Some of the mid-tiered ships suffer from the inability to research and equip their ships with upgrades that keep them competitive against lesser ships or lower tiers.

I suggest that additional branches be added to the research trees on all ship lines.

The example I use is the submarine line, but applies to all ships and all nations:

• The KM Submarine line falls on its face all the way through the Type VII-series (A, C & F) ships.  It should not be this way and makes no sense.  There should be upgrades available in each successive ship that ensures its competitive abilities are equal or better than previous ships.  Not until the Type IX comes into play does the ship become competitive again.

There should be a serious revist to the upgrade trees because if a ship is slow and crappy, no amount of increasing its armor or 0.003 seconds of overheat is going to help it, when what you tend to focus on is getting rid of it as soon as possible and onto the next, hopefully, better ship. Upgrades should be considered good enough to encourage implementation during your experience while using each ship.  I'm sure there are plenty of upgrade trees for each ship that would make it a better, more usable and competitive ship.  It's just a matter of adding a few more upgrade tree branches where it makes sense.