Calibrations
A few days ago, I suggested that Calibrations could be a way to do Interior content, as well as to moderate the Engineering grind. Well, I thought I'd expand on the core concept here, without the Interiors focus.
There are several core issues with engineering. One of those is that players don't really know what they want before they get it. If you go grind mats to get focused pulse lasers, but they turn out to be terrible, you'll be really discouraged from going for something else. Making a major grind a requirement just to try out some common engineering effects is a harsh approach.
Another issue is that some weapons simply aren't worth using without engineering effects. Torpedoes are the most notable case, where they're basically ONLY good with Reverb Cascade. But that means unlocking an engineer JUST for those, and that's annoying.
The basic premise is simple. Players can do a calibration minigame to improve the performance of(IE, temporarily engineer) some or multiple of their internal modules. The better they do at the minigame, the better the results of the calibrations. The main limiting factor will be time; it takes some time to do the minigame, maybe you'll need to do it multiple times to be successful, and you need to do it for each individual module. The effects of these calibrations will wear off after a preset time period. For weapons, it'd be after a certain number of shots, while other modules will either fade after a certain amount of time, or a certain number of uses.
An example of what a calibration minigame might look like. There could be different minigames for different modules.
This inherently makes Calibrations more useful for smaller vessels with less internal modules. A sidewinder could fairly easily calibrate both their weapons, but a Challenger or T10 would be spending so much time calibrating it wouldn't be worth it. This would encourage using the Engineering system instead, for more permanent effects.
Calibrations would function somewhat similarly to engineering; you choose an effect, and on success, it takes you up to, say, G3 effectiveness. This provides a powerful bonus, but still maintains the usefulness of engineering. It would basically be a middle ground between the two.
Even engineered ships could find benefits from calibrations. For example, a player fighting near an installation could calibrate their weapons for Smart Rounds(an effect currently never used) to avoid accidentally damaging the installation. After the calibration fades, the normal effect would return.
Wouldn't it be nice to NOT get a fine from hitting this?
Ultimately, Calibrations would serve as a teaser and middle ground between unengineered and engineered ships, as well as offering utility to combat ships wanting different options on the fly. It could allow players to try out different engineering effects without the harsh grind, but without removing the benefits of engineering entirely. It could make the game better both for newer players and older players alike.
So...what do you think? Yay or Nay?
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