First, a disclaimer: I know that at this point, my proposal will have rippling effects, especially due to engineering. I don't think this will be such a huge problem. Engineering itself could use some re-envisioning, but that's for another topic. Onward!
This proposal aims to address the variety of module grades we have and the fact that so many modules are sitting in stations collecting dust. Our current module grade system is one of two things, depending on the module--either A: a purely vertical climb with virtually no reason to use anything other than A-grade materials except in highly specific ships, or B: purely a way to delineate two completely different versions of a weapon. I aim to change that. Let's look at what we're TOLD we have and what we ACTUALLY have, followed but what we COULD have:
What we're told:
E: economy
D: lightweight
C: balanced
B: armored
A: performance
What we ACTUALLY have:
E: free crap that comes with the ship but is the worst in all ways so you want to replace it before you even take off (seriously, why are ships even FITTED with this?)
D: lightweight parts that you pick for stuff you don't care about or when you're building purely for speed (in other words, sensors and life support for most of us.)
C: average stuff that's neither lightweight nor high performance, so you basically never pick it unless you HAVE to save power for your build to function (in most cases, this means your build doesn't make much sense.)
B: heavy stuff that you basically never pick because it's better than C grade but heavy as hell and you can stand to wait for A grade (some parts don't even have any more integrity than C or A grade. Why would we willingly pick this?)
A: What you actually want.
Not much of a spread, is it? Three grades we basically NEVER want to use because A grade is better in every way and one grade we only use because it's not worth adding extra weight. That seems a terrible waste of a system if you ask me. If we incorporate a couple factors more heavily, however, we can create a more robust system that makes all grades a bit more viable for different reasons. Firstly, module malfunction chance should be a variable. As it is, my understanding is that for every %health a module loses, it has that percent chance to start malfunctioning. If we added a bigger or smaller multiplier to certain grades, we now have another tuning lever. Secondly, maintenance costs are another thing that could be scaled more heavily per grade. The cost of buying a module is already quite ramped from E to A, but what about maintenance? Once you can afford the gear you want, the maintenance is almost a drop in the bucket. If we moved THAT slider a bit, we could create a very real reason to think twice about A-rated gear and give the other grades some screentime. So, bearing those things in mind, here's...
What we COULD have:
E: Dirt cheap, fairly durable, low performance but reliable and has a very low malfunction chance (say, like .3% per integrity% lost as opposed to the flat 1/1% ratio we have now.) It's old and outdated tech, but it's simple and keeps working under abuse. Because it's so cheap to manufacture and maintain, this is there for commanders on a budget who just want a simple ship that can stand some punishment and still get the job done.
D: Lightweight, lower power drain version of E tech, but is a little more modernized, a fair bit more costly and isn't QUITE as tough because it's been crammed and stripped and shaved down, etc. Say, ~15% less module integrity than E and malfunctions at about a .5 multiplier because now it has less layers protecting it. It's main draw is not big performance but efficiency. As a modern retrofitting and simple upgrade of old tech, this is for commanders who want their modules to be less of a drag and can afford a little more for it, but don't really care about "keeping up with the Joneses."
C: Modern gear, fairly reliable, markedly improved performance, but a little heavier and quite higher price maintenance than D. Has probably 20% more health than E but malfunctions at the normal 1:1 rate. Designed for the average modern commander who's making enough income to take his career a little more seriously, use some well-balanced equipment and start getting his craft up to modern standards and start really getting things done.
B: Military purposed with modern performance standards, thickly reinforced, not that much more expensive or better than C grade, very resistant to malfunction, but heavy as hell. Like, 20-40% heavier but with about 50-60% more health and a .4 malfunction multiplier. While the malfunction rate is higher than E, the much higher integrity means this stuff is still designed to take a serious beating and keep working at all costs, power and weight be damned, making it the primary choice for endurance.
A: Bleeding edge tech, ultra high specs, only a little heavier than C grade, maybe 15% or so, but unstable and delicate. Requires crazy high maintenance costs, has about 15% less health than a C-grade but can malfunction at a 1.5 rate. This is the tightly-tuned, professional-grade, balanced-on-a-needle-point stuff you get when it's time to push the envelope and risk it all for pure performance. Just be sure you never run into stuff or get hit, or your sexy beast could turn into a very expensive junk heap VERY quickly.
Now, with a spread like that, it's a little easier to envision all grades of equipment being used more purposefully. The E grade is still the "economy" grade, but isn't strictly a bad choice because it keeps on truckin' and is dirt cheap even if you do break it. The D grade goes from the "lightweight" grade to "getting the most bang for the least buck." It should be a considerable step up in costs from E, but a D grade piece should be a great way to fill a slot without pushing your power draw or jump range. C grade becomes the standard to which everything else is compared, because it's stable, doesn't sacrifice a ton of reliability and gives a noticeable boost. B grade is for combat junkies who intend to be in the thick of things with their gunboats, duking it out for their faction and coming back for more. A grade is for the hot rodder flyboys who want to leave their mark on the galaxy and aren't afraid to risk a small (or large!) fortune with every hit they take.
Naturally, engineering would appear to play havoc with some of these stats, but with the differing thresholds for module damage and the rethought costs of gear, I think that phenomenon will correct itself fairly easily. We'd likely see more people using C and B equipment and we'd very likely see mixed grade ships that want different specs out of different modules. A fully A-grade ship would be a little more rare simply because most pilots might not want to risk their last week's worth of credits on a rebuy and because some modules would just make more sense as a B or C grade in a lot of cases.
Obviously, this doesn't cover every single module type and some modules just might not care about the new grading system, but I think that's more a symptom of module design than the system itself. By and large, however, I think this would lend a bit more purpose to the five grades and give us a meaningful choice when gearing up, rather than just "a-rating" everything out of habit.
