It would cause a great deal of tears to grandfather in old ships with their original DPS/HP distributions at least to the point of first repair. When a new Ford comes out, the existing Fords on the road don’t get upgraded.
This would allow a clever player to keep a ship in use that has overpowered, or other skills, at least till it takes on enough damage to need repair at a station. Think of all the tears when a grandfathered ship nursed to health is destroyed in battle.
It would be like wrecking a cherry 1965 Ford Mustang. The previous version of ships would have more value in the marketplace. Becoming rare items would influence game play while adding excitement. Retroactively changing cycle times and modules doesn’t make sense in a persistent world.
If items are proxy to the physical world, then there would be a limited supply of items that don’t change properties once built. Supply and demand, could even lead to classic ship collections.
What do you think? More tears than changes, or the same.
It’s like introducing a new batch of unreplacable AT ships with every ship nerf.
Each time a ship gets changed, people need to throw away their old ships if the change was a buff, and can sell their ships for silly high prices if the change was a nerf.
Even if you ignore the mess this would create in every players hangar, wiki ship stats, fitting recommendations for every version of ship X, it also makes buffs and nerfs take years to become effective when people can still use their old stock.
It’s an original and fun idea, but I also think it’s an incredibly bad idea.