Here's my idea about player controlled Thargoid ships:
1. You should be able to unlock / assemble Thargoid ships similar to how you do with guardian fighters
Thargoid interceptors should require 4-8 hearts, 100-800 meta-alloys and some other materials based on their variant.
Thargoid scouts should require just some meta-alloys and other stuff
2. How Thargoid ships should work? I think it would be extremely disappointing to all the players if Thargoid ships can only do 20 - 90ly jumps, it would totally break the game, because it's said that Thargoid ships are capable of "hovering" in the hyperspace.
So my idea is to give them infinite jump range, but not an instant jump like current ships do it.
Instead of jumping from star to star, Thargoid ships should have ability to actually navigate the hyperspace in similar style as we navigate in supercruise. So called hyperspace cruise mode.
So you have to dodge systems and go past them or you can "crash" into system and that will result in being pulled out of hyperspace cruise.
It should still be significantly faster to travel than with Anaconda capable of doing 80+ly jumps, however only for longer distances.
For example it would be slower for Thargoid ship to travel 100-500ly than it takes for 80+ly ship, but it would be a lot faster to travel 1000+ ly as they can build up speed in hyperspace cruise, similar to supercruise of our current ships. So you can literally fly 5000ly in no time once you got enough speed.
3. Thargoid ships should be less compatible with human tech, for example their core modules should be completely different and you wouldn't be able to change nor modify them, while still giving you some options to add stuff like cargo space (all cargo racks should be corrosion resistant).
4. Anti-gravity drives, which makes it possible to easily hover on high gravity planets without issues.
5. Weapons should remain as they are, with ability to add some additional human hardpoints based on the variant of ship.
6. please DO NOT ruin this by removing the resistance to corrosion and normal weapons, this would totally ruin the thargoid ship experience. Keep them as it is, that they can only be damaged with guardian or ax weapons. If you're SO WORRIED about easy gameplay, then add special AX system defence units that use AX weapons. So if you intend to go on killing spree with it, then AX units would show up.
You can do same with high security bases and stations, give them AX weapons that can quite easily take out thargoid ships if you decide to attack near base or station.
7. Thargoid scouts should also have the hyperspace cruise mode, but basically as limited as sidewinder, so it would only be good for personal exploration / travelling and minimal fighting. Just keep the stats the current thargoid ships have.
8. Thargoid scavengers could also be playable and used as thargoid "SRVs". They seem big enough to be able to put a human in them or maybe just make it a remote drone that can be launched from Thargoid interceptor, so it's like a fighter, but for ground. You can explore and collect stuff with it.
9. Thargoid Orthrus could have ability to mine meta-alloys from barnicles that gives you like 100 meta-alloys in short time. Since it's said to always flee from humans, perhaps make it an actual support / cargo / mining vessel that has no offensive weapons, maybe just EMP to defend itself, but other abilities such as ability to mine other resources from planet's surface (stuff you usually pickup with SRV).
10. I know how you (devs) like to add GRIND, so make it interesting! I have heard you plan on adding thargoids in person (as creatures), go for it and make some thargoid bases so that some materials you need in order to assemble / unlock a Thargoid ship, you'd have to go into one of those thargoid bases, kill the guards / occupants and then collect the materials. Make it difficult, but don't make it repeatitive. This could be good oppertunity to add the "Alien" movie feel to the game, I can already see some references to alien movies, like the acid, it looks so much like the acid from alien movies. And some abandoned bases give the alien movie vibe too, broken doors, acid burn marks and general "eerie" feel.
11. Thargoid ships should use different fuel, which runs out slow, but harder to get. For example they could harvest energy from certain rare star types (not KFBFOAM stars) and certain places on planets, perhaps some planetary thargoid structures that can charge the ships.
