile Banks, and Integrated Targeting Unit either way. My Hyperions are getting Extended Shields, Hardened Shields, Hardened Subsystems either way. It's mostly just a few OP one way or the other on the ships.
The decision making doesn't come into the picking which hullmods get the s-mod check mark (although it can if you change your loadouts often for some reason and thus check what hullmods are common between the loadouts), it comes in the overall loadout of the ship that the extra OP/hullmods allow. S-modding in Heavy Armor means I can now fit Auxilliary Thrusters and with a bit of sacrifice, Resistant Flux Conduits, on those Dominators where before I couldn't.
So all these different suggestions just boil down to a few OP here and there for different ships, which just doesn't feel game changing in how the ships fly, the actual gameplay experience. It just changes which ships come out slightly better or worse. A flat OP bonus would likely benefit high tech ships more (tend to have lower OP budgets and cheaper individual hullmods), a percent bonus like Loadout design would likely help high OP ships more, the current s-mod system likely helps low tech more (since Heavy Armor is such a good bonus on them).
Systems which move the story point XP grind from global to ship specific is just shifting the grind around, and generally going to make the overall grind longer (perhaps that is desired?), unless the level up is very quick and not very meaningful. It also makes it hard to scale with player progress. Typically you are getting much more experience later than earlier, but story points come in quicker earlier rather than later. Ship experience systems would typically mean s-mods come in much later, or simply be meaningless late game (as you pull in enough XP to level up in 1 fight). Or if it's just based on deployment, you go find a bunch of tiny frigate fleets and engage them over and over to level up your 5 capitals. The devil is in the details of the implementation and the behaviors it will encourage compared to the current encouraged behaviors. You could probably eventually settle on a reasonable compromise, but it wouldn't be quick and easy to do.
Moving s-mods to credits just encourages smuggling and trade spamming, and even playing the game semi-AFK once colonies are up, given the nature of how easily credits can be earned. Alternatively, it would require a complete revamp of the economic system so that engaging gameplay is encouraged. While I'm sure there are players who play Starsector for the economic, trading and colony models, I'm willing to bet there are more players who play the game for the starship combat. I haven't seen any racing to make credits or colony competitions in Starsector, but I've seen multiple PVP tournaments with fleets beating on each other. Story points being earned from XP, which is in turned earned most easily through combat, incentives players to do combat rather than, in my view, less interesting endeavors.
