The topic asks for what we hope for from the engineers but i have thought about that and decided to better write what i personally think can be expected.
Because you hardly ever get what you hope for tho you can adapt to what would be realistic and work from there
So some people said things like larger jumprange and generally improving a ship to be awesome in everything would be a game breaker. I do agree for the most part.
I think of the engineers as a bunch of hardcore nerds that have the knowledge and experience to squeeze a bit more out of a given system or even give it a new fancy feature.
This means that any system or module would have to be improved in the process of doing the engineering things that those engineers do for a living. If it didn't improve then there would be no point in going there.
Now, improving a module could mean several different things:
- Improving it's efficiency to make it less of a power hog.
- Improving it's efficiency to get more out of it (e.g. larger scan distance for DSS or sensors, bigger jump range with FSD, more pewpew power from lasers, stronger shields, you name it ...)
- Lightening modules by using advanced lightweight materials like carbonfiber reinforced nanotubes titanium meta alloys <insertwhatevermakesyourboatfloathere> to make a ship lighter and therefore more capable of long distance journeys.
- Adding a new feature to a module.
- Combining several modules into one outfittable slot.
- A combination of all 5 maybe!?
Improving the module efficiency (Points 1 and 2) is pretty straight forward i guess. Make it use less power and give more stuff back, be it more ly in a jump or more MJs from a shield, you get the picture.
The same goes for lightening the module, it's not witchcraft and certainly not unthinkable either since lightening things has been one of the engineers main focuses in the last few decades in most areas of engineering. Making things lighter means using less fuel/power to move/use it.
Adding new features has already been announced for weapons if memory serves. However there could be new features on internal modules as well. Imagine a 6E cargorack that can only hold 32T of cargo but uses the remaining space to create a stealth force field that prevents other commanders from scanning your precious smuggling cargo at the expense of serious power draw.
Or think of a shield generator that can deploy a secondary shield in place of your canopy in case it is destroyed by using up some medium rare materials from planetary surfaces. That way when your canopy cracks on your deep space exploration after months of science done, you don't lose your ship once that life support countdown reaches zero. Instead you will have to search for mats on planets very often but you can make it home in one piece (say on material filling can establish the canopy shield for an hour, then you'll have to search the mats and stock up on them before going for the next hundred or so jumps until you have to gather mats again.)
What really bugged me is the module combination thing. I guess you can't just put some modules together with ducttape, call it a unit and plug it into the wall. Things usually don't work like this and usually things have to be added to make it happen. These things usually also take up space so you will actually lose some space in the progress. Think of hdd housings in your computer, you can't just throw in a bunch of ssds in a slot where one hdd was and call it a day.
So my thinking was like this:
The internal compartments are like slots in a storage rack with various sizes. Each slot is meant to house one module and they all somehow have to face some main corridor so that they can be accessed from one cargo hatch. This makes sense because if you change all your internals into cargo racks, you have to get to your cargo through the hatch, at least at some point. Therefore our internal compartments rack would have all modules facing in one direction or to one corridor.
But most modules also need some kind of energy, possibly access to some computer and/or sensor network onboard the ship and in case of a fuel scoop or refinery access to devices on the outside of your ship's hull. So there goes a whole bunch of things that have to be able to connect to a module.
To make that happen there could be a connector frame module (CFM) with various separations. Each separation will have access to all the connectors in the internal compartments rack and will give access to those for one module. One separation will therefore need space to hold the power hub, network switches and all the nice things that have to be available for a module. Therefore you wouldn't be able to put one DSS and one ADS into a size 2 slot but you would be able to sascrifice some space and put both into a size 3 slot. Therefore if you have a size 8 compartment that houses just a size 4 hangar (for whatever reasons), you could place a size 8 CFM into it and add separations to it. The size 4 hangar leaves 4 more boxes for free use that can be used with two separations to additionally house a DSS and ADS for example. I know that math doesn't work this way because a size 8 is not 2x size 4 but this is just to clarify the point that some space will have to be sacrificed to be able to access previously unused space. Of course such a separation would have to use more space with larger modules that will have to be supplied by it. Therefore a seperation that powers a DSS will be much smaller than one powering a size 5 shield generator.
I do not believe that this combination stuff will be a feature in the future update for engineers but i do think it is realistic and could be expected at some point.
I'm sorry for the long read, i got carried away a little. But i still think this is interesting so i hope it can inspire or at least create a smile or two
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