As a way to get enemy ship schematics for your empire, introduce a new ‘strike craft’ style ship…assault shuttles! During a battle, give enemy fleet ships a chance to be disabled rather than destroyed, and then after the fight is won, have the disabled ship generate a timed ‘task’ that requires a ship with the assault shuttle equipped hangar bay slot, with the end result being the disabled ship gets boarded and taken.


So this would obviously give you the ship itself, but then let there be a further chance percentage that the stolen ship has engineering schematics in its databanks that will give you the option to research that ship hull type to make for yourself!

Can add to the difficulty and cost by requiring larger/powerful disabled ship types to have your ‘capturing’ ship have multiple assault shuttles equipped and maybe an additional special ‘component’ (boarding parties component?)


Could further enhance the mechanic by adding the possibility for the captured ship to generate a single ‘pop’ of the ship’s original crew as a way of simulating taking the ship’s original crew prisoner, and thus granting you the option to set them free or keep them as a slave pop on a planet of your choice