Hybrid Utilities: An Elegant Solution to Shield Tanks, Hull Tanks, useless utilities, useless weapons, and build diversity.

[DemiserofD]

1. Shield Tanks are the undeniable meta at the moment.
2. Hull Tanks are largely unused outside of specific niche scenarios.
3. Many utilities are largely useless, like ECM.
4. Many utilities require significant sacrifices to use, like wake scanners.
5. Many weapons are largely useless.
6. Build diversity is currently quite limited.

Hybrid Utilities could be the perfect way to improve many of these issues.

1. Split Utilities into two separate sizes. Class 2 utilities are the current utility slots, visible on the outside of your ship. Class 1 utilities would be a new class of utility, which would not be visible externally, and can only equip certain niche or limited-use utilities. All ships would be given an additional 2 class 1 utility slots, except for the Mamba and FDL, which would only get 1.

2. Class 1 utilities would include ECM and the various scanners. Class 2 would be Chaff, Point Defense, Shield Boosters, and Heat Sinks. This would mean these smaller utility modules wouldn't be in competition anymore, so they could stand alone, and see more broad-purpose use.

2. Some non-utility modules would be turned into 'hybrid' utilities. These could be equipped in either their native slot, OR in a Class 2 utility. Hybrid modules would include Class 1E Module Reinforcements, Class 1 Limpet Controllers, Class 1 Meta Alloy Hull Reinforcements, Docking Computers/Supercruise Assist, and Class 1 missile racks(not advanced versions). (if necessary, module reinforcements could have their description altered to mention the use of force fields to justify why they could reinforce a module they're not touching).

This would create greater competition between shield tanks and hull tanks, make class 1 missile racks useful where they generally are not, make E-grade module reinforcements useful in a specific use case, make docking computers and supercruise assist more usable, and make meta alloy hull reinforcements viable without changing their stats at all.

 

[Mavsy 81]

Not done much PvP but from what ive seen id say biweaves trump shield tanks when skill/experience levels are high and similar.

 

[DemiserofD]

Not done much PvP but from what ive seen id say biweaves trump shield tanks when skill/experience levels are high and similar.

Fair enough, both of them benefit predominantly from shield boosters and maybe chaff, however.

 

[Mavsy 81]

Yeah hull tanks need love definitely

 

[Condor]

A very good idea, but I'm afraid with current tendencies of FDev game making, this will never happen

 

[Sylow]

I like the part where not combat oriented utilities would find their own kind of utility slot. Currently many people don't carry them, as they just "waste" a slot which they can better use for stacking up just more engineering effects.

And: i don't get it why all ships, including the big ones with 8 utilities, should get 2 of those new utility slots, while only Mamba and FDL should only get 1. I would rather argue: ships which already have 8 utility slots need none of them... might get 1 out of pure mercy. Those with 6 utility slots can get 1, or 2 if we give the bigger ones the 1 mercy-clot. And anything with less than 6 utility slots can get 4 of the class 1 utilities, as it's them which really need them.

On the rest: i get the idea behind it. But the way it is described here, i see no incentive at all to replace existing SBs with HRPs in utility slots. But on my bounty hunting Krait, which sacrifices one utility slot for a KWS, i would see incentive to either strengthen my shields even further, or use it for one of the utility-slot-HRPs now to also get my hull resists to the cap.

This would mean just more power creep, while shields would still be as powerful as they are.

Giving up any shield strength just makes no sense. The first two reasons are:

1. As long as shields are up, everything below is basically untouchable. As soon as shields go down, you have to deal with your weapons getting damaged and failing, your thrusters malfunctioning, perhaps even preventing you from escaping, etc. Any damage taken to the hull can cripple important systems of your ship, any damage absorbed by shields is merely the shield percentage going down a little bit. Thus as long as the system is like this, shields are so desireable that you can't really expect people to move away from it voluntarily. Only if shields would be much weaker and easy enough to overcome, this could ever chance.

2. Shields regenerate quickly and for free, while hull does not. You need to repair it, which generally requires you to go to a station and spend credits. (Yes, in the current economy the costs are a joke, but it's still a psychological thing. )

And yes, you can argue that people could bring hull repair limpets... but for the two slots to bring them, i can also bring two SCBs. And the SCBs also work well in combat, only an enemy with feedback cascade rails can counter them. While hull repair limpets work slowly. (And i mean SLOWLY! Try it, bring a well armoured ship intentionally to 10 percent health, then see how long it takes for hull repair limpets to get it back to shape.) Also note that are interrupted by any damage taken. Which devalues them alot in combat use, they only do their job once the fight is over.

