First coffee of the morning and something just hit me. Probably one of my cats wanting attention, but then…
so I’m just gonna spitball this one, see what you guys think: what about an option (let’s call it Fusion) where you can blend your ship fitting so it enhances every aspect (advantages and disadvantages) of the modules and rigs you have fitted? Say you have a propmod that gives you 500% speed increase and doubles your mass, it gives you +1% overall on both the functionality and the penalty?
The penalties for running Fusion would be that it is not reversible and it permanently locks the modules to that hull, meaning you can’t ever change them. Also, you would not be allowed to trade, contract or sell Fused hulls.
Externally, fused hulls would look no different than standard ones. They’d behave the same apart from the performance boosts which would be pretty much the same as popping a bunch of +1 drugs.
Lore-wise, this would be a system that allows the Capsuleer to better integrate with his ship systems by removing extraneous connections and overloading those that are left.
Now this would be both an advantage and a disadvantage: yes it locks modules, so you don’t really want to run Fusion on your shiny stuff. Yes it might give you an edge in solo to small gang pvp where that extra 1% optimal range or that extra 1% drone control range or that extra 1% firing rate on missiles can be all the difference you need to get the upper hand.
The downside, like I said, would be a locked hull. I’d say give it another whammy: disable the fitting window as well. As long as you’re in that hull, you aren’t seeing the fitting of a Fused ship. As neither are you when you right click in station to “View contents” or “Simulate fitting”. So, have a good memory or a well organised fitting catalogue.