Make the new "free" slots "NON-MILITARY" only to help prevent yet more power creep/tanking.

[Sylow]

The boat has sailed, the slots are filled.

FD never before removed internal slots. This also won't happen any more now. The power creep struck again.

Both. And Having more armor sure helps on small ships.

Hmm. My courier is the one ship where I don't add armour. I already sacrificed some speed by carrying heavier SBs than many people do. Any more mass and I'd start sacrificing agility, too. No deal.

My T10, Cutter and Krait MK II of course benefit a lot of this change. It allows me to move something (thermal resist HRP on most of them, decontamination limpet on my AX T10) to the class 1 slot, empting a bigger slot for heavy duty HRPs.

And yea. My courier suffers a lot from power creep, anyway. All the slot 1 internals don't increase its firepower. Only three medium hardpoints somehow, for reasons unknown, gives me less firepower than 9 hardpoints of different sizes. Since NPCs got engineering, it takes me much longer in my Courier to kill them. (My ammo bin says the same. ) More slots for all ships also means more slots for NPCs. Which means they'll become even more of bullet sponges.

And no, I have only tooled around yesterday, did no combat. I also expect that NPCs have not gotten harder yet. They probably still run setups without those extra slots. It usually takes FD one or two big patches to also update the NPC ship setups accordingly. But just wait a few weeks and SJA will have NPCs get updated setups with more durability.

Which once again is the short end of the stick for small ships. Due to their limited weapon count, they feel this the most.

 

[Teh Smoo]

I would be more in favour of the DC and SCA being standard functions on all ships than FD proposed approach.

I'd even suggest simply making them a single combined new module, and not dishing out more free internal slots to cause even more tanking. That to me, although not ideal, would seem a better outcome again.

It's a place they can put progression. Instead of simply handing the players everything, they would have to go out and collect the modules- money and time. If there are different modules, different versions, different places they can dock at, that's all kinds of different stuff you could "program" into your computer. Making it YOURS, something that YOU spent the time to upgrade.

And heck, if you copy that into every ship a player owns, I can't see it being a huge deal. Player progression of a sort, outside of each ship.

Or even an adaptive docking module- dock at a type of station and the docking computer scans it and learns it. Maybe one-shots, maybe multiple manual docks. Or, the one-shot scanner would take more computer slots!

PROGRESSION, and choices. And NONE OF IT would be slots that you could slap yet more reinforcement modules into.

 

[ChaosCloud]

I want the ability to put computer modules (docking, SC assist) into military slots, because my Cutter has two C5's that are empty because there's nothing useful for me to put into them.

 

[Misty_Dark]

We're different.

I find the CZs a complete slog. I can rack about 400-500k in a high CZ with kinetic build FGS before literally having to rearm or synth ammo. This is about 1/3rd of what used to be before the engineer buffs were applied to CZ ships.

The hulls are buffed, DPS is not. We're seeing +2000% (literal) increase in hard defences vs. about 100% increase in DPS. This increases even more with more unrestricted C1 modules.

And you are sure that they actually did more engineering of ships in conflict zones? compared to simply to actually give the NPC's some proper military loadouts, which added alot more hull reinforcement than before? basically giving the NPCs a proper build for conflict zones... and of course,the higher ranked NPC's will do more engineering than lower ranked NPC's, just as before, and thus with more hull reinforcement they get increased resistances.

I find this a much more probable reason for what happened to the ships in conflict zones, than "theory" that NPC's cheats and engineer their ships more than you can... becuase if the NPC's was cheating like that, then I would expect them to get a similiar buff in their offense, meaning we would have seen ALOT of complaints about how NPC's in Conflict Zones jjust tear player ships into pieces left and right...

 

[Fake Newts]

I want the ability to put computer modules (docking, SC assist) into military slots, because my Cutter has two C5's that are empty because there's nothing useful for me to put into them.

See, there is something useful for you to put in them, HRPs and MRPs.

This is a problem of presentation - Fdev moved the military slots from core into optional to make them more visible (players weren't scrolling down far enough in core to spot them because either the menu is bad or players are inattentive or both) - but the effect was just to confuse people as to their purpose, or ask for more limpet space. They're for increasing your healthpool, period. They shouldn't be lumped in the same list as your optional internals or thought of as "wasted slots" at all.

