I think ships and weapons should be less universally available. Eventually, I think Serco stations should have mostly unique ships and add-ons only available only at Serco stations, Itani stations should also have unique stuff, and UIT as well.

In the meantime, how about just making taking the variants that are currently available almost everywhere, and making them specific to a single nation or faction? This would make the Universe feel less uniform and would make the process of choosing a nation much more significant and difficult. The basic (Mk1) models could still be widely available, but the higher end stuff should only be available from certain factions.

This would become really effective once we get a dynamic standing system in which you couldn't be liked by both Serco and Itani. You couldn't have both Itani and Serco technology, and the technology of each nation would be very different. Imagine not being able to buy AGT's as a Serco, or not being able to buy Neut 2's as an Itani, or only being able to get FC Powercells from UIT stations. Some sort of player-run underground trade system would probably be established.

This relates to an older thread of mine on faction standing:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/15561

If you go through the back story, you can almost visualise what each nations ships would look like.

The itani ships would be light, fast and agile with reasonably armour but nothing too heavy.

Serco ships would be fairly big (like the ragnarok) but with a couple of drone riders floating beside it. Heavily armoured, not terribly agile, lots of weapons. But with the added advantage (perhaps coming with licence levels) of a couple of outriders, armed with a single weapon which can point in a configurable quarter.

The UIT ships would look a fair bit like tractors, but fairly effective fighting tractors for all that. Useful, agile, but not terribly pretty.