The Logic of Internals

[Zeta Legion]

HRP's scaling with ship armour (with a multiplier for having better than lightweight alloys) rather than having a flat value would help immensely. Shields (and therefore the maximum effective boost from SCB's) are already balanced by only being able to equip one unit and having a more or less fixed value, so why not similar logic to HRP's.

Having more than just tanking or non-combat utility components available for combat ships would be great too. Extra ammo storage, enhanced targeters, sensor boosters, overcharge capacitors to boost energy weapons temporarily, etc.

Understood, but it parallels the same point. If you want to trade or do non combat activities, you are not going to be optimized for combat or pirating or .... Murdering. This is true in real life. Think of highwaymen in the old days or the 16 and 1700's in East and West Indies.

Trading ships in the age of sail often ran fairly well-armed if they sailed through seas known to be populated with pirates. The pirates also needed enough cargo storage to make raiding worth the effort. The key difference between a pirate and bulk trading vessel was speed, especially if the pirate vessel was currently unladen.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Understood, but it parallels the same point. If you want to trade or do non combat activities, you are not going to be optimized for combat or pirating or .... Murdering. This is true in real life. Think of highwaymen in the old days or the 16 and 1700's in East and West Indies.

Once again, it's not about being able to optimize or not. It's about how of an advantage the optimization gives you. Being able to optimize for advantage is fine. Being able to optimize for overwhelming advantage that would require a massive skill gap to overcome just results in less PvP happening, and greater fragmentation of the player base.

if you limit where SCB's and HRP can go, then Player 1, who just wants to PvP, can still optimize fully for PvP, and put as many defensive modules as possible, with nothing extra to maximize defense and agility.

Player 2 can still optimize fully for trade, and not bother with extra armor or shield cells, and is still at a disadvantage to Player 1. Since he's not at an overwhelming built-in disadvantage though, he's more likely to play in open and engage in PvP with Player 1 if Player 1 tries to pick a fight.

Player 3, who wants to do a little bit of everything, can put an HRP, a cargo rack, and an SRV hanger. He'll haul less cargo than player 2 and have less range, but he's ok with that. He won't be as agile as Player 1, but since it's not a huge built-in disadvantage, he'll still engage in PvP.

Player 1 still has a PvP edge in all of these scenarios, and Player 1 gets MORE PvP action than he did before. This would be entirely a good thing for everyone.

The only people who lose out really are those who want to PvP, but only if they start out with a gigantic advantage in their favor; basically, those who want to gank people.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

I don't really like the idea of stacking SCBs as it leads to a silly game of escalation. You have one so I need to have one. You have two, so now I need to have two. I fill my ship with SCBs, but you have an additional slot in your ship model so you still have an advantage. So people end up with similar configs just to keep the playing field level.

The real problem (IMO) is this:
You can outfit your ship for improved defence (SCB/HRP) and it makes a massive difference. Fine. Great. Choice is good!
So, what if I want to outfit my ship for improved offence (i.e. weapons boosters)? Bzzzt! Frontier says no. I can fill my hardpoints... and that's about it.
So, what if I want to outfit my ship for improved speed/agilty (i.e. drive/thrust boosters)? Bzzzzt! Frontier says no. I can max out my thrusters, reduce weight a bit, but that's about it.

In combat terms - you can optimise your ship quite significantly for defence, but not for offence or speed or agility. So your options seem a bit like:

a) outfit for defence
b) avoid combat

If they can't add offensive/performance boosters, I'd rather they at least limited the SCB stacking. That said, let's have a ship-full of scoops!

Looked at from my perspective, this becomes:

Speed and agility are well-balanced within limited constraints, and it works very well from ship to ship and build to build. There is diversity.

Weapon loadouts are well-balanced within limited constraints, and it works very well from ship to ship and build to build. There is diversity.

Defenses are very loosely controlled, and so can be stacked to create large imbalances, and do not currently work well. Optimized builds have little diversity. Solution: Constrain them somewhat, like engines and weapons, which will allow for greater diversity.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

That's not the argument at all.

