While I like having ships be somewhat hard to kill, at the moment it is literally impossible to destroy a ship unless the owner is willing to let it die. I jumped a ship out of system that had active attack nano in every remaining hab and it survived, meaning you cannot kill a ship, seeming as how lockdown drones do not seem to prevent jumping out. As it stands right now, the only way to kill a ship is to catch it in battle with zero DL, which is easy to prevent generally. I would suggest a few ways that could be changed.

1. Make lockdown drones prevent jumping in OR out.

2. Make attack nano damage take effect before jump out orders.

3. Add a 1-2 turn delay to jump out orders.

OK, this is a wider issue, touched on by others. The reasoning is something like:

a) It's easy to get rich
b) It's slow to repair ships, but fast to buy new ones
c) None of us have high DL
d) DL is no longer as great a differential as it was when drone racks worked differently
e) Why do I want to keep my ships alive if damaged?

As opposed to my original design which was that epic ships would become part of the game, and that DL was vital to winning.

So I have to fix the income part, reinstate DL, AND ONLY THEN, look at ship survivability. i.e. it may be a good thing that its almost impossible.

I actually love the idea of epic ships and DL making some big difference in actual battle. It's just, as you pointed out, easier by far to build a new ship rather than keep old ones. We just need more of a reason to salavage a ship that is badly damaged but old and experienced, and more of a reason to collect DL during battle rather than just before one.

some suggestions for improving DL value;
a) as others have said; make each point of DL equal to a drone rack for points.

b) Remove the limiters on DL use; allow DL to exceed power expendatures/drone racks contributed- so long as at least one of these other sources are engaged. This will radically increase the value and utility of darklight.

c) Increase the movement bonus for DL, maybe a point can be worth 3 hexes of movement... something that makes it not so weak compaired to a spindizzy's 6, given that as hard or harder to get and maintain DL but DL doesn't require a system, 6 per point is not actually unreasonable.

d) Allow DL to be used in place of combat mass (or additional combat mass).

e) As a combination of improving the value of DL and the value of preserving ships; If a ship is destroyed disburse both of its remaining temporary and permanent DL at 1 per ship to the nearest ships. (lower starting DL if this is instituted).

f) or something