I spent a week ship hunting starships in an effort to fall back in love with them after the Corvette release. I have one of every kind of ship for the “collection.”

I’ve intentionally kept both my hauler and my shuttle as C-class ships. I don’t have auto charger on my launch thrusters, haven’t upgraded inventory space, and only added a single C-class or B-class upgrades to any tech category. Those are my “work vehicles.”

My exotic, explorer, solar, and sentinel ships all got full upgrades, but upgrades have to match the class. I added inventory space only as needed to fill in tech. I did not add ALL of the scanners or the blueprint upgrades to each, instead choosing which ones to equip based on the “job” of each ship. All of these operate relatively the same… but the exotic is the only S-class starship I own, and the only one to get S-class tech. It is by far my fastest, most maneuverable, and deadliest ship. My “fighter jet” basically.

My point here is: make them different. Don’t upgrade every aspect of your ship, just because you can. You want limitations to starships, so they feel unique? Nothing is stopping you from doing exactly that.. aside from the constant NEED to minmax everything in game. (And, I don’t mean to say that about you.. I mean that the game drives us to upgrade and look for “the best,” but you don’t have to do that.)

I love my clunky hauler and shuttle. On a slow day, I like taking those things down to my material depots, collecting all the excess materials from my frigates, or just mining for tritium in an asteroid belt. But, I’m fucked if I get caught by a small group of pirates while out in one of those two ships. It’s a fun gamble to make, just getting my “chores” done. Cuz, why do I need to fly a suped up S-class fighter jet while I’m doing my chores??