[Taqwus]

You can retrofit ships. The rules are --

- You cannot change the hull size.

- The difference in cost between the designs (current, not original, in case it was retrofitted before; versus new) cannot exceed a certain threshold: 50%, as in Data/Settings.txt. In one game, I had enemy ships going through up to three consecutive retrofits to conform to one of my own (much MUCH more expensive) designs...

- You have to be able to afford the possibly large refit cost.

- The replaced parts will all be *damaged*, so it'll have to spend some time being repaired ('tho at least *that* is free AFAICT).

To do so, you'll need to create a similar design with the ion engines, on the same hull. Then, since the ship is presumably still at a shipyard planet (i.e. you didn't scrap the shipyard, most likely), you can select the ship, hit the Refit/Scrap/Analyze button (it looks like a green Recycling symbol by itself), select the ship in the left panel, hit Retrofit, select the new design, and OK it.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night