Im sure that there are those out there who by mistake or out of intrigue have dismissed an ally, only to later realise they can never get it back in the most cases and that they are now stuck without it or have to file a in game report. Instead for those who want to no longer pay the allys upkeep I have an alternate suggestion

Suspend button. After asking if you realy want to suspend the ally this breaks it, causing it to no longer need upkeep however it requires a repair cost to return to active service so this feature cannot be abused to avoid paying allys upkeep. Like when you fail to pay upkeep 10 times in a row allys break like ship modules this button would automaticaly break the ally. It would most certainly solve the problem of people mistakenly dissmissing and shouldn't be to big of a programing problem Something like set condition = 0% (im not entirely sure of the name of the variable for the modules condition but effectively it just sets it to broken)

+1

So long as this would also mean that it starts back at Rank 1.

There's is no way to accidentally dimiss an Ally, because they have their own separate tab, so no way to accidentally click the 3 times you would need to, to dismiss an ally.

If a person doesn't want to pay the Ally upkeep, that's fine, but if you decide that after recruiting, and before researching the upkeep costs, there needs to be an appropriate consequence.

No, they have done the work to rank it up, they have the right to maintain that even if the effectively uninstall it. You dont need to re research things like thetachron cannons if you break them. This would just be harmfull to the casual players. you can allready break allies by failing to pay upkeep 10 times in a row and you dont need to re rank them. This would just allow players to more easily remove the painfull upkeep if they start to play more casualy and removes the chance of acidental dissmisal of people not sure what it actualy does

+1

-1
Appropriate Consequence IMHO would be a Cooldown timer to re-instate said ally be it a week or two. Not dismissing the time investment put into the game already which would amount to scorched earth gameplay. Remember some of these allies have tough rank up requirements, ie Bane, Trovar etc. Galaxy Legion needs to be designed to keep it's players not give cause for furious rage-quits or having to pester Dan.

+1 to original idea
With added criticism that a cooldown timer on reinstatement be added to a credit cost of repair to evade being an easy maintenance skip.

Good effort to all for discussion, ttfn!

Would be interested if there were a way to put an ally on hold that did not change the upkeep costs, but would allow for scan toggling and whatnot.