Controversy ahoy.
In 1.4 and prior, shield cell banks had a relatively linear scale with shield strength and also had low heat sink costs. No matter what ship or weight you had, SCBs restored a set amount to the shielding.
1.5/2.0 massively buffed HRPs to the point where smaller ships roughly 1/5 the size of larger ones could attain 3/5s the armour HP if built solely for hull. However, SCBs were also nerfed for smaller ships, recharging miniscule amounts of shielding that more or less makes them useless. Meanwhile, larger SCBs merely give larger ships even greater shield longevity due to their insane recharge values at the cost of a heatsink, and when combined with the flat recharge rate of biweaves, it gives them considerable tanking ability over time.
So in short, 1.5/2.0, in order to get the greatest effective HP out of a smaller ship, you stack hull on it. For larger ships, you mostly do shields, but full hull tanking is somewhat viable, but still impractical in universe.
Does anyone else see a problem with this? Smaller ships can become tanks to huge degrees with tiny hitboxes. At the same time, they sacrifice maneuverability and speed and jump range to achieve this. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of a small, nimble fighter? Shouldn't the game be focusing on making small ships nimble and viable via agility, while bigger ships can still do their tanking?
It makes absolutely 0 sense to me that SCB effectiveness doesn't scale to hull mass and relative shield strength per ship. It also makes 0 sense to me that a Viper MK4 can stack 1600-1800 hull with no shields compared to an FAS which can obtain only 2600 hull by comparison. Those number values are lucirious given the size and relative mass of each ship.
I by no means can propose a full solution but I find that as far as game elements go, the current system of hull tanks being more effective on smaller ships completely unimmersive.
My basic preliminary idea is that, SCB class scales to relative hull mass. Most smaller ships can then benefit from limited modules to use smaller class scbs effectively while larger ships must use larger SCBs to achieve similar effectiveness.
Example: A viper uses a class 2A SCB and recharges 100 shield strength. An anaconda using a 2A would recharge, say, 20 shields. It'd be useless. However, if it were using something like a class 6 or class 7, it'd recharge 200 or so.
Not only does this make shield cells viable for smaller ships again instead of useless for everybody, it also prevents larger ships from stacking on excessive SCB tanking prior to 1.5/2.0.
However, regarding Hull Reinforcement Packages, they should scale far more exponentially with module size, especially since the weight to armor ratio is ludicrously bad. 2D gives 190 hull for 4 tons, but a 5D gives 390 for 32 tons. Armor should scale to *weight* and not by class. Also, consider the fact that a single 4D gives more armor than a base cobra has to begin with just shows how awkward the scaling is.
Again, why should smaller ships be more effective by simply having more health (stacked onto a tiny hitbox) as they sacrifice everything about being small? Agility, nimbleness, speed, jump range utility.
I believe that altering these would help preserve some game balance while making the upgrades more immersive.
In 1.4 and prior, shield cell banks had a relatively linear scale with shield strength and also had low heat sink costs. No matter what ship or weight you had, SCBs restored a set amount to the shielding.
1.5/2.0 massively buffed HRPs to the point where smaller ships roughly 1/5 the size of larger ones could attain 3/5s the armour HP if built solely for hull. However, SCBs were also nerfed for smaller ships, recharging miniscule amounts of shielding that more or less makes them useless. Meanwhile, larger SCBs merely give larger ships even greater shield longevity due to their insane recharge values at the cost of a heatsink, and when combined with the flat recharge rate of biweaves, it gives them considerable tanking ability over time.
So in short, 1.5/2.0, in order to get the greatest effective HP out of a smaller ship, you stack hull on it. For larger ships, you mostly do shields, but full hull tanking is somewhat viable, but still impractical in universe.
Does anyone else see a problem with this? Smaller ships can become tanks to huge degrees with tiny hitboxes. At the same time, they sacrifice maneuverability and speed and jump range to achieve this. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of a small, nimble fighter? Shouldn't the game be focusing on making small ships nimble and viable via agility, while bigger ships can still do their tanking?
It makes absolutely 0 sense to me that SCB effectiveness doesn't scale to hull mass and relative shield strength per ship. It also makes 0 sense to me that a Viper MK4 can stack 1600-1800 hull with no shields compared to an FAS which can obtain only 2600 hull by comparison. Those number values are lucirious given the size and relative mass of each ship.
I by no means can propose a full solution but I find that as far as game elements go, the current system of hull tanks being more effective on smaller ships completely unimmersive.
My basic preliminary idea is that, SCB class scales to relative hull mass. Most smaller ships can then benefit from limited modules to use smaller class scbs effectively while larger ships must use larger SCBs to achieve similar effectiveness.
Example: A viper uses a class 2A SCB and recharges 100 shield strength. An anaconda using a 2A would recharge, say, 20 shields. It'd be useless. However, if it were using something like a class 6 or class 7, it'd recharge 200 or so.
Not only does this make shield cells viable for smaller ships again instead of useless for everybody, it also prevents larger ships from stacking on excessive SCB tanking prior to 1.5/2.0.
However, regarding Hull Reinforcement Packages, they should scale far more exponentially with module size, especially since the weight to armor ratio is ludicrously bad. 2D gives 190 hull for 4 tons, but a 5D gives 390 for 32 tons. Armor should scale to *weight* and not by class. Also, consider the fact that a single 4D gives more armor than a base cobra has to begin with just shows how awkward the scaling is.
Again, why should smaller ships be more effective by simply having more health (stacked onto a tiny hitbox) as they sacrifice everything about being small? Agility, nimbleness, speed, jump range utility.
I believe that altering these would help preserve some game balance while making the upgrades more immersive.
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