Thanks for taking the time to write this.
Disclaimer: This is an old game, now, and KC is a one-person show. That model means that CW4 and other future games have to take priority over patching older games with more content. So none of this is going to happen.
With that being said, let's look at the suggestions.
"Staged ships": This exists on the Exchange. kajacx made some maps which had upgrade-able ships. I wrote a related script for FOXX to let you (re)design ships mid-mission. FOXX made other maps with kajacx' system, too. However, the game as-it-is uses fixed ship designs to encourage using the right ship for the purpose. Staged ships move into "why would you ever use the base version, just wait for it to upgrade", and maps balanced around the upgraded version.
Tech levels: Again, this encourages power-creep and "why would you ever use the cheap one?", as well as time spent waiting for the expensive version to build. The game's version of this is that if you can't take something on with a destroyer, use a marauder, or two marauders - and so on.
Shield graphics: Shaders for this have a decent chance to cause lag.
"Infection": It's been tried with RPL-scripts. It's not really fun to play with. (Time watching ships for infection, rebuilding them ... it feels like busywork.)
Components:
- We call this the Tanker.
- Particle generators have been scripted, they're fun to play with.
- Teleport-ships have been done, and aren't very interesting once the novelty wears off.
- We call this the Hammer.
- We call this the MK7.
Overall, many of these things are things we've thought "wouldn't it be nice if..." about, and tried to script. From that group, you missed the "ship to build big ships really fast" (which I scripted, and it messes with the balance a lot).
knucracker spent a lot of time and effort making a balanced set of components. Unfortunately, few people have the skill to use them well (I'm not among them). Good map/ship/script-making is more than "this is too easy, add more particles", and "this is too hard, add more guns". Keeper Decagon and FOXX have better maps, for this.
For the rest of us, we tend to make massive, lag-inducing ships and huge, lag-inducing maps, and then add lag-inducing numbers of ultratough particles. JoaoPistori has made some of the very few maps which make this interesting, but those are "expert" difficulty.
In games, anything you do has to have a trade-off, even if it's "I put my HQ here, and so can't get to that other mine for a while". If your only trade-off is "it's expensive", that's generally a sign that the thing is going to be unbalanced or win the map singlehanded once you get it (but that'll take a while of waiting and doing effectively-nothing while the cost is paid).
So, while a lot of these look enjoyable now, similar additions tend to result in power creep and waiting, without making the game more fun in the end.
