Why do the Avenger variants look exactly the same as the original?
TL;DRThe Avenger variants look identical because they are meant to become swappable modules like the Retaliator, but that system doesn't work in 2.0 yet, so they are offered as whole ships for testing.
So the Avenger variants are in fact modules, similar to the Retaliator. I tried to explain this yesterday when I was hopped up on cold medicine in the live stream. Basically, in the future, you'll be able to have one Avenger and you can say, oh, I want the cargo module, or no, today I want the EMP module, or the prisoner module. That system does not work in 2.0 right now. Right now, whatever ship you have on your account is the one that will appear. So we're only making them available as whole units. But do not buy more than one Avenger. Just buy the one you want to try out right now. And in the future, you'll have the option of getting the other Avenger butts for it. In the future, it'll follow the Retaliator model where there'll be a base and then you'll have modules. It's just we wanted to test EMP in 2.0, so we needed to get a playable version now.
By the way, one thing I thought was really cool was the fact that we did not make the Stalker the base. That's the one everybody already had. It's mid-range, so at the prices right now, you'll actually save some money if you want to switch to the cargo instead of the bounty hunter.
Not unlike what we did with the Constellation.