Ship EXP and Weapons + some ideas.

I was checking out the change log for version 8.6

"Removed the experience based weapons" - so this means I will be able to buy Fast Plasma Cannons, Heavy Ion Cannons and 6x Artillery Turrets as soon as the BS leaves the Shipyard?

Will the experience be only used to buy Combat Systems? Any chance of expanding it to other ships like Carrier, MS etc. Vaygr should get some attention in that regard as well.

Will be some bonuses for XP beyond 500? I recall in long games some of my ships had well above 1500+ EXP.

How about further extending Spy's Cloak time, or making it permanently cloaked? It's to puny to consider it a military threat but with a permanent cloak maybe it would get more attention from players.

More storage - how about increasing capacity to 5000 RU with 2500 RU cost for each unit or maybe researchable capacity increase.

Increase lifespan and damage for mines, so putting a minefield could be a viable tactical option, with further researchable upgrades. I was thinking that level 1 non upgraded mine should be able to destroy level 1 non upgraded frigate. This would allowed using fighters and corvettes as they would be to fast for mines to destroy.

EMP mines. Longer time for the ship to be knocked out by EMP - even few minutes. Researchable technology for hardening against EMP. Capture time of ship that has been disabled by EMP reduced by 50%.

Replace Suppression Turret with Fast Plasma Cannon Turret (Tier 2 - Science Division).

Platforms can dock and be carried inside production ships.

Adding Antimissile Defence to Supercapitals - by either adding new system or maybe replacing some of the
artillery turrets. Counter missiles or lance for Vaygr and pulsar for Hiigaran.

Researchable ability to Retire captured enemy ships. Maybe even reverse engineering and using captured technology to build hybrid Vaygr/Hiigaran/Progenitor ships.

Possibility of capturing Research and Crew station. If capturing from the same race (Hiig vs Hiig) get all researched technology for free (or 10%-30%).

Eliminating Honour loss for scuttling captured debris.

A Recycler ship that would quickly clear debris fields using drones or tractor beams. A modification of Scavenger or Light Carrier. No drop-off points or production, its only purpose is automatic collection of debris.

Ability to switch off the shields on MS and Shuttle at any time.

Increase velocity of Nukes to 75% of normal torpedo.

Increase officers to 15 p/level and crew to 200 p/level for bigger fleets and more spectacular battles.

Adding most ships and tech tree from Complex to Vanilla Campaign, without Research and Crew Stations.

We're phasing out experience weapons what will be replacing them is being decided on a case by case basis

For now we are keeping the exp based enhancement subsystems.
The weapons will be pre-built on all super capitals, differently on each.

Please don't suggest changes for untested situations. Some of the ideas seem good, but for example honor progression gets faster as there is more action on the game - too big crew caps may not be filled up before you reach the next rank.

AM for supercapitals would be ridiculously overpowered. You have defense fields and shuttles and AM turrets available for all this. There is no need to make super capitals stronger anyways, when they show up, games usually end.

Captured ships CAN be recycled, too, btw.

Downloading 8.6 right now. I'll play a dozen games on different maps and will get back to you

I've played couple of games and here's the feedback

The whole thing is more stable, I've had no CTD so far (which were quite common in 8.5.2 after 30th year).
No lag as well. AI seems more aggressive, few times in an early game I've almost got mobbed by several
groups of fighters & frigates from 3 AI players.

The blue/white screen flickering when firing Ion cannons is still there.

I like the idea of BC and BS coming out fully armed but I dislike that they cannot be upgraded. Also with
modular design for Destroyer and Cruiser it should be an option for BC and BS. I miss the power and
range of my uber Heavy Ion Cannons and 6x Heavy kinetic cannons - how about automatic upgrade when
purchasing Combat System Lvl. 5?

Adding to previous post: I've just played 8.6.1 - recent changes to Combat
systems result in BCs and BSs feeling nerfed. With Vaygr Super Capitals getting
Combat Systems the balance shifted in their favour.
So... can Higs have Heavy Ion Cannons (Tier 3) and 6x Heavy kinetic cannons
for BS and Heavy Ion Cannons (Tier 2) and 3x Heavy kinetic cannons for BCs
as a basic armament then?

I didn't test 8.6.1, but if kinetic cannons and and ion cannons are tier 1 weapons, what Sithicus offers is really smart, imo.

You have access to the batteries right away. The balance in deep late game is in no way favoring Vaygr. What you're proposing is completely hypothetical and untested in multiplayer.
On top of that, the BC's ions count as tier 2.  Heavy ions are all engineering division weapons (tier3). The Battleship can engage from an insane range, compared to the Vaygr Super Capitals. The Vortex is also an insanely powerful ship that the Vaygr Super Capitals can't really deal with until the engines are disabled. 
If testing results will indicate that those weapons are required, then yes, we'll add them. 

About your earlier post, a modular design for Super Capitals would not be very appropriate. It's already quite unprofitable to go down the super capital tech tree in multiplayer, seeing how slowly it upgrades. If the guns were to be bought(as they were before), we'd never even get to see a Super Cap because people would choose to stay on battle capital tech and max it out.

And if their prices were augmented, batteries suppressed and ions cannons improved? (Here too, it's fully hypothetical)

Yes, hypothetical changes are... not worth the effort of doing the changes. Testing in multiplayer is required. Getting to the late endgame is almost impossible in multiplayer with the current state of balance. As explained in the balancing forums, we need to maintain a balance throughout the game stages. Changing something now in an untested game phase might cause problems later when we get there, causing more changes to be needed. 
It's simply not how our balancing procedure is operating, sorry. 
Our current late game changes were more like design changes rather than actual balance changes.

I think we have a bit of misunderstanding here.
When I was speaking of BC and BS Weapon Tech Levels I categorized
Kinetic Cannon as Tier 1, 3x KC as Tier 2 and 6x KC as Tier 3
Its the same with Ion Cannons.
This in no way relates to Research/Science/Engineering Divisions on Research Station.

Okay, I see. 
Regardless of that, you're suggesting a terribly heavy buff, which is something to remember for later testing. It cannot be just done without that. If Vaygr Super Capitals tend to be that game changing statistically, then we'll naturally do something similar.