Please give each ship hulls two upgrade paths.

As you're probably aware, the current iteration of the tech tree includes 'tech exclusions'; which some people like, and some people are very opposed to. What I'm proposing here is a way to potentially make both camps happy. This post only applies to ships hulls, but some of these ideas could be adapted to other parts of the tech tree.

Each faction has two small hulls and two medium hulls, each weighted to either attack or defence/support. At the moment we are able to upgrade one of each hull size to an enhanced version via the tech tree, at the exclusion of researching the enhanced version of the other ship in the same size category.

What I'm suggesting is that every small and medium hull should be upgradable to an enhanced version, and that each hull should be given two enhanced versions to choose from. This way; every ship remains relevant throughout the game, and players are able to make meaningful choices to design a unique fleet.

This would open up a lot of possibilities when it comes to customising your fleet. For example; one upgrade path could give your small attack ships extra weapon and support slots to become a fast attack ship, whereas the path would give you extra weapon and defence slots to become a slower, 'tankier' patrol ship. Medium support ships could be given extra defence and weapon slots to become heavy gunships, or extra defence and support slots to become heavy defender/troop transports. These upgrades could also include passive buffs to equipment slots. These are just a couple of ideas I thought of off the top of my head, but there are plenty of others.