You might be able to do metal. See products like metal earth.
Wow! Did not expect someone to suggest metal. Looking up some stuff, looks very cool. I would mostly be worried about the cost, and potential cutting hazard. Also would probably be more difficult to color things in the way the current game is. That would certainly be a cool option. Only other metal ships I can recall are the ones made by burnthills for old_man, but those were huge aluminum ships.
A more realistic route for a reboot might be to ditch the buildable aspect entirely, and just have the ships molded in plastic and sold as “blind boxes”. There are a lot of popular collectible toys that use this route, some of them with games involved. Plastic toys are fairly durable and can be produced inexpensively, damage markers could be used instead of removable masts. I personally wouldn’t like this option for aesthetic reasons but I feel like this might be a way the game could be revived.
That makes sense, but definitely isn’t my preference either. I feel that it could dampen some of the ships’ individuality, and make for a “cookie cutter” game in some ways. Though with advancements and demonetization of 3D printing and whatnot, perhaps some version of that could work. I also really like that the ships can be taken apart due to combat, with myself and others valuing the constructible nature of the game highly.