With premier of DR we got Ship Upgrade Token to modernize ours T5 ships. It was kinda useful for old players, but now new players rather to upgrade their T5 goes for T6 directly and Token starts to be useless which is sad because all work that was put in creating it.
How about expending it for other tiers, not only T5 -> T5-U. Why not let players to upgrade ship they like from T2 up to T6. If player want to upgrade his/her T4 Tactical Escort he/she would get option which T5 escort (Patrol or Advance) stats she/he want to obtain. Of course upgrades could be done only with compatible classes: Cruisers to cruisers, sci to sci, etc.
That way we could keep old ship skin with new stats. What shouldn't be any major problem as We already have Fleet versions of all most all lowtier ships.
Possible upgrade path:
T2 -> T3 -> T4 -> T5 -> T5-U -> T6
As for $ thing, simple solution is to make T5-u -> T6 upgrade cost for example 4 Tokens (2k ZEN in pack) + 1 to upgrade from T5 to T5-U which in the end gave little less profit from one change then buying whole new ship, but more people would be will to get ship that way, which most probably means bigger final profit.
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Besides, the upgrade tokens are by no means useless or obsolete. A lot of people who have limited funds still buy T5 ships, whether C-store or exchange, and then later, when they can afford it, buy an upgrade token and make it a T5U. Last time I looked there were still upgradeable T5 ships in the exchange for less than 10M, well within reach of F2Pers. I myself ran around with T5U ships for quite some time for that very reason, and I still dig my Nihydron out of dry dock every once in a while for old times sake.
So, for your idea to work, if someone really liked their T1 Miranda and wanted to upgrade, the developers would have to develop a brand new ship, the T2 (T1-U) Miranda, and the the T3 (T1-U-U), and the T4 etc, etc, etc. Now they have to do that for every ship, of every tier level (other than T6, and if/when T7s come out they would have to do the T6s also).
Yes T5-U were made as new ships but when you would upgrade T5-U Patrol Escort to T6 you would have to choose to which T6 ship you want to change your Patrol Escort. Let's say that you want made Intel Escort from it, than Upgrade Token would simply copy-paste Intel Escort data (already exist) and overwrite data of Patrol Escort, only part which wouldn't be change is skin.
Don't see that ever happening. Well, maybe, just maybe with the standard ships that you can get free while leveling, but even then I don't really see it happening as it would remove one (albiet small) dilithium sink from the game.
As for your example, upgrade your T5-U ship to a T6 using a ship upgrade token ? You really think there is a snowballs chance in hades that cryptic would let you have a spanking new 3,000 Zen T6 ship for the cost of a 500 zen upgrade module ? They can be quite generous in their giveaways but their giveaways are usually items that aren't really selling anyway so there's not much of a loss in income, and the giveaways are very short term, which also drastically limits any income loss.
Allowing T5S to be upgraded to T6s would basically be a permanent 83.3% discount on T6 ships.
Yes T5-U were made as new ships but when you would upgrade T5-U Patrol Escort to T6 you would have to choose to which T6 ship you want to change your Patrol Escort. Let's say that you want made Intel Escort from it, than Upgrade Token would simply copy-paste Intel Escort data (already exist) and overwrite data of Patrol Escort, only part which wouldn't be change is skin.
Your words, not mine, change your T5U into a T6, which you select, and have a brand new T6 ship, in a T5 skin.