Our ships are the same. Why can't they be limited so that they're still the same, but we can both run fuel scoops?

With respect, I'm still not getting it.
How is your argument not "I want to run a fuel scoop, so you have to run a fuel scoop too"?

 

[Kaocraft]

Understood, but it parallels the same point. If you want to trade or do non combat activities, you are not going to be optimized for combat or pirating or .... Murdering. This is true in real life. Think of highwaymen in the old days or the 16 and 1700's in East and West Indies.

The issue is not with optimizing vs not optimizing. The issue is with how much of a difference that optimization makes. At a certain point advantages of one category can become so overwhelming that they flatten the possibility of anything interesting happening for anyone, and every interaction devolves into a routine.


Right now, if you're solely equipped for killing other ships, then there's not a lot of different interesting things that can happen when you go on a killing spree. Any other non-PVP-oriented ship you attack will have no chance against you. None. It's not a question of advantage or disadvantage; in a conflict you WILL win. That is a shallow interaction. This in itself is not a problem until you multiply the situation across the entire galaxy, and it becomes common knowledge that all attacking ships should be treated as though they are invincible. The defender will run or combat log every time, and your primary activity is going to consist of chasing people or blowing them up before they know what's going on.


If on the other hand, the survivability gap were smaller, or if there were a more interesting interaction between weapons and defensive measures, such that a sizable percentage of defenders *believed* that they *might* have a chance against you, then you are going to see a greater degree of variation in how defenders respond to being attacked. Now, if you're perfectly happy to chase people down and alternate between watching people high wake or combat log, and easily destroying clueless targets, then yeah everything is working perfectly. But a lot of people would like the situation to be more dynamic than that. I think a lot of PvPers, even when they do have a massive advantage, would like to see their targets put up a bit of a fight; and similarly there are plenty of people flying mixed builds who would put up such a fight if they thought that their skills *might* be able to overcome the specialization advantage of their attackers.

Edit: Originally quoted the wrong post.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

To me, the argument is this:

Your ship is better than mine. You want to pew pew with me, and I want to pew pew with you.
But you're the only one having fun, so I take me ship and pew pew with myself. You pew pew with yourself.
Are you having fun?

Again, with respect, I'm not getting it.
If your pew pew ship is not good enough, build a better pew pew ship.

If your argument is against there being an optimal pew pew ship, with an optimal pew pew configuration, then I'm not sure how limiting the types of modules really addresses that. You just change the meta, at the expense of people's freedom to configure ships.

Taken from the other direction - if the existing setting was limited the way that the OP was requesting, don't you think there would be a load of threads complaining about being limited in how you build ships?
In situations like this, I tend to stick with the status quo.

 

[Bacalao]

That's fine as long as both ships are outfitted the same, but realistically you end up in a situation where one pilot is a tank and another is in a cargo ship or general purpose vessel, it's a slaughter.

I think you need to be careful with this kind of thinking. Only the murderer finds victory in slaughter, a cargo ship wins if it escapes, a pirate wins if it extracts cargo. I think the "balance" is fine for the most part with the notable exceptions of the T-x ships, which are pathetic and can rarely be assured of victory by escape if outfit at all for trading. On top of that by restricting module installation you just homogenize the playing field even more. So to reiterate, a mining fit anaconda doesn't need to be able to put up a fight against a combat fit anaconda, it just needs to have the survivability to escape if outfit properly for mining with reasonable defense (shields, chaff, maybe an SCB, decent thrusters...the basics).

 

[Zeta Legion]

Again, with respect, I'm not getting it.
If your pew pew ship is not good enough, build a better pew pew ship.

If your argument is against there being an optimal pew pew ship, with an optimal pew pew configuration, then I'm not sure how limiting the types of modules really addresses that. You just change the meta, at the expense of people's freedom to configure ships.

Taken from the other direction - if the existing setting was limited the way that the OP was requesting, don't you think there would be a load of threads complaining about being limited in how you build ships?
In situations like this, I tend to stick with the status quo.