Stock Cutter hull is 720, which is absolutely nothing. If you get tagged by reverb mines, torps, shot at by NPC cops or are trying to escape a sticky situation you have fractions of seconds to escape. Put 2 size 5 hull reinforcement packages in there and suddenly you have 1500 hull before engineering and comfortable leeway to escape practically any situation. Stop thinking about them as wasted slots and try to imagine Fdev put them in a sensible place in the outfitting menu.

Edit: if jump range or speed is a concern to you, and that's why you don't want to use HRPs, use 2x 1D hull reinforcements, engineered at G5 HD this nets you 416 health (plus 28% damage resistance) at a cost of 2.8 tons (i.e. nothing on a Cutter). That means with entirely negligible weight increase you can reach 1136 health on a Cutter before you even touch the bulkheads.

Again, this is why adding free C1 slots to every ship is a problem even if casual players can't see it: an engineered 1D hull reinforcement is an insanely powerful heath buff in and of itself, before you even take into account downsizing interdictors etc

 

[Fake Newts]

And you are sure that they actually did more engineering of ships in conflict zones? compared to simply to actually give the NPC's some proper military loadouts, which added alot more hull reinforcement than before? basically giving the NPCs a proper build for conflict zones... and of course,the higher ranked NPC's will do more engineering than lower ranked NPC's, just as before, and thus with more hull reinforcement they get increased resistances.

I find this a much more probable reason for what happened to the ships in conflict zones, than "theory" that NPC's cheats and engineer their ships more than you can... becuase if the NPC's was cheating like that, then I would expect them to get a similiar buff in their offense, meaning we would have seen ALOT of complaints about how NPC's in Conflict Zones jjust tear player ships into pieces left and right...

Yes they have added engineering to NPCs based on rank. But even without engineering stock defensive modules are more than enough to make it a slog.

Nobody said NPCs cheat and engineer their ships more than players can - they don't. Although they do cheat in many other ways, mainly due to the implementation of their AI and scripts governing their actions. Take for example their ability to wake out regardless of whether you've destroyed their FSD.

Helleborus wasn't complaining about their damage output (which even in the case of spec ops is pathetic and of zero threat to any comfortably outfitted commander) the issue is the discrepancy between the 2000%+ achieveable (effective) health buff vs 100%+ achievable damage buff. This imbalance between HP inflation and potential damage, combined with several major changes to how damage works over the last year or so - such as penalties for small guns vs larger hulls, the reduced effectiveness of module sniping, armour pen changes, biweave shield buffs etc. has resulted in extremely long engagements. Long engagements, not dangerous engagements. * edit, I cannot stress this enough, no player who is properly equipped ever has to die in Elite, ever, or even feel vaguely threatened, due to the vast HP bloat available to them. The game is a slog because it's boring, not because it's hard.

This isn't cheating nor is it just a theory - it's how Frontier have designed the game. Take a look at coriolis or edshipyard if you're curious as to how defence and damage stacks up in the current ecosystem.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Yes they have added engineering to NPCs based on rank. But even without engineering stock defensive modules are more than enough to make it a slog.

Nobody said NPCs cheat and engineer their ships more than players can - they don't. Although they do cheat in many other ways, mainly due to the implementation of their AI and scripts governing their actions. Take for example their ability to wake out regardless of whether you've destroyed their FSD.

Helleborus wasn't complaining about their damage output (which even in the case of spec ops is pathetic and of zero threat to any comfortably outfitted commander) the issue is the discrepancy between the 2000%+ achieveable (effective) health buff vs 100%+ achievable damage buff. This imbalance between HP inflation and potential damage, combined with several major changes to how damage works over the last year or so - such as penalties for small guns vs larger hulls, the reduced effectiveness of module sniping, armour pen changes, biweave shield buffs etc. has resulted in extremely long engagements. Long engagements, not dangerous engagements. * edit, I cannot stress this enough, no player who is properly equipped ever has to die in Elite, ever, or even feel vaguely threatened, due to the vast HP bloat available to them. The game is a slog because it's boring, not because it's hard.

This isn't cheating nor is it just a theory - it's how Frontier have designed the game. Take a look at coriolis or edshipyard if you're curious as to how defence and damage stacks up in the current ecosystem.

IF they added, that implies that there was NO engineering before. NPC already did engineering based on their rank before this change... so wanna try again?

 

[Fake Newts]

IF they added, that implies that there was NO engineering before. NPC already did engineering based on their rank before this change... so wanna try again?

