Firstly, I appreciate the work FDev have done over the ships outfitting. The game mechanics has so much different entities to play with, like a lot of different tools and combat equipment, and I'm annoyed that combat ship building is so straight-line and stacking based.
My target is to give everyone a possibility to build a ship for his own playstyle. The idea is to describe ship's combat possibilities in three ways - durability, agility and firepower. If you want to build a combat ship, you have to choose between these three or combine them in different ways, but the idea is that no one ship should be outstanding in all three characteristics, and any of this characteristics ship can use as the main combat advantage if properly built.
Some specifics:
1. Mass should affect a ship speed, rotation rates and acceleration much more than we have now. Like we have it on small ships with EPT - heavily armored ship should be really slow, getting bigger penalties than -20 m/s to max speed, and turn/accelerate much slower.
2. And vice versa, lightweight ships should have a possibility to evade hits and use their speed and overall agility to outmaneuver armored builds, and effectively use boom-zoom tactics.
With current game balance, there are no reasons to reduce ship mass now, and armor stacking will always be preferable, except some special non-combat racing builds with EPT.
3. The main limiter in a combat ship building should be a Power Plant energy output, and PP should be the only module which affects the overall ship combat capabilities. PP output should be very limited, and we should to choose between durability, agility and firepower according to our playstyle and ship's basic stats.
4. Other modules, like shields, thrusters, armor, etc. should have a much bigger variety in mass and energy consumption. We have a module grades E-A now, and we can make usable all of them, depending on how much PP energy we allocate for our shields, thrusters, guns, etc; and how much agility we can sacrifice for the ship durability or module output.
5. Guns should consume much more power, and installing guns to all hardpoints should consume a LOT of energy, so you couldn't install a powerful thrusters or a heavy shield, or probably both.
Installing A-graded thrusters you should to know, that you will probably have no energy for installing a guns to all of your hardpoints, or for a high-grade durable shield. And that should be a normal situation!
6. Engineering should work like a module specializing: exchanging between mass and power consumption, strength and mass, applying special effects for example. The main idea is that engineers doesn't increase overall module output, but precisely tune your module stats to fit your build and playstyle better. SCB engineering could be a current in-game example.
All these changes should make maneuverable builds more maneuverable, slow builds become sluggish, and reduce time-to-kill a lot to make hit-and-run tactics possible to use, and to make a speed and acceleration a true advantage. To make a fight possible to win with a fewer amount of guns, but with a compensation as a significant agility/strength boost.
Example:
Imagine, we have a Python as a true multi-purpose ship. Basic speed stat is low, but it's pretty durable.
- We can use lightweight armor mods and powerful thrusters to create an interceptor with an opporunity to impose or escape fight; with, for example, 2 x Advanced Plasmas - we can't afford more due to the PP's limited output;
- Or, we can make an armor-stacked tank with a big firepower, which can stand in a fight for a long. But it can't leave fight immediately, and can't chase enemies - it's very slow due to the armor and weaker engines, so - defensive style of combat.
- Or, we can make a medium-weight shield-tank with a medium firepower, mediocre at all for balanced gameplay.
- Or something else...
I'd like to see all those builds viable and have their own role in the game.
Pros:
- Increases a number of viable builds A LOT - agile builds for assault-style gameplay, armored for defensive and more strategic, or mediocre at all - depending on what do you prefer, or how you combine E-A graded modules;
- Doesn't require programming of new mechanics - numeric values rebalance;
- Reduces gap between combat and multi-purpose builds - some builds may have empty slots left, allowing to fill them with cargo racks;
- Engineering is not mandatory to be effective in combat - unengineered ships are just less specialized, and not a garbage at all;
- Much easier to enter combat and PvP;
Cons:
- Requires complete re-definition of all parameters of all modules - massive balancing and testing work;
- May require some netcode improvements for more accurate agile ships displaying via p2p network.
