If you want the joys of the complexity of maneuvering, you could think of some abilities that that add that! Sorry, I guess I'm a bit of a third-ability-evangelist.

Not trying to pick a fight - more trying to pick your brain I guess - but the 'give races multiple ships' notion keeps coming up and while I don't think it's a bad idea necessarily, I also don't quite get why it excites people. 'It would be more realistic' is just not a very exciting argument for me in a game like UQM I guess. I know this is a bit glib, but if the choice is between existing races getting additional ships, or keeping the one-ship-per-race rule and putting some more resources into adding more aliens ... it's not a hard choice for me.

Also, for Super Melee - there are already a few redundant ships on a competitive level (adding extra abilities to these could help them!). I definitely think they should add more ships to the game - I'd be a bit disappointed if there were less than what UQM added tbh - but opting for depth over breadth just seems like the better way to go in terms of satisfying gameplay and efficient use of development resources. I waited 30 years for this game and I want to play it for 30 more if I can.