Proposal: Restoring Unique Ships and Expanding Diplomacy Mechanics

[kdwf22]

Restoring Lost Unique Ships
Several unique ships in X4: Foundations, such as the Litigious Rodent, Yaki-covered Katana, and Hydra Regal, are irreplaceable if lost. Unlike the Erlking, which can be rebuilt through research, these ships have no recovery method.

To address this, I propose a research-based restoration system that allows players to rebuild unique ships once acquired. Alternatively, unique modifications could be applied to selected ship hulls, maintaining rarity while allowing customization.

Expanding Diplomacy Through Covert Operations
Ship disguises could be enhanced by locking player relations with Xenon at -9 or -5 when using a cover, opening new strategic opportunities. This would enable indirect Xenon support, allowing players to assist their recovery and use them as a buffer force in conflicts, facilitating proxy wars and adding depth to diplomacy. Additionally, like the SCA, Xenon should be able to offer missions to players with -9 or -5 reputation, providing new gameplay opportunities and deepening interactions with this faction.

Advanced Ship Disguise Modifications
A tiered disguise system could further enhance covert gameplay:

1. Basic Modification: Disguises ships as selected pirate factions, making them appear friendly but still detectable by police scans or hostile actions. Upon detection or combat, they revert to the player faction.

2. Intermediate Modification: Adds Xenon (-9 or -5 locked reputation) as a disguise option and allows ships to revert back to the player faction at will. A toggle could also enable automatic reversion when entering friendly or neutral sectors.

3. Exceptional Modification: Combines previous features while allowing full-scale hostilities without revealing the player faction. Engaging in combat incurs a -30 local reputation penalty with affected factions. Ships remain locked in disguise until manually reverted. Due to its advantages, this mod should be limited to 10-15 ships universe-wide.

These modifications would make deception-based piracy more viable, allowing players to infiltrate factions, conduct hit-and-run operations, and manipulate conflicts without immediately revealing their identity.

Conclusion
These changes would deepen strategy and diplomacy, giving players more control over faction interactions while preserving the uniqueness of rare ships. The enhanced disguise system would enrich covert operations, piracy, and faction manipulation. Given how X4's universe operates, certain NPCs—especially the more opportunistic and ruthless ones—would undoubtedly exploit this system, adding even more unpredictability to the game. I hope Egosoft considers these ideas for future updates or expansions.

Edited: Changed reputation from -10 to -9 or -5 for more interaction opportunities.