Multi-Slot bay, and how to limit it, and combat ofc

[Teh Smoo]

First off, no combat modules. That's a pretty safe decision.

How this would work, is you install a bay in a size 3 through 8 slot. This allows you to install certain modules into the same bay. By default, most things won't work, but there's a fairly obvious few choices of what could, and remain balanced. A few tons of bracing and power coupling, probably 1 ton per class in mass? And some money, whatever.

No: Fighter hangar. Fuel scoop. SRV bay. AFMU. FSD Interdictor. Shield generator. SCB.

DEFINITELY not: Bulkheads of any sort.

Cargo rack: yes. You only really lose with them, if you install one into a size 8 bay, you could fit in a size 1 and size 7 rack, for 130 cargo, instead of 256 from a size 8 rack. Still, this will allow a ship to sacrifice a size or two, to get 4 cargo for limpets or other niche uses. No real advantage other than that, that I can see. I suppose you could put in a lot more corrosion racks? Maybe not corrosion racks...

Passenger cabin: Why not? It's not an advantage to have multiple smaller passenger cabins. No real reason to shoehorn a small cabin in, but whatever.

Discovery Scanner/DSS/docking computer: My personal wants. They offer no combat advantage, and large ships waste large bays with a tiny little scanner in the middle.

FSD booster... maybe not? Maybe? Probably wouldn't affect much. (The guardian module.)

Refinery: Probably not.

Limpets: Kind of a special case. As it stands now, no. Because multiple size 1 limpets are superior to higher size launchers in everything but range. Limpets are in a weird place now anyway, we all know it. Better than scooping manually, but not nearly enough to justify the downsides and annoyance. Still, having a multi-limpet-type bay would be useful in a lot of scenarios. IMO, limpets need a full rede

Fuel tanks: Sure, why not?

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The big problem with all this, is combat builds and stacked bulkheads. It's not a problem with non-combat modules, this problem is baked in simply because combat modules CAN stack.

And people can and will stack them as much as possible.

So... combat modules shouldn't stack. Seems kind of obvious, let ships have one bulkhead reinforcement, one module reinforcement, and one SCB. If the combat stuff is limited, the NON-combat stuff can be more generous. Combat ships might even pass on modules in favor of simply being lighter.

In the same vein, shield boosters shouldn't stack up to all the utility points, either. Since a ship can have 2 reinforcements, allow them to have 2 shield boosters. (And this would nerf my OWN shield by a chunk.)

 

[MK Regular]

My thoughts on the various optional internals and their viability in Multi-slot bays:

One-of modules that come in different sizes - No. The trade off for reducing the size of your shield generator, fuel scoop, fighter hangar, or refinery is either too inconsistent to properly balance (i.e. shield generator) or not great enough for the extra utility provided by effectively having an extra module slot.

FSD Interdictor - No. On its own, I might have been OK with it, but once you add engineering to the mix, no. Why would anyone use a size 4 interdictor when they could use a pair of size 2s modded for long range and wide arc? The amount of extra utility offered from using multiple interdictors is just too much to justify letting someone mount 2 of them in their ship. In fact, why are we even allowed to mount 2 interdictors in our ship?

SRV bays - Yes. When comparing the different sizes of SRV bays, you quickly realize that the larger bays are more more efficient in terms of weight and power draw per SRV. There really isn't any reason to take smaller bays when you could take a larger one instead. Besides, having to shave 2 sizes off of another module to fit a single SRV into your ship is a fairly significant trade off.

AFMUs - I'm not too sure about these. On one hand, having a small AFMU (size 1-2) on anything bigger than a Vulture is pretty much useless. On the other hand, having a size 5 AFMU instead of a size 8 doesn't really make a massive difference, since the only thing that the size 8 offers is 70% more repair potential. If need to use that extra repair potential, you are probably going to die anyways, so why would you ever use a size 8 anyways? Ships come with mid-size compartments, so why wouldn't you just put the AFMU in one of those and save the large compartment for something bigger? The only thing I can think of would be to take a cram a smaller redundant AFMU in the same slot to free up another slot on an exploration ship. We'll have to wait for the exploration changes in Q4 to see how useful this might be.

