I really like the eve ship styles but the Serpentis (except for the daredevil) and Guristas have always been pretty underwhelming as versions of the empire ships with a different skin.
Some things I wish for :
Unique Pirate Destroyer Hulls and Ship Class
Unique Pirate Battlecruiser Hulls and Ship Class
A new class of pirate cruisers and frigates based on currently unused (NPC Only) hulls
Remodelling of Guristas and Serpentis (except daredevil) hulls that visibly show that they are closely tied to the empire hulls, but are modified. Bonus Points for “special” Bhaalgorn.
Regarding Capitals unique hulls would be amazing as well. Such as proposed for Angel Cartel a long time back or currently in existence as the Revenant (Space Turd but somehow still super cool)
I’m all for diversifying the artwork of existing pirate faction hulls.
I’m less on board with adding new pirate hulls without examining their roles and how they’re balanced. Not opposed to the idea, but it needs to be more than just “hey, let’s add these hulls” and be done with it.
If you try to flesh out the idea of pirate BC’s and dessies you may begin to understand that things aren’t that straight forward. Some pirate ships don’t fit well into destroyer or BC roles and some already do.
Destroyers are glass cannons with more high slots at the expense of mid and lows. How does that fit with the SOE or Guristas? How does the guristas super drone concept work? How does the exploration role of the SOE work?
A vigilant already has just short of 9 effective turrets. What whopping amount is a BC going to have? With a range and command boost to boot?
Nah, if i was going to expand the pirate line up it would involve more specialist ships; like an Angel ABC, gurista super drone logi, blood vamp logi, soe blops. Stuff like that.
BC could be Attack BCs intead of Combat BCs.
Guristas for example : 25mÂł Drone Bandwith and Missile Bonus. (Naga Hull)
Serpentis : Mini Vindicator (Talos Hull)
Regarding destroyers you could use the Corax hull for Guristas but give it only 5mÂł to balance out 7x launchers.
i.e. the BC and Destroyer line up would double down on the glass cannon idea of these classes. Turbo Squishy, especially for the price tag but lots of dps.
I am VERY HIGHLY in favor of all these and similar world building, narrative enrichment, immersive features. These ships do not need to have special zomfg bonuses. Rather, they should have an extra tab with a few paragraphs of special backgrounds, history, unnuendo, quips and storytelling about them.