My target is to give everyone a possibility to build a ship for his own playstyle. The idea is to describe ship's combat possibilities in three ways - durability, agility and firepower. If you want to build a combat ship, you have to choose between these three or combine them in different ways, but the idea is that no one ship should be outstanding in all three characteristics, and any of this characteristics ship can use as the main combat advantage if properly built.
Some specifics:
1. Mass should affect a ship speed, rotation rates and acceleration much more than we have now. Like we have it on small ships with EPT - heavily armored ship should be really slow, getting bigger penalties than -20 m/s to max speed, and turn/accelerate much slower.
2. And vice versa, lightweight ships should have a possibility to evade hits and use their speed and overall agility to outmaneuver armored builds, and effectively use boom-zoom tactics.
With current game balance, there are no reasons to reduce ship mass now, and armor stacking will always be preferable, except some special non-combat racing builds with EPT.
3. The main limiter in a combat ship building should be a Power Plant energy output, and PP should be the only module which affects the overall ship combat capabilities. PP output should be very limited, and we should to choose between durability, agility and firepower according to our playstyle and ship's basic stats.
4. Other modules, like shields, thrusters, armor, etc. should have a much bigger variety in mass and energy consumption. We have a module grades E-A now, and we can make usable all of them, depending on how much PP energy we allocate for our shields, thrusters, guns, etc; and how much agility we can sacrifice for the ship durability or module output.
5. Guns should consume much more power, and installing guns to all hardpoints should consume a LOT of energy, so you couldn't install a powerful thrusters or a heavy shield, or probably both.
Installing A-graded thrusters you should to know, that you will probably have no energy for installing a guns to all of your hardpoints, or for a high-grade durable shield. And that should be a normal situation!
6. Engineering should work like a module specializing: exchanging between mass and power consumption, strength and mass, applying special effects for example. The main idea is that engineers doesn't increase overall module output, but precisely tune your module stats to fit your build and playstyle better. SCB engineering could be a current in-game example.
All these changes should make maneuverable builds more maneuverable, slow builds become sluggish, and reduce time-to-kill a lot to make hit-and-run tactics possible to use, and to make a speed and acceleration a true advantage. To make a fight possible to win with a fewer amount of guns, but with a compensation as a significant agility/strength boost.
Example:
Imagine, we have a Python as a true multi-purpose ship. Basic speed stat is low, but it's pretty durable.
- We can use lightweight armor mods and powerful thrusters to create an interceptor with an opporunity to impose or escape fight; with, for example, 2 x Advanced Plasmas - we can't afford more due to the PP's limited output;
- Or, we can make an armor-stacked tank with a big firepower, which can stand in a fight for a long. But it can't leave fight immediately, and can't chase enemies - it's very slow due to the armor and weaker engines, so - defensive style of combat.
- Or, we can make a medium-weight shield-tank with a medium firepower, mediocre at all for balanced gameplay.
- Or something else...
I'd like to see all those builds viable and have their own role in the game.
Pros:
- Increases a number of viable builds A LOT - agile builds for assault-style gameplay, armored for defensive and more strategic, or mediocre at all - depending on what do you prefer, or how you combine E-A graded modules;
- Doesn't require programming of new mechanics - numeric values rebalance;
- Reduces gap between combat and multi-purpose builds - some builds may have empty slots left, allowing to fill them with cargo racks;
- Engineering is not mandatory to be effective in combat - unengineered ships are just less specialized, and not a garbage at all;
- Much easier to enter combat and PvP;
Cons:
- Requires complete re-definition of all parameters of all modules - massive balancing and testing work;
- May require some netcode improvements for more accurate agile ships displaying via p2p network.
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). frontier has transitioned into the opposite direction as you suggest because it is financially sound for them. they don't need a niche title to be a even more niche game. so as it stands and with retention being what it is i would bet most of the players aren't even aware of this change, and those who are don't bother beating ...
