Currently the ship designs associated with pirates and minor factions can be found as rewards for exploration, gained by assimilating neutral factions, and gathered through special events.  However, since these ships do not have blueprints in the military overview they cannot be examined or upgraded.


Change #1:  Salvaged Ship Knowledge

The UI needs to allow for the owner of a salvaged ship to see the full weapon specs to allow better strategizing rather than just rhowing them in as an afterthought to a battle group.  With the coding of being able to see ship info without it being linked to design this can then extend to ship modules of probe types that would allow enemy ship specs be seen.


Change #2:  Shipyard Examination

Getting a salvaged ship to a friendly spacedock and taking them out of active service produces unique tech options for that design.  This could also produce some reasearch bonus points for the tech items on ship modules if the race does not have the equipment yet.  Example:  A salvaged ship is put in drydock and starts the unique tech option for the Dagger design.  This ship also has a tier 2 pulse laser that credits 30 research points to the science web tech that produces that equipment.


Both of these would make the salvaged ships far more useful and not just turn them into recycler fodder for a bit of dust.