Topic: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level
Current situation
NPC drop damaged items at levels all the way from almost destroyed to nearly full health. And field containers on an NPC farming operation, even a small one, generally have thousands of items in them. Each unstacked, and when bringing the loot to terminal and storing it there, the same items remain unstacked until repaired or recycled.
This is highly inefficient and claims tons of resources, both on client (CPU/GPU) and server (memory/storage). In fact, many people find the field containers become inoperable at some point due to the sheer number of 1 piece stacks.
A better way
Instead of allowing these items to have a health of anywhere from 1% to 100%, allow only 4 levels (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%). In NPC loot, obviously only the levels 25%, 50% and 75% really apply as they must be damaged.
Reaping the benefits
To exploit the benefits this arrangement brings, two more changes are required!
1) Items of the same damage level must be stackable (saves precious resources at every possible level);
2) Field containers must automatically stack, just like a robots cargo hold and private storage in terminals.
Changing the default stacking behavior of field containers is now feasible as we have the new shift-drag-to-storage interface now. Before this change, it would require manually unstacking in order to transfer items to a hauler robots cargo hold.