12. Also thargoid ships are too large to fit into current human stations or carriers, so we need a different way of storing those ships. Base building would be amazing, but I doubt this comes any time soon (even tho most things are already in the game, could have modular bases and limit it 1 per 100ly per player). But for time being, Thargoid interceptors can be stored in some abandoned Thargoid bases on planets, which are like 300+ly outside the bubble. So every time you want to take your Thargoid ship for a spin, you have to fly out there physically and get into it. No easy way of swapping between.
Later I hope we'll get base building / owning feature. I think modular bases are easiest. You find a place for base and then buy the control module and deploy, then from there you can add modules to your base. Among the things, thargoid ship landing and hangar, where you can store and modify thargoid ships.
I know you (devs) are trying to limit players in every possible way, but alien ships are suppose to be better in certain ways. I think it would be perfect balance to make it so that it's worse for 100-500ly trips, but way better for anything above 1000ly. And I don't mean that instead of 8 hours of jumping, we'd need 6-7 hours, i'm talking 1h or less to go from Sol to center and beyond once speed has built up. So it would be better for long range travel, but less effective for missions where you have to jump back and forth between systems.
Also if you think Thargoid ships would be OP in hands of players, not at all. I just recently took out Thargoid interceptor with cutter by tanking it head-on, only lost 40% shields. So to balance things, remove the punitive 4x experimental weapon limit from normal ships. I don't know why it's there in the first place .. it's so lame, makes big ships so useless in thargoid fighting.
To players: in case you're like "oh this is too much to do bla bla faf faf", in case you don't know, devs have referred to adding Thargoid ships. I forgot the base name, but there was some abandoned base that has some audio logs. Those refer to that humans have already been testing on Thargoid ships and trying to get a human pilot into Thargoid ship. There was some research base (not Sanctum or Prophet) where those logs can be found, they explained that their job was to get human pilot into Thargoid ship, but on some reasons they needed a new Thargoid ship, but then their mission was cancelled and they were all recalled back to base.
So devs have kind of left this idea hanging and definetely have plans on adding them (at least it looks like it).
Bottom line, most of the stuff already exists in the game, it's just matter of tweaking and making it available for players.
1. You should be able to unlock / assemble Thargoid ships similar to how you do with guardian fighters
Thargoid interceptors should require 4-8 hearts, 100-800 meta-alloys and some other materials based on their variant.
Thargoid scouts should require just some meta-alloys and other stuff
2. How Thargoid ships should work? I think it would be extremely disappointing to all the players if Thargoid ships can only do 20 - 90ly jumps, it would totally break the game, because it's said that Thargoid ships are capable of "hovering" in the hyperspace.
So my idea is to give them infinite jump range, but not an instant jump like current ships do it.
Instead of jumping from star to star, Thargoid ships should have ability to actually navigate the hyperspace in similar style as we navigate in supercruise. So called hyperspace cruise mode.
So you have to dodge systems and go past them or you can "crash" into system and that will result in being pulled out of hyperspace cruise.
It should still be significantly faster to travel than with Anaconda capable of doing 80+ly jumps, however only for longer distances.
For example it would be slower for Thargoid ship to travel 100-500ly than it takes for 80+ly ship, but it would be a lot faster to travel 1000+ ly as they can build up speed in hyperspace cruise, similar to supercruise of our current ships. So you can literally fly 5000ly in no time once you got enough speed.
3. Thargoid ships should be less compatible with human tech, for example their core modules should be completely different and you wouldn't be able to change nor modify them, while still giving you some options to add stuff like cargo space (all cargo racks should be corrosion resistant).
4. Anti-gravity drives, which makes it possible to easily hover on high gravity planets without issues.
5. Weapons should remain as they are, with ability to add some additional human hardpoints based on the variant of ship.
6. please DO NOT ruin this by removing the resistance to corrosion and normal weapons, this would totally ruin the thargoid ship experience. Keep them as it is, that they can only be damaged with guardian or ax weapons. If you're SO WORRIED about easy gameplay, then add special AX system defence units that use AX weapons. So if you intend to go on killing spree with it, then AX units would show up.