Again, nobody said they didn't? What are you even arguing?

 

[Misty_Dark]

Again, nobody said they didn't? What are you even arguing?

So please explain what you mean by this then?

Yes they have added engineering to NPCs based on rank.

Here you imply that they DID add engineering, and since we are talking about conflict zones changes, you IMPLY that this is what they did to the ships in conflict zones.

 

[Fake Newts]

So please explain what you mean by this then?




Here you imply that they DID add engineering, and since we are talking about conflict zones changes, you IMPLY that this is what they did to the ships in conflict zones.

NPC ships have access to engineering, this isn't new although it has been changing incrementally since 2.1, after the initial release it was rolled back due to multiple bugs and a lot of grumpy players. Ships like Spec Ops have access to a multitude of engineer mods, as well as assassination targets etc.

What I'm confused about is why this particular question (of when Fdev implemented NPCs with engineering and to what degree) is relevant to the crux of the matter here, which is principally how modularity affects TTK. You just seem to be arguing about something else entirely. Perhaps you can make yourself clearer.

 

[Wildcard]

All I hear is blah blah blah wine moan cry Q Q its to hard nerf it.

Cant believe people are crying about ships toughness or survivability like its a bad thing, Its honestly dumbfounding. When the truth is these gankers that complain about this just lack combat skill, engineering and firepower. Ive seen shield tanks with 6kMj shields get dropped in 3-4hits Shields really mean nothing when it comes to PVP unless the person attacking you is wearing clown shoes for a ship. I've had Mamba's interdict me fly literal circles around my ship and do nothing to it other then bounce of the shield and kill them selfs from it, and DB's take my shields down and bring my hull to 27%.

This is why all these gankers focus so heavily on noob sectors, mining ships, and small vessels because their easy pickings. So whats the point of the game if we spend years playing this game just to get a Vette, Conda, Cutter only to have the ship be just as ing fragile as a Adder.

 

[NeilF]

All I hear is blah blah blah wine * moan cry Q Q its to hard nerf it.

Cant believe people are crying about ships toughness or survivability like its a bad thing, Its honestly dumbfounding.

Not sure if this is super "kettle black", or just an epic strawman.

If you go through the posts in the thread people have explained quite carefully, even with examples with specific cases and values, the outcome of introducing yet more slots to tank up with. ie: They've quite carefully made a point.

In truth it seems to be you coming in with the "blah blah blah" and the "whining" etc...

Ultimately, it's very odd when someone steams into a thread simply to insult loads of folks because they can't manage to make a considered polite contribution. Odd!

ps: I'll have a glass of that "wine" you offered though"

When the truth is these gankers that complain about this just lack combat skill, engineering and firepower. Ive seen shield tanks with 6kMj shields get dropped in 3-4hits Shields really mean nothing when it comes to PVP unless the person attacking you is wearing clown shoes for a ship. I've had Mamba's interdict me fly literal circles around my ship and do nothing to it other then bounce of the shield and kill them selfs from it, and DB's take my shields down and bring my hull to 27%.

This is why all these gankers focus so heavily on noob sectors, mining ships, and small vessels because their easy pickings. So whats the point of the game if we spend years playing this game just to get a Vette, Conda, Cutter only to have the ship be just as ****ing fragile as a Adder.

The problem being discussed is two fold.

Ships are already incredibly "tankable", and Engineers offers huge performance increases. So ships can now vary to huge degrees due to these two factors. Balance suffers...

Now what do FD do? Add yet more slots into all ships to allow them to tank up even more... These slots seem to be added to offset the Docking Computers and Supercruise Assistant, but seem a poor design choice in achieving that.

ps: Maybe try and discuss things politely, rather than throwing unfounded insults and accusation around?

 

[NeilF]

The boat has sailed, the slots are filled.

FD never before removed internal slots. This also won't happen any more now. The power creep struck again.

Yes. Personally I think FD really dropped the ball on this one. A needless fix (throwing out more slots) for a needless problem (the DC/ADC/SCA needing regular slots)... There were simple better alternatives

Buy hey ho... It's not like it was well balanced before hand...

 

[The Replicated Man]

Ships are already incredibly "tankable", and Engineers offers huge performance increases. So ships can now vary to huge degrees due to these two factors. Balance suffers...

Neil, You aren't one of those anti engineer (cuz inbalanced and too much grind) type guys? I sure hope not.

