It seems like it would be very problematic, way more than grinding the block would because of the freefloating block, and I don't know enough about pvp in this game to mess around with that =)

A hacking mod that's balanced for combat would be better suited to convert the ownership first.

Not really, the floating blocks are not a huge issue. Also most servers have by default, a clean up routine that will delete grids of less than a few blocks once the player moves out of range. With some servers settings they would be deleted almost as soon as they were created, but that would be counter productive here.

Grinding blocks is not an option, since there are no ores to replace lost components. I have looked at the hacking mods, but they all make it too easy to take an entire grid, since that is their real purpose, rather than my more niche requirements of a single block.

Do you mind if I fiddle with your code a bit and reupload it as an unlisted mod?

Ok go ahead and experiment :}

Well that was both easier and harder than I was expecting. I disabled the ownership check and threw in before the detech complete progess message is sent.

I'll let you know if my server mysteriously catches fire and burns to the ground.

It was suggested that this is a more friendly (ie synced) way.

Thx, this is exactly what I was looking for! I like how I need to grind it under the hack line before being able to detach. Makes hacking apart enemy ships for parts way more fun cause I can now actually salvage whole blocks! Playing with AQD - Vanilla Ore Redistribution & Awe Scrap! so I cannot easily make shields / lasers etc until I get to a dif planet...or unless I can steal them from NPC ships, which is now possible!

Yah, an option to do that in the mod itself would be nice, specially helpful for blocks that you don't get the item back, like battery where you hack but then you can't weld it back, also would be super inline with other mods that return scrap instead of the actual component. So for those you would need to detach the block instead of girding.

Yes, we do have the hacking mod, which serves it purpose more like a late game item, when you are just starting out, and want that battery or that thruster, that would be super cool to have