For those poor ships who, for whatever reason, don't receive their own
EPs (every ship out there except the big H), here is the mechanic for
increasing their stats:
Purchase components
If you wish to raise a substat to N, components to do it will cost
N*1000 asters. They can only be purchased at an appropriate place in
the inworlds where such things are found. If raising this substat to
N would result in the total stat increasing to N, you need to spend
N*2000 asters instead.
You could scavenge components from another ship, but it would likely
require several points of scavenging to produce one of upgrading. And
using scavenged components will occasionally result in odd quirks
(schticks/anti-schticks) depending on the source.
Disassemble Ship
Once you have the components handy you may at any time make an
engineering roll to start the process. You need as many successes as
the ships current value in the relevant substat.
The relevant substat immediately drops to 0.
Reassemble with New Components
Each week you may make an engineering roll to increase the ship's stat
from its current level (X) to (X+1). You require X successes for 7's
(plus any tech level modifiers) to accomplish this.
This can happen any week, one roll per week. Multiple engineers
working simply add an extra success for each additional helper.
Multiple engineers can work on separate substats on the same
ship simultaneously, if two different things are being upgraded.
Engineers working on ships in this way can not make rolls for
research. We suggest the repairs always occur during regular research
weeks for simplicity.