Those arguments died 3 years ago.

 

[Misty_Dark]

NPC ships have access to engineering, this isn't new although it has been changing incrementally since 2.1, after the initial release it was rolled back due to multiple bugs and a lot of grumpy players. Ships like Spec Ops have access to a multitude of engineer mods, as well as assassination targets etc.

What I'm confused about is why this particular question (of when Fdev implemented NPCs with engineering and to what degree) is relevant to the crux of the matter here, which is principally how modularity affects TTK. You just seem to be arguing about something else entirely. Perhaps you can make yourself clearer.

What is so confusing? did you bother to read what I replied to? As what FDev probably did to the ships in conflict zones appears to ellude you too...

 

[Fake Newts]

All I hear is blah blah blah wine * moan cry Q Q its to hard nerf it.

Cant believe people are crying about ships toughness or survivability like its a bad thing, Its honestly dumbfounding. When the truth is these gankers that complain about this just lack combat skill, engineering and firepower. Ive seen shield tanks with 6kMj shields get dropped in 3-4hits Shields really mean nothing when it comes to PVP unless the person attacking you is wearing clown shoes for a ship. I've had Mamba's interdict me fly literal circles around my ship and do nothing to it other then bounce of the shield and kill them selfs from it, and DB's take my shields down and bring my hull to 27%.

This is why all these gankers focus so heavily on noob sectors, mining ships, and small vessels because their easy pickings. So whats the point of the game if we spend years playing this game just to get a Vette, Conda, Cutter only to have the ship be just as ****ing fragile as a Adder.

I'm sorry but you quite clearly have decided on a rant you wanted to do without having read or understood any of the actual bones of what was being discussed, nor apparently with adequate knowledge of the systems you're talking around.

Who was saying anything about 'nerfing Cutters till they're as fragile as Adders'? Nobody, because that's insane. Also where are 'all these gankers' who're all 'lacking combat skill' and just 'crying about ship toughness'? This thread is full of people providing empirical numeric evidence clearly demonstrating a need for a balance pass in the game from both a PvE and PvP perspective and you have just swooped in with an incredibly tangential anecdotal -waving ramble about nothing in particular.

With all due respect I suggest you read the thread more thoroughly.

EDIT:

I've had Mamba's interdict me fly literal circles around my ship and do nothing to it other then bounce of the shield and kill them selfs from it, and DB's take my shields down and bring my hull to 27%.

In fact if anything this anecdote supports the idea that the power spectrum now present in the game is excessively wide, so thanks for that.

 

[Fake Newts]

What is so confusing? did you bother to read what I replied to? As what FDev probably did to the ships in conflict zones appears to ellude you too...

If by this cryptic response you mean 'Fdev gave ships combat loadouts in CZs' the answer is yes, we know they did. Your point of contention seems to be whether or not they 'cheat engineering' or whether it's 'just' stock modules. Again I will reiterate a) that's irrelevant to the discussion at hand as the module powercreep being discussed in this thread encompasses both vanilla and engineered builds, with engineering being used to illustrate the extreme (worst) excesses of the system also b) yes, as it happens, some ships are now engineered as has been documented by Frontier and as we've been over at length.

You seem to have attached yourself to a minor detail here as if it's a big scoop.

 

[Fake Newts]

Neil, You aren't one of those anti engineer (cuz inbalanced and too much grind) type guys? I sure hope not.

Those arguments died 3 years ago.

Probably the least constructive or interesting response thus far; have a medal.

Are you trying to suggest nobody should discuss game balance in an online game in active development? I sure hope not.

Do you have anything to support your implication that the game's modular system is perfectly sound as is?

 

[Havvk]

no

 

[Misty_Dark]

If by this cryptic response you mean 'Fdev gave ships combat loadouts in CZs' the answer is yes, we know they did. Your point of contention seems to be whether or not they 'cheat engineering' or whether it's 'just' stock modules. Again I will reiterate a) that's irrelevant to the discussion at hand as the module powercreep being discussed in this thread encompasses both vanilla and engineered builds, with engineering being used to illustrate the extreme (worst) excesses of the system also b) yes, as it happens, some ships are now engineered as has been documented by Frontier and as we've been over at length.

You seem to have attached yourself to a minor detail here as if it's a big scoop.

What?

It was not me that IMPLIED that there was no engineering done to NPC ships prior to the conflict zone update.