This proposal aims to address the variety of module grades we have and the fact that so many modules are sitting in stations collecting dust. Our current module grade system is one of two things, depending on the module--either A: a purely vertical climb with virtually no reason to use anything other than A-grade materials except in highly specific ships, or B: purely a way to delineate two completely different versions of a weapon. I aim to change that. Let's look at what we're TOLD we have and what we ACTUALLY have, followed but what we COULD have:
What we're told:
E: economy
D: lightweight
C: balanced
B: armored
A: performance
What we ACTUALLY have:
E: free crap that comes with the ship but is the worst in all ways so you want to replace it before you even take off (seriously, why are ships even FITTED with this?)
D: lightweight parts that you pick for stuff you don't care about or when you're building purely for speed (in other words, sensors and life support for most of us.)
C: average stuff that's neither lightweight nor high performance, so you basically never pick it unless you HAVE to save power for your build to function (in most cases, this means your build doesn't make much sense.)
B: heavy stuff that you basically never pick because it's better than C grade but heavy as hell and you can stand to wait for A grade (some parts don't even have any more integrity than C or A grade. Why would we willingly pick this?)
A: What you actually want.
Not much of a spread, is it? Three grades we basically NEVER want to use because A grade is better in every way and one grade we only use because it's not worth adding extra weight. That seems a terrible waste of a system if you ask me. If we incorporate a couple factors more heavily, however, we can create a more robust system that makes all grades a bit more viable for different reasons. Firstly, module malfunction chance should be a variable. As it is, my understanding is that for every %health a module loses, it has that percent chance to start malfunctioning. If we added a bigger or smaller multiplier to certain grades, we now have another tuning lever. Secondly, maintenance costs are another thing that could be scaled more heavily per grade. The cost of buying a module is already quite ramped from E to A, but what about maintenance? Once you can afford the gear you want, the maintenance is almost a drop in the bucket. If we moved THAT slider a bit, we could create a very real reason to think twice about A-rated gear and give the other grades some screentime. So, bearing those things in mind, here's...
What we COULD have:
E: Dirt cheap, fairly durable, low performance but reliable and has a very low malfunction chance (say, like .3% per integrity% lost as opposed to the flat 1/1% ratio we have now.) It's old and outdated tech, but it's simple and keeps working under abuse. Because it's so cheap to manufacture and maintain, this is there for commanders on a budget who just want a simple ship that can stand some punishment and still get the job done.
D: Lightweight, lower power drain version of E tech, but is a little more modernized, a fair bit more costly and isn't QUITE as tough because it's been crammed and stripped and shaved down, etc. Say, ~15% less module integrity than E and malfunctions at about a .5 multiplier because now it has less layers protecting it. It's main draw is not big performance but efficiency. As a modern retrofitting and simple upgrade of old tech, this is for commanders who want their modules to be less of a drag and can afford a little more for it, but don't really care about "keeping up with the Joneses."
C: Modern gear, fairly reliable, markedly improved performance, but a little heavier and quite higher price maintenance than D. Has probably 20% more health than E but malfunctions at the normal 1:1 rate. Designed for the average modern commander who's making enough income to take his career a little more seriously, use some well-balanced equipment and start getting his craft up to modern standards and start really getting things done.
B: Military purposed with modern performance standards, thickly reinforced, not that much more expensive or better than C grade, very resistant to malfunction, but heavy as hell. Like, 20-40% heavier but with about 50-60% more health and a .4 malfunction multiplier. While the malfunction rate is higher than E, the much higher integrity means this stuff is still designed to take a serious beating and keep working at all costs, power and weight be damned, making it the primary choice for endurance.
A: Bleeding edge tech, ultra high specs, only a little heavier than C grade, maybe 15% or so, but unstable and delicate. Requires crazy high maintenance costs, has about 15% less health than a C-grade but can malfunction at a 1.5 rate. This is the tightly-tuned, professional-grade, balanced-on-a-needle-point stuff you get when it's time to push the envelope and risk it all for pure performance. Just be sure you never run into stuff or get hit, or your sexy beast could turn into a very expensive junk heap VERY quickly.
Now, with a spread like that, it's a little easier to envision all grades of equipment being used more purposefully. The E grade is still the "economy" grade, but isn't strictly a bad choice because it keeps on truckin' and is dirt cheap even if you do break it. The D grade goes from the "lightweight" grade to "getting the most bang for the least buck." It should be a considerable step up in costs from E, but a D grade piece should be a great way to fill a slot without pushing your power draw or jump range. C grade becomes the standard to which everything else is compared, because it's stable, doesn't sacrifice a ton of reliability and gives a noticeable boost. B grade is for combat junkies who intend to be in the thick of things with their gunboats, duking it out for their faction and coming back for more. A grade is for the hot rodder flyboys who want to leave their mark on the galaxy and aren't afraid to risk a small (or large!) fortune with every hit they take.
Naturally, engineering would appear to play havoc with some of these stats, but with the differing thresholds for module damage and the rethought costs of gear, I think that phenomenon will correct itself fairly easily. We'd likely see more people using C and B equipment and we'd very likely see mixed grade ships that want different specs out of different modules. A fully A-grade ship would be a little more rare simply because most pilots might not want to risk their last week's worth of credits on a rebuy and because some modules would just make more sense as a B or C grade in a lot of cases.
Obviously, this doesn't cover every single module type and some modules just might not care about the new grading system, but I think that's more a symptom of module design than the system itself. By and large, however, I think this would lend a bit more purpose to the five grades and give us a meaningful choice when gearing up, rather than just "a-rating" everything out of habit.