I think those suggestions were not made before, at least I can't remember reading them yet.
1.) A greater "range" of wrecks. Currently, as far as I know, a wreck is a wreck is a wreck. I'd like the game to know how badly a wreck is wrecked and put them in different categories. A 8000 ton ship that was abandoned after a few high tech beam lasers punctured the armor and cut out the bridge and most of the life support but hardly anything else could count as a derelict ship instead of a wreck, a 3000 ton missile craft that managed to get hit by a strength 16 missile that blew its magazine should end up as mere ship debris and be called such. This state of the wreck should have impact on just how much you can gain out of salvage operations.
Derelict ship > wreck > ruined ship > ship debris
2.) I'd like an option to transport a wreck or derelict ship home to a shipyard (via tug, or maybe even carry it in a hangar) and just let my technicians have their way with it, giving them a low chance to make that ship functional again, tough missing a few parts.
Maybe a new page on the ship menu (F6) that lists all wrecks/derelicts you have currently stored in your shipyards. There you can see a list of the components that are still functional and the tonnage of this wreck.
At first the components are unknown, and the only thing your techs can tell you if it seems functional or not.
Wreck 2088, unknown origin (pregenerated, or the race name if you shot it down/it was yours to beginn with), 7000 ton
* Unknown weapon (destroyed)
* Unknown weapon (destroyed)
* Unknown weapon (likely functional)
* Unknown electronic hardware (partly funtional) *note: shields, ECM/ECCM, sensors
* Unknown structural hardware (destroyed) *note: crew, magazines, fuel, cargo
... you get the idea.Now our techs had a few months (and a good Xeno team as backup) and came up with some of the uses of our unknowns.
Wreck 2088, unknown origin, 7000 ton
* Dual Meson Turret ;Cap, Size, RangeMod (destroyed)
* Dual Meson Turret ;Cap, Size, RangeMod (destroyed)
* Triple Laser Turret ;Cap, Size, Wavelenght (functional)
* 4x Shield generator ;Strenght, Recharge (funtional)
- 2x Shield generator ;Strenght, Recharge (destroyed)
* Unknown structural hardware (destroyed) *note: crew, magazines, fuel, cargo
... you get the idea.Once everything is known you get the options to salvage the whole thing, netting you the same materials as a salvage ship, you can gut it for parts, getting you some of the components (some are destroyed in the process, taking unknown tech apart without knowing how to put it back together and such things...), or you can try to repair it and press it into service. That removes the ship from the wreckage page and moves it into ship designs (F5), where it is on a new page. All the destroyed parts are gone, and you can insert your own components into the hull, until you reached the original size of this ship. Only derelict ships and wrecks can be pressed into service, ruined ships and debris only have the former two options.
Those repurposed ships use up 20% more maintenance and have a 10% shorter clock time, but they might give you pretty nice high-tech equipment. And what beats the awesomeness of defeating some alien race with the repurposed wrecks of their own ships?
Also to be able to do the repurposing you'd need a shipyard with sufficient size and nothing else to do.