So again: Only if shields would be much weaker and easy enough to overcome, people would ever consider to actually use this. And it would still be a hybrid setup, not a pure hulltank.


Which in the end boils down to: would shields be more vulnerable and could be overcome in short time, hull would matter again. But from a PvE perspective, there's not much around which can do that. On the PvE side i would only know two things:
1. The ATR. They have special weapons which directly destroy a players shield generator.
2. Thargoids, which have a different damage type, for which you can't engineer up your resists.

Seeing how crude the two solutions FD ever found are tells quite a clear story, on how massive the shield problem is. Merely giving us yet another alternative to SBs, which has the problems described above, will not change anything.

On the PvP side i can only observe from the outside. Based on what i am told and what i observe on some videos, fights usually are decided when shields go down. Maybe i am missing someting important, but in my understanding the suggestion here would not change that at all.

Which in the end again, as so often when i comment, adds up to the same thing: fix engineering, nerf the power of resist stacking. Make ships more vulnerable again. It would really make the game more interesting. And in the scope of this suggestion: would shields going down be something which happens regularily in combat, hybrid and hull tanks could be much more interesting again.

 

[DemiserofD]

I like the part where not combat oriented utilities would find their own kind of utility slot. Currently many people don't carry them, as they just "waste" a slot which they can better use for stacking up just more engineering effects.

And: i don't get it why all ships, including the big ones with 8 utilities, should get 2 of those new utility slots, while only Mamba and FDL should only get 1. I would rather argue: ships which already have 8 utility slots need none of them... might get 1 out of pure mercy. Those with 6 utility slots can get 1, or 2 if we give the bigger ones the 1 mercy-clot. And anything with less than 6 utility slots can get 4 of the class 1 utilities, as it's them which really need them.

On the rest: i get the idea behind it. But the way it is described here, i see no incentive at all to replace existing SBs with HRPs in utility slots. But on my bounty hunting Krait, which sacrifices one utility slot for a KWS, i would see incentive to either strengthen my shields even further, or use it for one of the utility-slot-HRPs now to also get my hull resists to the cap.

This would mean just more power creep, while shields would still be as powerful as they are.

Giving up any shield strength just makes no sense. The first two reasons are:

1. As long as shields are up, everything below is basically untouchable. As soon as shields go down, you have to deal with your weapons getting damaged and failing, your thrusters malfunctioning, perhaps even preventing you from escaping, etc. Any damage taken to the hull can cripple important systems of your ship, any damage absorbed by shields is merely the shield percentage going down a little bit. Thus as long as the system is like this, shields are so desireable that you can't really expect people to move away from it voluntarily. Only if shields would be much weaker and easy enough to overcome, this could ever chance.

2. Shields regenerate quickly and for free, while hull does not. You need to repair it, which generally requires you to go to a station and spend credits. (Yes, in the current economy the costs are a joke, but it's still a psychological thing. )

And yes, you can argue that people could bring hull repair limpets... but for the two slots to bring them, i can also bring two SCBs. And the SCBs also work well in combat, only an enemy with feedback cascade rails can counter them. While hull repair limpets work slowly. (And i mean SLOWLY! Try it, bring a well armoured ship intentionally to 10 percent health, then see how long it takes for hull repair limpets to get it back to shape.) Also note that are interrupted by any damage taken. Which devalues them alot in combat use, they only do their job once the fight is over.

So again: Only if shields would be much weaker and easy enough to overcome, people would ever consider to actually use this. And it would still be a hybrid setup, not a pure hulltank.


Which in the end boils down to: would shields be more vulnerable and could be overcome in short time, hull would matter again. But from a PvE perspective, there's not much around which can do that. On the PvE side i would only know two things:
1. The ATR. They have special weapons which directly destroy a players shield generator.
2. Thargoids, which have a different damage type, for which you can't engineer up your resists.

Seeing how crude the two solutions FD ever found are tells quite a clear story, on how massive the shield problem is. Merely giving us yet another alternative to SBs, which has the problems described above, will not change anything.

