Internal Compartments

[-VR- Max Factor]

Been having this as an idea in my head for a while, was wondering what others thought of it.

Internal compartments

Bulkheads:
Three types: Lightweight alloy, Reinforced alloy and Military Grade Composite.

Hull plating: None, light, medium and heavy. With mirrored and reactive of light, medium and heavy versions.
I don’t understand why your bulkheads being mirrored would help you against laser fire as your bulkheads are internal.
Hull plating adds weight to your ship thus effecting handling, acceleration and jump distance.Why would hull plating be in you internal space, surely it would come attached to your hull)

Thruster, FSD, LS, PD, PP and scanners are fine as is.

Hardpoints:
Weapons as they are now but remove the damage reduction for small and medium weapons
(not needed as ED used a hit point system).

Utiliies:
These are as is except remove shield boosters (come on to these in a bit) but add Shield Cell Banks and also add the Discovery Scanner and Surface Scanner.

Internal Compartment:
This is the biggest change to the system that we have now.

Each ship has a compartment size (CS), this can be easily made up at the moment by the compartments they have at the moment. E.g. the DBX has 4,4,3,3,2 slots, add these together to make your compartment size so a DBX has a compartment size (CS) of 16, a python has a compartment size of 36 and an imperial clipper will have a CS of 28.

For example a Shield Generator will use up the amount of compartment places as its numerical ranking. So if I put a Class 8 shield into my imperial clipper it costs 8 CS so I will have 20 CS left. This really wouldn’t be optimal for the ship though as a class 8 will seriously affect the clippers handling due to weight, will also have serious power constraints and will take much longer to recharge the shields due to the size of the distributer.

A shield generator can have boosters attached to it equal to half its Numerical ranking rounded down – 8=4, 7=3, 6=3, 5=2, 4=2, 3=1, 2=1. Boosters will use up Compartment space as well (not to sure how much, should depend on rating though.

Internal items stay as they are (apart from shield cells that are now a utilities and Hull plating) but uses up compartment space instead.
Weight will have a big effect on handling, acceleration and jump distance.

This is just a rough idea. Most of it can be balanced with power usage and weight performance, but gives somewhat more flexibility in how you to build your ship.

There can be different combat builds, such as the light agile vulture, or the heavily armoured but much less manoeuvrable version etc.

What are your thoughts.

 

[VanQ]

Each ship has a compartment size (CS), this can be easily made up at the moment by the compartments they have at the moment. E.g. the DBX has 4,4,3,3,2 slots, add these together to make your compartment size so a DBX has a compartment size (CS) of 16, a python has a compartment size of 36 and an imperial clipper will have a CS of 28.

This math dont work out. If you look at the fuel-tank or the cargo-racks you (should) come to the conclusion that every slot-size doubles up in comparence to the one bevor. So 2x size 1 = size 2, 2x size 2 (or 4x size 1) = size 3 and so on.

Beside this i think, it whould also break the game balance, because you could fit multi-purpose ships with incredible big shields and powerplants (what may make them slow, but who cares with Ubershields)

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

This math dont work out. If you look at the fuel-tank or the cargo-racks you (should) come to the conclusion that every slot-size doubles up in comparence to the one bevor. So 2x size 1 = size 2, 2x size 2 (or 4x size 1) = size 3 and so on.

Beside this i think, it whould also break the game balance, because you could fit multi-purpose ships with incredible big shields and powerplants (what may make them slow, but who cares with Ubershields)

Yep my math is wrong, but the idea is sound.
The powerplants do not go where the cargo is, they have thier own slot as usual, so everything would be contrained by the powerplant, the distributar and weight. You couldn't put the biggest shield in a Cobra as the weight of it would be detremental to your jump range, also you wouldn't have the power to run it, and your distributer would take years to recharge it.

I wouldn't be too hard to balance.