[AngleWyrm]

There's a sleight problem with relying on 2xScoop tech to provide all supplies for a ship: the scoops provide too large a percentage of the speed. If the player were to add just one more scoop/replicator/collector, then all of a sudden the ship can run at or near max warp indefinitely. So the choice is removed, and the player has nothing to do. But if a significant chunk of the ship's supply generation is separated from scoops (like about half), then it is possible to let players buy as many scoops as they feel they can afford, filling up hull space that would have been guns, looking for a perfect mission balance. It then makes sense to have unarmed deep-space explorers, and slower heavily armed combat vessels. They would still have the same top speed for three-turn durations, but they would have some cost trade-offs about how fast they can cruise on longer missions, and isn't that what the ship design screen is for?

I also like the idea of high maintenance penalties for supply generating componants; it simulates a conversion of resources into supplies. Also, it will effectively create a financial ceiling on fleet size, as a proportion of income. Large fleets of small ships will tend to be more expensive than small fleets of large ships, a reason to buy bigger ships, slower ships, and tankers.