To preface: I know I'm necroing this thread, but it also matches most closely to what I want to say. I did a moderately deep search, couldn't find any threads between today and March 1st that worked as well.
Also, caveats:
> I don't PVP, but I have been researching to get an idea of what it's like, and my current impression is that if you're flying for PVP there's a relatively flat option-set for what you fly.
> I haven't flown any of the truly "large" ships, so my thoughts may not hold up on those. I think they do though.
> I would like to see some instances that prove me wrong. I'm still learning, so I know I don't know everything there is to know.
I feel like this should at very least be seriously considered. The most common arguments I saw against it is that it'd make fitting easier or that it'd make multirole ships pointless. The first is basically an argument against a QoL improvement, and I'm not sure what it's arguing for, exactly. In what I can find on PVP, I'm seeing three or four "top" ships and no hint of a desire to undersize a module: it's always "go biggest" with the possible exception of Hull Packages and SCBs because supposedly certain sizes have better cost/effect ratios. There's a current meta, and you either use it or you don't. If someone wants to underclass SCBs in order to fit more but less powerful charges, why not let them? Trading: what, you're going to split down cargo space when each class up doubles your available space? Multirole: yeah your life is gonna get easier but you're gonna get diminishing returns, as smaller modules are pretty much always less efficient in some way. The people I see being most affected by this are explorers, but the standard refrain I hear is "Explorers need more love" so... give them some.
For the second, I'm pretty firmly of the idea that all it would do is broaden out the multirole options you have. Instead of "this ship is specialized" vs "this ship is multirole" you'd start seeing a better spectrum of multirole: this ship does a lot of things but not very well, this one a few okay, and this one only one thing, but excels at it. Or: different variants of what exactly it does well. I see a lot of comments that you basically have to specialize if you want to do a thing, and I'm inclined to agree. I don't have X ship that I do everything in, I have X ship currently fitted for Y task. I cannot imagine fitting a combat (not PVP, which I expect will always be specialized) ship with a cargo rack, but I could see fitting in a joint cargo-HRP/SCP so I have even a minor bit of cargo space. Or hell, some extra fuel... or a dang scanner. But also, isn't "Blaze your own trail" pushed a lot? Why shouldn't we have a lot of multirole ships?
If I were going to implement this, it'd probably be something like this:
> Add weight to ALL modules. No more for-free fuel scoops, AFMUs, etc.
> You have to install "splitters" for each slot you want to have multiple things in. These splitters:
>> have weight
>> are at least as expensive as utility mounts
>> add a small amount of hull (since they're basically micro bulkheads)
>> take one "class size" pip, maybe two on class 7 and 8.
>> can't stack.
> Splitters only make two slots from 1, but come in different balances OR
> Don't have different sizes at all, they just let you install two (but only two) things up to a total size of slot -1 (or 2) (and thus are always a class-1/2 item)
I thought I had more than that, but apparently not. Even with only those aspects though, here's what I think you'd see: class 1 and 2 are pointless to install into. Class 3 lets you install two micro items and will probably only see one use per ship. Class 4, 5 and 6 will micro items paired with the remaining space. With the exception of the Clipper, the only ships with Class 7 and 8 slots are the four most expensive ships in the game, and I can only see the two most expensive (Corvette and Cutter) ever considering splitting either of those to any good use. So most of the play we'd see would be classes 4-6, with some forays into class 3 (i.e. any explorer would use this for scanners effectively meaning most ships in the game can explore profitably). You'd rarely see any more than two splitter modules, especially on combat ships that are already scraping power limits. More explorers would be able to take at least one SRV with them, or they could more easily fit a redundant AFMU. Weight and power would start becoming the limiting factors more strongly than slots. Drone boats would become more common since you could jam two controllers into one slot.
...I... just wrote an essay for a necro. As my first post on the forum. I'm not sure how I should feel about that, but hell if I'm going to just delete this now.