Every 'optimal' pew pew configuration is the same right now; load up on HRPs and silent-running mode your targets into oblivion. That is a terribly boring meta to play in, especially since HRPs are the same no matter which ship you are using, making the base hull of ships meaningless and devaluing armour upgrades to the point of parody.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

With respect, I'm still not getting it.
How is your argument not "I want to run a fuel scoop, so you have to run a fuel scoop too"?

Because it's a tragedy of the commons

Think prisoner's dilemma.

We both want to run scoops, but if only one of us did, we'd lose. Hence we both have to forsake them, making it worse off for both of us

But if some internal modules were restricted, we could both run scoops and not worry about being uncompetitive: we both win.

Also if you need a 10x health advantage to gank traders, you just suck and shouldn't win anyway

 

[askavir]

Not sure why they added HRPs when we already had the upgradable hull.

I feel that with each combat oriented addition to modules the gap between combat and non combat loadouts becomes greater.

This is unfortunately true.

Outfitting choices makes far too much of a difference.

You can currently take a Cobra and buff its armor ending with more than the armor of 2 Anacondas (or 3 Anacondas, if you use an Asp instead of a Cobra).

HRP's and SCB's are overpowered to ridiculous levels.

This causes the "either you have a combat ship, or you have an anything else ship". If you're not 100% outfitted to combat only, anything else than escaping if attacked by a 100% combat outfitted player is completely pointless. That's why PvP is so frowned upon in this game.

Outfitting options should matter and provide advantages and drawbacks. But they should not make a ship 10x tougher.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Hull reinforcement should have its own slot. It's heavy and severely reduces your maneuverability and speed. Why would hull plating which you install on top of your hull take up internal slots.

You should have light, Medium or Heavy Hull plating but has drawbacks as stated above. You can also apply reflective or reactive compounds and remove these from the bulkheads section as bulkheads are internal.

If anything adding heavy / military bulkheads to your ship should reduce your internal slots as bulkheads are internal.

This would make more sense to me.

 

[Cliffson]

Honestly in terms of balance I think there are far bigger fish to fry, but from a PvP (by which I mean doing all activities in open where people can directly oppose you and not just ubermetabuild duels) I can see the attraction. In an ideal world I'd see it working well like this, using a python as an example.

1 SCB 1 HRP per ship

Assume a Python with a class 6 shield 6 SCB 6 HRP is reasonably balanced against most other combat ships.

Now if someone wants to trade in open in an area they might be attacked they have choices.

Take all as 6's have only 100T cargo but know that if someone interdicts you you are on roughly level pegging and if you're the better pilot you can win.

Drop a the SCB and HRP down to 5, gain 64T more cargo but be at a slight disadvantage in a fight.

And so on all the way to take 292T no shields and hope no one bothers you.

Right now in that situation there is little point not maximising cargo (with a minimum shield) and just running from every encounter as unless you got for a full SCB HRP build there is little point fighting.
Or just go in solo.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

a mining fit anaconda doesn't need to be able to put up a fight against a combat fit anaconda.

It does! What benefit is there to having PvP fit ships being completely unassailable by anyone else?

All it does is further relegate PvP to being a pointless side game to the main game that no one wants to take part in outside of tournaments.

Sure, combat fit ships should have an edge, but not an edge of 10x the eHP: what's the point of that?

 

[Zeta Legion]

Honestly in terms of balance I think there are far bigger fish to fry, but from a PvP (by which I mean doing all activities in open where people can directly oppose you and not just ubermetabuild duels) I can see the attraction. In an ideal world I'd see it working well like this, using a python as an example.

1 SCB 1 HRP per ship

Assume a Python with a class 6 shield 6 SCB 6 HRP is reasonably balanced against most other combat ships.

Now if someone wants to trade in open in an area they might be attacked they have choices.

Take all as 6's have only 100T cargo but know that if someone interdicts you you are on roughly level pegging and if you're the better pilot you can win.

Drop a the SCB and HRP down to 5, gain 64T more cargo but be at a slight disadvantage in a fight.

And so on all the way to take 292T no shields and hope no one bothers you.