On the PvP side i can only observe from the outside. Based on what i am told and what i observe on some videos, fights usually are decided when shields go down. Maybe i am missing someting important, but in my understanding the suggestion here would not change that at all.

Which in the end again, as so often when i comment, adds up to the same thing: fix engineering, nerf the power of resist stacking. Make ships more vulnerable again. It would really make the game more interesting. And in the scope of this suggestion: would shields going down be something which happens regularily in combat, hybrid and hull tanks could be much more interesting again.

Great comment. I think I can answer most of it reasonably well.

First off, why should the large ships get tow new C1 slots, but not the Mamba and FDL? I agree with you that the larger ships deserve less of a power boost than the smaller ones. However, I think that every ship should get at least one(and ideally two; players shouldn't need to choose between a scanner and an ECM most of the time, either), and I felt that the lower proportion given to large ships(1/4th rather than 1/2) was already enough of a balancing factor. I could go for either 1 or 2, but I felt it was easiest to just have a universal +2, with the mamba and FLD excluded due to their already-high utility count.

Secondly, replacing shield boosters/weakening shield tanks; that part is multi-fold. On the surface level, there wouldn't be a reason to do so. But what it WOULD achieve, is allowing hull tanks to put their utility slots better towards their own durability, bringing them closer to par with shield tanks. However, deeper than that, the addition of the small missile racks would create an incentive on behalf of the shield tanks to swap some of their shield boosters for point defense. ECM, while now useful, wouldn't be able to protect from everything. Alternatively, they may wish to swap shield boosters for additional DPS, instead, further encouraging swapping shield boosters for point defense.

No single effect would be massive, but I'm hopeful that all the different effects, taken together, would have a meaningful impact.

Third: Your bounty hunting Krait. Yes, that would become 'more powerful'. But in reality, you're just making it as powerful as it could have been, anyway. Most people skip the KWS instead of sacrificing a shield booster. Ultimately, you're not actually getting more powerful, just more versatile, which is the goal.

---

The important thing to highlight here, I think, is that while I think this would have sweeping benefits, including in diminishing the shield meta, the primary goal is not fixing the shield meta entirely. The main goal is making certain less-used modules and builds more viable.

I tentatively agree with you regarding your proposed changes to engineering and such, but I feel like those changes could be made more effectively after a change like this is made, moving forward in incremental steps until a good balance point is achieved.

 

[Sylow]

First off, why should the large ships get tow new C1 slots, but not the Mamba and FDL?[...]

I still disagree, but i think this is not the important part, anyway. It's rather a details to be clarified in the end, in the unlikely case that this suggestion gets picked up by FD.

Secondly, replacing shield boosters/weakening shield tanks; that part is multi-fold. On the surface level, there wouldn't be a reason to do so. But what it WOULD achieve, is allowing hull tanks to put their utility slots better towards their own durability, bringing them closer to par with shield tanks. However, deeper than that, the addition of the small missile racks would create an incentive on behalf of the shield tanks to swap some of their shield boosters for point defense. ECM, while now useful, wouldn't be able to protect from everything. Alternatively, they may wish to swap shield boosters for additional DPS, instead, further encouraging swapping shield boosters for point defense.

Unfortunately i still dare to say: why bring PD or ECM at all?

PD one only provides partial protection. Yes, when fending off pack hounds, which are fired from a longer distance and approach within the PDs firing arc, a single PD can destroy most of them. But not all, and even a single seeker has an acceptable (close to 50%) chance to reach the target even with a PD active, according to tests done some years ago. (And i would not be aware that anything changed since we did those tests. )

For ECM it looks even worse. It is cumbersome to use. (Whose idea was it to have a defensive system which both needs to charge up when using it, then recharge after using it, before you can charge it again... ) For the missiles, you merely hold the fire button pressed and when they have a lock, they go. Then out of nowhere the target gets the missile warning, has to react in a perfect fashion: detect the missiles in the radar clutter, charge the ECM up just enough to reach the missiles, but not too long, else the missiles might impact already and trigger just at the right time. And if the target did everything perfectly fine, his reward is that he destroyed one volley of missiles. But the missile launchers cooldown is much shorter than the one of the ECM, so against the next volley he can't do anything, unless he stacked all his utility slots with ECM.

