In Alliance, the Stormbreaker is slated for a change that I find to skew the lore of the ship and to make her, frankly, ridiculous. A heavy weapon slot on a ship that would weigh less than the weapon being placed on it? Absurd.
The Stormbreaker is fine as it is, for either Alliance or Skirmish. The argument that the Arashi need a ship with a heavy weapon's slot does hold weight, however. They deserve a ship that can carry the weapon as much as any other faction.
So here's my answer to it; A second ship, not just for the Arashi, but for all factions, in order to encourage progression within a certain faction and to promote the team aspect of Alliance. A whole team composed of Faction specific ships. Potentially with an effort gain for using them all.
This would be a significant undertaking for the Dev Team, however, with going over layouts, niche's, features of each ship, stats, weapon placements... etc. So here's a compromise;
A contest.
Call it the Shipwright's Calling or something or other, allowing the community to design the second wave of ships for each faction, with a few basic parameters for what the devs would want for each faction. The work for smothing out the edges of what the community creates, and the basic building of the ship, would of course fall on the devs, but the time to plan it out would not.
It would offer the community a way to influence the direction of newer ships, and potentially open the door for players to have a hand in creating new ships for Skirmish.
With how limited the workshop is right now, it would be a wonderful way to experiment with the potential of turning over some levels of design to the community. With how small we are, and how small the team is, this could open a lot of new doors.
