Redesigning ships mid construction

[corvus]

I've seen this suggested here already, but frelt the need to elaborate on it a little. It's definatly something that should be in the game, as this sort of thing did happen historically, be it to comply with naval treaties (like the Lexington Class) or to adjust to the changing realities of an ongoing war (like the IJN Shinano).

I'd invision this system as similar to the refitting mechanic, only with slightly more freedoms depending on how far along the ship's construction is.

For example: If a ship is less than 25% done, it's assumed that constuction just started so the player would have the maximum amount of freedom with the alterations, while above 25% completion the ship's armour has aready been installed and can't be changed anymore. Anything that could be altered should also benefit from any new tech that was discovered between the initial design's creation and the alterations, as it wouldn't make sense for a shipyard to not take advantage of new the developments. To balance it out, I'd suggest that almost all alterations would increase the ship's construction time,  with the exception of certain detrimental alterations (e.g. lower quality guns, less secondaries or even new features that give a ship hidden flags that make it more vulnerable to breakdowns, flooding, flash fires etc.) to represent cutting corners out of desperation to get a new ship out as quickly as possible.

This mechanic should also be used as a replacement for the straight up scrapping of ships that are in violation of a newly signed naval treaty, instead promting the player if they want to scrap or re-design any ships that dont violate the treat's tonnage requirements.