At the same time, i can merely slot some SBs. Even before engineering was around, SBs were vastly superior to PD or ECM when facing an enemy using missiles. And engineering made SBs even much stronger. As long as the odds are so vastly stacked in favour of SBs, there is no reason to ever switch away of them. And i really don't see anything in this suggestion, which indicates that this would change.

No single effect would be massive, but I'm hopeful that all the different effects, taken together, would have a meaningful impact.

That's just what i am not convinced of. As long as engineering is the way it is, any new options granted just push us into stacking more of the same old. Not to go a new way.

The important thing to highlight here, I think, is that while I think this would have sweeping benefits, including in diminishing the shield meta, the primary goal is not fixing the shield meta entirely. The main goal is making certain less-used modules and builds more viable.

I tentatively agree with you regarding your proposed changes to engineering and such, but I feel like those changes could be made more effectively after a change like this is made, moving forward in incremental steps until a good balance point is achieved.

I guess in the end we merely ponder which is the right way to the goal. If i would belive that FD would be willing, ready and able to do the whole set of improvements, your way would also be fine for me. But as we recently learned: ED development is short on manpower. Who would have thought?

Which means that in the unlikely case that somebody there ever still is able to invest some time into this games balance, then i'd really say that engineering is the first thing to address. If they then not only nerf engineering hard, but also re-design it in a way that it would work well with a suggestion like this or some others around: awesome! I'd be all for that. But engineering is the big elephant in the room, as long as that one is not being dealt with, no other change to balance ever can be successful.

 

[DemiserofD]

Unfortunately i still dare to say: why bring PD or ECM at all?

Oh, absolutely. That's why ECM should be a class 1 utility. Even in its best case scenario, you're better off with point defense 99% of the time, so the two need to be taken out of competition with one another, not to mention all the other utilities that are even better still!

The big factor that might push people towards potentially swapping to point defense is the addition of missile racks to utilities. While they don't do a huge amount of damage, it's consistent damage, and could easily serve to minimize biweave regen, for example. One hit might only do 10 damage after resistances, but also might cost them another 15-20 shields in regen. At that point, you're looking at a single missile rack with 24 missiles doing ~750 damage, and that could be approaching enough where the effectiveness of the point defense may be worth more than that of another shield booster!

Yeah, you'd likely still only see one of them at most, but still, that's a net improvement!

At that point, you can do slight tweaking to multiple types of module to make a more gradual improvement. Right now you'd just be nerfing shield boosters, and you'd probably need to over-nerf them to get players to swap to anything else. But when you BUFF something, that creates player incentive to try new things with excitement! I bet we'd see loads of players trying new missileboat builds in the beginning, and then, with the meta really shaken up, things would more easily slip into a new meta.

 

[Sylow]

But when you BUFF something, that creates player incentive to try new things with excitement!

I understand the philosophy behind that. But if you want to buff PDs to be adequate to current SBs, they'd basically need to be able to destroy missiles in your attackers ammo bay, even before they are being fired. (Yes, that is an exageration, but i think you get the point. )

As long as stacking of engineered SBs can get you somewhere between +700% and +1000% of effective shield strength, you'd need to buff anything else to the same league. Which would take us into yet another devils game, which is not helping anybody.

 

[DemiserofD]

I understand the philosophy behind that. But if you want to buff PDs to be adequate to current SBs, they'd basically need to be able to destroy missiles in your attackers ammo bay, even before they are being fired. (Yes, that is an exageration, but i think you get the point. )

As long as stacking of engineered SBs can get you somewhere between +700% and +1000% of effective shield strength, you'd need to buff anything else to the same league. Which would take us into yet another devils game, which is not helping anybody.

They definitely wouldn't replace the first few, but you do get diminishing returns on additional ones, so you could at least replace the last one, potentially.

 

[Tividar]

1. Shield Tanks are the undeniable meta at the moment.
2. Hull Tanks are largely unused outside of specific niche scenarios.
3. Many utilities are largely useless, like ECM.
4. Many utilities require significant sacrifices to use, like wake scanners.
5. Many weapons are largely useless.
6. Build diversity is currently quite limited.

Hybrid Utilities could be the perfect way to improve many of these issues.

1. Split Utilities into two separate sizes. Class 2 utilities are the current utility slots, visible on the outside of your ship. Class 1 utilities would be a new class of utility, which would not be visible externally, and can only equip certain niche or limited-use utilities. All ships would be given an additional 2 class 1 utility slots, except for the Mamba and FDL, which would only get 1.