SCBs - Yes. If you look at the way SCB effectiveness increases with size, you will notice that they scale quite well in that the total shield reinforcement roughly doubles for every size increase. This means that it takes about 2 SCBs of any given size to match the effectiveness of a single SCB 1 size larger. As such, stacking smaller SCBs is not a good idea when you can just use a single larger SCB. As for reducing the size of an SCB so you can fit a size 1 module in the same slot, I think the trade off in shield reinforcement makes up for the extra utility.

HRPs and MRPs - Absolutely not. Every starport in the galaxy would run out of 1D reinforcements overnight. There isnt really any reason not to stack smaller modules here. I would say the best fix for this would be to make the reinforcement packs scale linearly or exponentially with size.

Cargo Racks - There really isn't any reason not to. You already covered pretty much everything regarding cargo racks, but missed a few things with the corrosive racks. If you were to stack 8 size 1 corrosive racks in a size 8 slot, you would get 16T of corrosive cargo space. Incidentally, you can unlock size 4 corrosive racks from the human tech broker, with each rack giving 16T of cargo space. As far as I can tell, restricting corrosive racks is a bit of a non-issue at this point....

Passenger Cabins - The only real upside to this is having more cabins for VIP missions, but even then you would be restricted by your smaller cabin size and classes available at those sizes. So, yeah, If you really want to go right ahead.

One-of modules that only come in once size - Yes. The only reason I can think of to not allow this is to force explorers to either make trade offs in any ship that isn't an Anaconda or fly the Anaconda. Either way, is doing that really necessary?

FSD Booster - I don't know enough to to be able to say either way. I'll have to wait until it becomes available again sometime next month.

Limpets - As they stand right now, no. The different sizes of limpet controllers are pretty EXTREMELY unbalanced when it comes to what the different sizes of controllers are capable of. Limpets badly need to be reworked. Maybe we will see something with the changes to mining in the Q4 update?

Fuel tanks - Same deal here as with the cargo racks. There's really no reason not to.

 

[spAde4488]

I support being able to fit multiple modules (of certain kinds) into a single slot. But I don't understand why this also implies that combat fitting should be further restricted.

 

[Clavis]

I support being able to fit multiple modules (of certain kinds) into a single slot. But I don't understand why this also implies that combat fitting should be further restricted.

Indeed!
And I would also argue that the Formula is unsound . You should be able to just halve the slot - a multislot bay of size 8 provides 2 size 7s.

If you are worried about too much ingenious trickery, limit their size to 4 or five. I would even happy with sizes three and two under those conditions - it would shelve all my woes about various scanners and docking computer and limpet controllers and the like.

 

[Teh Smoo]

...

Having the module affect combat is a slippery slope, and requires WAY more balancing and special cases. Far easier to just make it only apply to non-combat and out-of-combat modules. It's actually pretty realistic if you think about it, to have 2 AFMU units so they can repair each other. But for almost all combat stuff, there's GOT to be better ways to balance things out.

I support being able to fit multiple modules (of certain kinds) into a single slot. But I don't understand why this also implies that combat fitting should be further restricted.

Combat fitting MUST be restricted. Without it, people WILL find any possible trick to increase their combat potential, and use every available slot to the maximum. Combat fitting is kind of broken anyway, and making it worse would compound the problem a LOT.

Indeed!
And I would also argue that the Formula is unsound . You should be able to just halve the slot - a multislot bay of size 8 provides 2 size 7s.

If you are worried about too much ingenious trickery, limit their size to 4 or five. I would even happy with sizes three and two under those conditions - it would shelve all my woes about various scanners and docking computer and limpet controllers and the like.

The idea is completely intended to make this a potentially lossy proposition. Games with robust ship fitting force you to make hard choices. So no, slapping in 8 size 1 bays to a size 8 slot is silly, and should be a complete waste.

So perhaps have it be a little more generous, like with a maximum tonnage or something? But not just a straight-up even split that would allow silliness. There's struts and power stuff that goes in there to mount stuff, after all.