Right now in that situation there is little point not maximising cargo (with a minimum shield) and just running from every encounter as unless you got for a full SCB HRP build there is little point fighting.
Or just go in solo.

Rather than a one size fits all limitation on defensive internal modules it might make more sense to apply these individually, ie. the Corvette can equip more SCBs than say the Anaconda, the FAS can equip more HRPs than the Cobra, etc.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Rather than a one size fits all limitation on defensive internal modules it might make more sense to apply these individually, ie. the Corvette can equip more SCBs than say the Anaconda, the FAS can equip more HRPs than the Cobra, etc.

That's what I was suggesting with the idea of combat and non-combat rated internals. You could balance based on ship: so that, say the Gunship could be filled to the brim with HRPs: but the Type 9 couldn't

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Sure, combat fit ships should have an edge, but not an edge of 10x the eHP: what's the point of that?

Can't be said enough.

Allowing true diversity to flourish requires a measure of control over the outcomes. If one outcome is overwhelmingly more powerful, you end up with the result of more theoretical diversity, but far less practical and actually-used diversity.

 

[The_Quasar]

I was referring to the same ship in different configs, not fighters versus transports. Here's an example.

Cobra - Hardened version

http://coriolis.io/outfit/cobra_mk_...7.Iw1-kA==.EwBjEYxccr6A?bn=Cobra Tank Version



Cobra - Cargo version

http://coriolis.io/outfit/cobra_mk_....Iw1-kA==.EwBjEYxccr6A?bn=Cobra Cargo Version

The Tank has more than nine times the hull points of the Cargo version (plus shields). Same effective config in both cases except for internals. I actually didn't realize the difference was that stark until I did these up.

This shows the armour plate on a WW 2 aircraft, the Thunderbolt.

I agree, there is lots of difference, but they are for completely different purposes. One is a trader, with very limited potential for fighting; the other is an out and out stealth killing machine, impossible to trade in it... horses for courses. Both builds are equally valid for what they are intended for, imho, and both will do a pretty good job too.

If you restrict the number of HRPs, imho, you should also restrict the number of cargo bays. If you do either, it makes the ship useless for what it's intended to do... therefore I say keep them as they are. Both increase the weight of the ship, in different ways (the cargo bays are increased when they are used), so I fail to see the problem.

 

[Zeta Legion]

That's what I was suggesting with the idea of combat and non-combat rated internals. You could balance based on ship: so that, say the Gunship could be filled to the brim with HRPs: but the Type 9 couldn't

I've also suggested that HRPs should scale with ship type like shields and base hull do, to avoid the insanity of having a Cobra with more hull points than three Pythons combined.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

I agree, there is lots of difference, but they are for completely different purposes. One is a trader, with very limited potential for fighting; the other is an out and out stealth killing machine, impossible to trade in it... horses for courses. Both builds are equally valid for what they are intended for, imho, and both will do a pretty good job too.

If you restrict the number of HRPs, imho, you should also restrict the number of cargo bays. If you do either, it makes the ship useless for what it's intended to do... therefore I say keep them as they are. Both increase the weight of the ship, in different ways (the cargo bays are increased when they are used), so I fail to see the problem.

The problem is that you can't PvP and do anything else. And in a game built around opportunistic, random PvP, that's a big problem, and leads to ganking, hi waking and combat logging rather than compelling fights

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Because it's a tragedy of the commons

Think prisoner's dilemma.

We both want to run scoops, but if only one of us did, we'd lose. Hence we both have to forsake them, making it worse off for both of us

But if some internal modules were restricted, we could both run scoops and not worry about being uncompetitive: we both win.

Also if you need a 10x health advantage to gank traders, you just suck and shouldn't win anyway

Okay, I see where you're coming from, but...

Say I don't WANT to run a fuel scoop? I've just got this internal slot I can't do anything useful with. You win, because you get what YOU want. I lose, because I don't.


Aaaand, with your last comment about 'ganking traders', you just put yourself back in the "I don't like the way you play, so I'm gonna ask for it to be nerfed" box.