Except for meme builds.
If you absolutely want to "fix" the Keelback:
1. Buff canopy strength.
2. Give it the same pitch as the corvette.
3. One more size 1 slot.
But that, or any minor adjustments to any of the other ships you mentioned wouldn't get noticably more players to fly them; because the vast majority of players would still pick the objectively better ships. If you want to change that you have to give in-game motivation. For example:
1. Buff canopy strength.
2. Give it the same pitch as the corvette.
3. One more size 1 slot.
But that, or any minor adjustments to any of the other ships you mentioned wouldn't get noticably more players to fly them; because the vast majority of players would still pick the objectively better ships. If you want to change that you have to give in-game motivation. For example:
- Missions (with good rewards) you only get if you're in certain ships because the mission giver want to keep it low key.
- Sections of space with factions that doesn't allow some, or many, of the ships, because the don't want a bunch of outsiders in heavily armed warships within their borders. I'm personally very partial to a small cluster if systems that only let cmdrs in small ships with fixed weapons to enter. Note that the factions NPCs in those restricted systems would not have these restrictions. They just want some controll over us filthy freelancers.
There's no point making small ships as capable as large ships, whether in Elite 4 or Elite 5. Where do you stop with "buffing"? Everyone will want their own favourite ship "buffed" to be better than other types.
Thank you for reiterating my point, while completely missing it.
Really, dude, you want to buff a ship that, at worst, shares first place for best explorer in the game?.. Thank you for so masterfully demonstrating why developers have a tendency to ignore what players say.
Being limited to a 4A fuel scoop has always been a pet peeve of quite a few people with regards to a ship with a 32 ton fuel tank. Being able to use something that scoops a bit faster after four or five brown dwarf stars would just be quite nice.
But, hey, feel free to be insulting about a simple suggestion.
That I have. I prefer the jump range and, to be quite frank, the 'cockpit' of the DBX. The Dolphin feels like you're sitting in the middle of an empty room. I prefer my space outside.
That said, I'm currently out exploring in a Challenger, which is a bit of a flip with a 6A fuel scoop, although it has an additional 3C tank to take it to 24t..