2. Class 1 utilities would include ECM and the various scanners. Class 2 would be Chaff, Point Defense, Shield Boosters, and Heat Sinks. This would mean these smaller utility modules wouldn't be in competition anymore, so they could stand alone, and see more broad-purpose use.

2. Some non-utility modules would be turned into 'hybrid' utilities. These could be equipped in either their native slot, OR in a Class 2 utility. Hybrid modules would include Class 1E Module Reinforcements, Class 1 Limpet Controllers, Class 1 Meta Alloy Hull Reinforcements, Docking Computers/Supercruise Assist, and Class 1 missile racks(not advanced versions). (if necessary, module reinforcements could have their description altered to mention the use of force fields to justify why they could reinforce a module they're not touching).

This would create greater competition between shield tanks and hull tanks, make class 1 missile racks useful where they generally are not, make E-grade module reinforcements useful in a specific use case, make docking computers and supercruise assist more usable, and make meta alloy hull reinforcements viable without changing their stats at all.

I'd rather see the Wake/Kill Warrant/Manifest Scanners collapsed into a single Utility Module with the Xeno Scanner being an experimental modification. Picking which scanner you want to have access to isn't all that interesting of a choice (and the Xeno Scanner is just annoying).

Rather see Docking Comps/Supercruise Assist. folded into a single module with greater functionality as you progress from E -> A.
E - Nothing
D - Planetary landing (not auto docking)
C - Supercruise Assist.
B - Supercruise Assist. + Station Docking
A - Supercruise Assist. + Planetary and Station Docking

Disagree on ECM usefulness. An "Extra Capacitor" Experimental (so two charges on separate cooldowns) would be attractive.

Agnostic on Class 1 Missiles in Utility Slots. Missiles would have to be a lot better to justify dropping a booster or a sink. What about an experimental for turreted Class 1 multicannons/lasers that allowed them to engage in PD mode?

Hull Tanks placing Hull/Module Reinforcements in Utility slots is a logical parallel to Shield Tanks stacking Boosters. Haven't looked at the numbers, but might need to be more generous with the HRP/MRP module sizes though.

Regarding the Limpets, would be logical to have limpets associated with utility slots rather than internal module slots. Rather than slotting a C1 limpet controller, how about a utility module that added 1-2 limpets to the total controllable from the largest limpet control module you have installed?

 

[Misty_Dark]

Overall I like the suggestion.

but I fear that it will not do much to help hull tanks.

 

[DemiserofD]

Disagree on ECM usefulness.

It's certainly useful in certain PVP cases, but in most pve I've experienced(having done it quite a bit), ECM isn't worth taking over point defense. The rare case of a missile getting through isn't worth the extra effort required for ECM.

Agnostic on Class 1 Missiles in Utility Slots. Missiles would have to be a lot better to justify dropping a booster or a sink.

Not TOO much better, IMO. Seekers could completely nullify the benefits of a biweave, and if one side can use a biweave while the other could not, the fight will be decided after just a few minutes. As for pve usage, I'd be happy to fire off a missile or two to wreck the external modules of an NPC ship with particularly powerful weapons, since that would result in much less total damage than another shield booster.

Hull Tanks placing Hull/Module Reinforcements in Utility slots is a logical parallel to Shield Tanks stacking Boosters. Haven't looked at the numbers, but might need to be more generous with the HRP/MRP module sizes though.

Maybe, didn't want it to be too OP, y'know? I figured you could hit two birds with one stone, make the useless E-grade ones useful at the same time. You'd still want a dedicated D-grade module reinforcement in your optionals, but maybe just one.

Regarding the Limpets, would be logical to have limpets associated with utility slots rather than internal module slots. Rather than slotting a C1 limpet controller, how about a utility module that added 1-2 limpets to the total controllable from the largest limpet control module you have installed?

A decent idea, but with the unfortunate downside of still requiring the limpet controller to be carried in the optional slots. I'd prefer it to give more options, especially to the smaller ship classes.

 

[Tividar]

It's certainly useful in certain PVP cases, but in most pve I've experienced(having done it quite a bit), ECM isn't worth taking over point defense. The rare case of a missile getting through isn't worth the extra effort required for ECM.

For any sort of cargo/mining work, a pair of ECM basically eliminates the threat of hatch breakers (and missiles). They're quite useful in that context.