AKA "boarding/capturing solution thread #39"
So I gots to thinking, the -D variants of ships certainly add a richness to the universe -- drives home the point that ships are lasting for years, decades even, past their prime. But other than sprucing up Pirate fleet lists, -Ds don't really do much other than... Exist. I've got a few concepts to fix that, maybe, some of which improve boarding in the offing;let me know what you think of any or all of these:
1.) Increase chance to board, but make the increased chance correlate with "chance to recover ship as -D Variant".
The shortest, sweetest solution, really. However, this assumes that every vanilla ship will have -D art of its own, which strikes me as a daunting task, which is to say nothing of the nightmare this would be for modders. Hence my slight hybrid solution:
2.) Same as 1.), but roll is instead for failure to recover (be it too damaged in fighting or self-destructing); full recovery (which is to say, the two possible vanilla outcomes); or (the change I'm proposing), a chance to have one or multiple penalty hullmods (like Faulty Power Cores/Damaged Engines at present, and hopefully with more to come...? OP-reducing mods, maybe?)
One more concept I was thinking about, but requires a bit more work, would be:
3.) Keep vanilla boarding exactly as it is (ship defended by crew, successful capture yields mod-less hull), and add roll for a separate pool of derelicts to the post-fight results where the crew is dead, but recovery (which still isn't guaranteed) will always yield a -D variant and/or install penalty mods (as would happen with 2.))
This makes it so that there's no RNG element for the ships you have to fight for beyond whether you cap it in the first place (hopefully minimizing frustrations), but also that there's a chance that you can snag a couple more goodies from a fight.
Now, along the same lines but aimed at different targets:
A.) Construction Rigs and/or some yet to be determined dedicated Salvaging Ship (with either or both possessing some help hullmods to accomplish below feats) can reduce -D variant or penalty mod roll chance (for 1.) and 2.), respectively), or increase lifeless derelicts' (3.)) chance to appear after battles.
B.) Skills should be added offering bonuses/chance to get a desired result to any of the roll rates I mention above.
C.) (Most difficult to place using current game design) perhaps add a service to stations/planets to overhaul a ship, purging any penalty hullmods installed, for a credit fee (and maybe something more meta like raw metals?)
EDIT: Unfortunately, this thread will have to pan out without me -- got some at-sea stuff to do with the Navy coming up, and will be gone for a few weeks. Will attempt to keep up using slow-ass ship Internet every once in a while, so keep the debate going! ... Or let the idea die the death it deserves, whatevs.