There are a lot of ships I'd really LIKE to use, but are just too darn slow. The Federal Gunship and the T10 come to mind. It doesn't matter how good their damage is if they can't get from target to target.
At the same time, thrusters grade B and C almost never get used. C grade at least has cheapness, but B grade is just worse, for the almost insignificant benefit of higher integrity.
So here's the idea. B-grade thrusters are changed to have an Afterburner Modification. Afterburner thrusters have a slightly lower max speed, the same agility, but they have an afterburner mode. Press and hold the boost button, and your ship will slowly use up its ENG capacitor to increase your speed at a flat rate, something like +10/second, with no cap. While the afterburner is active, your ability to turn is significantly reduced.
This would help already-fast ships relatively little, since they're already going 600 speed, so going, say, 700 speed, wouldn't matter too much, only about a 15% boost. But for a slow ship, this would be much more impactful. A t10 might max out at 310 speed, so after 10 seconds you'd be going 33% faster. Normally a T10 might take 100 seconds to cross a conflict zone; with this, that could be cut down to closer to 50, a much more palatable choice. By contrast, a faster ship would already cross it in 50 seconds and only reduce that to maybe 40, so they'd likely prefer the more general benefits of class A thrusters.
This would make more types of thrusters more useful, AND make slower ships more viable, at the same time!
At the same time, thrusters grade B and C almost never get used. C grade at least has cheapness, but B grade is just worse, for the almost insignificant benefit of higher integrity.
So here's the idea. B-grade thrusters are changed to have an Afterburner Modification. Afterburner thrusters have a slightly lower max speed, the same agility, but they have an afterburner mode. Press and hold the boost button, and your ship will slowly use up its ENG capacitor to increase your speed at a flat rate, something like +10/second, with no cap. While the afterburner is active, your ability to turn is significantly reduced.
This would help already-fast ships relatively little, since they're already going 600 speed, so going, say, 700 speed, wouldn't matter too much, only about a 15% boost. But for a slow ship, this would be much more impactful. A t10 might max out at 310 speed, so after 10 seconds you'd be going 33% faster. Normally a T10 might take 100 seconds to cross a conflict zone; with this, that could be cut down to closer to 50, a much more palatable choice. By contrast, a faster ship would already cross it in 50 seconds and only reduce that to maybe 40, so they'd likely prefer the more general benefits of class A thrusters.
This would make more types of thrusters more useful, AND make slower ships more viable, at the same time!