With the current climate of people not being able to play as much and no organized play, now might be a good time for FFG to experiment with points. Similar to the Solo Play Alpha, I suggest FFG create an experimental points alpha where they release a separate set of points lists focused on changing the break points for ships, recosting rarely used upgrades, and new types of incremental costs. None of these experimental points would be official, but a way to let the community at large test out new ideas for future improvements to the game. While several of these would undoubtedly make list building more complicated it could provide a good way for us to reassess how we cost things in the future.

Some of the things that could be tested are:
-Ship break points (5 B-wings, 4 Defenders, 4 Firesprays, etc.)
-Faction specific costs for generic upgrades (Moldy Crow)
-Reduced point cost for upgrades with a built-in penalty (Advance Deflectors, Electronic Baffle, Feedback Array, etc)
-Reduced point cost for upgrades that require another upgrade (Fuses, Munitions Failsafe, Saturation Salvo, etc.)
-Refunding/taxing points for specific combinations
-Point scaling on criteria other than initiative, size, or agility (i.e. Juke's cost could be scaled by access to Evade: Ship can get a free evade/ship has evade on action bar/ship does not have evade on action bar)
-Featured upgrades or pilots of the period (cost for specific upgrades or pilots are significantly reduced for the current points cycle)
-Challenge upgrades or pilots (cost for specific upgrades or pilots are significantly increased for the current points cycle)

I don’t understand why this would ever happen, regardless of the current climate. It just seems like much more work to produce these alternative points and record keep that much data so that you can have the public do what I assume their existing playtesters already do for them.

If you’re wanting to test these break points for yourself there’s no reason you and your friends can’t just adjust and test the points among yourselves just to see how things go.

Zzzzz just make enough noise so they adjust what you want.

naboo handmaidens need a massive decrease.

Testing with your own “made up” points is fun, I’m lucky enough to have a friend group that likes doing that (esp. for homebrew stuff or proxies).

kinda doubt FFG would ever do something like what you’re suggesting completely openly like this, but if you’re really interested in testing things out and have a group of people you play with who feel the same I’d suggest signing up to be a playtester, I have heard it’s pretty fun.