You can do same with high security bases and stations, give them AX weapons that can quite easily take out thargoid ships if you decide to attack near base or station.
7. Thargoid scouts should also have the hyperspace cruise mode, but basically as limited as sidewinder, so it would only be good for personal exploration / travelling and minimal fighting. Just keep the stats the current thargoid ships have.
8. Thargoid scavengers could also be playable and used as thargoid "SRVs". They seem big enough to be able to put a human in them or maybe just make it a remote drone that can be launched from Thargoid interceptor, so it's like a fighter, but for ground. You can explore and collect stuff with it.
9. Thargoid Orthrus could have ability to mine meta-alloys from barnicles that gives you like 100 meta-alloys in short time. Since it's said to always flee from humans, perhaps make it an actual support / cargo / mining vessel that has no offensive weapons, maybe just EMP to defend itself, but other abilities such as ability to mine other resources from planet's surface (stuff you usually pickup with SRV).
10. I know how you (devs) like to add GRIND, so make it interesting! I have heard you plan on adding thargoids in person (as creatures), go for it and make some thargoid bases so that some materials you need in order to assemble / unlock a Thargoid ship, you'd have to go into one of those thargoid bases, kill the guards / occupants and then collect the materials. Make it difficult, but don't make it repeatitive. This could be good oppertunity to add the "Alien" movie feel to the game, I can already see some references to alien movies, like the acid, it looks so much like the acid from alien movies. And some abandoned bases give the alien movie vibe too, broken doors, acid burn marks and general "eerie" feel.
11. Thargoid ships should use different fuel, which runs out slow, but harder to get. For example they could harvest energy from certain rare star types (not KFBFOAM stars) and certain places on planets, perhaps some planetary thargoid structures that can charge the ships.
12. Also thargoid ships are too large to fit into current human stations or carriers, so we need a different way of storing those ships. Base building would be amazing, but I doubt this comes any time soon (even tho most things are already in the game, could have modular bases and limit it 1 per 100ly per player). But for time being, Thargoid interceptors can be stored in some abandoned Thargoid bases on planets, which are like 300+ly outside the bubble. So every time you want to take your Thargoid ship for a spin, you have to fly out there physically and get into it. No easy way of swapping between.
Later I hope we'll get base building / owning feature. I think modular bases are easiest. You find a place for base and then buy the control module and deploy, then from there you can add modules to your base. Among the things, thargoid ship landing and hangar, where you can store and modify thargoid ships.
I know you (devs) are trying to limit players in every possible way, but alien ships are suppose to be better in certain ways. I think it would be perfect balance to make it so that it's worse for 100-500ly trips, but way better for anything above 1000ly. And I don't mean that instead of 8 hours of jumping, we'd need 6-7 hours, i'm talking 1h or less to go from Sol to center and beyond once speed has built up. So it would be better for long range travel, but less effective for missions where you have to jump back and forth between systems.
Also if you think Thargoid ships would be OP in hands of players, not at all. I just recently took out Thargoid interceptor with cutter by tanking it head-on, only lost 40% shields. So to balance things, remove the punitive 4x experimental weapon limit from normal ships. I don't know why it's there in the first place .. it's so lame, makes big ships so useless in thargoid fighting.
To players: in case you're like "oh this is too much to do bla bla faf faf", in case you don't know, devs have referred to adding Thargoid ships. I forgot the base name, but there was some abandoned base that has some audio logs. Those refer to that humans have already been testing on Thargoid ships and trying to get a human pilot into Thargoid ship. There was some research base (not Sanctum or Prophet) where those logs can be found, they explained that their job was to get human pilot into Thargoid ship, but on some reasons they needed a new Thargoid ship, but then their mission was cancelled and they were all recalled back to base.
So devs have kind of left this idea hanging and definetely have plans on adding them (at least it looks like it).
Bottom line, most of the stuff already exists in the game, it's just matter of tweaking and making it available for players.