Legacy Modules ? How do they work ?

CMDR Harada · May 4, 2020

I took out my Vette out of storage the other day ( Vulture is more fun ), and while re-familiarizing myself with the ship noticed my PP/PD combo was only at Tier 3.. Odd. I could have sworn I had that at tier 5 with everything else. OK, no big deal, except for me wondering if I was gas lighting myself. I resigned myself to the job with all the enthusiasm of a trip to the dentist and set off to the engineers for a round of improvements.

I got there, and they claim it's a legacy mod, and they'll have to downgrade me BEFORE they can upgrade me.. OK.. Has it been that long ? I want the upgrade to tier 5 so I don't have a choice. I do the dance, pay the band, and get my stuff upgraded.

But then I start thinking.. Did my legacy module get downgraded when the new recipes came out ? Did I never upgrade them ( throwing my hands up and saying " Good enuf, it's a Vette ! " ) ?

How do legacy mods work ? I remember something from the heavy PvP'ers about keeping god-roll legacy modules.. is that still a thing ?

NecasekO · May 4, 2020

At the time of engineers rework (3.1?) all existing engineered modules became "legacy" and they still work, including the ones that are not possible to replicate in new system (like class 5 shield with mass modification that can fit on a Cutter).

If you still have legacy mods, this does mean you didn't touch them in a long time. And yes, you have to downgrade them 1 level before you can upgrade them further. There was no automatic downgrading of legacy mods.

JonathanBurnage · May 4, 2020

AFAIK there are two legacy god-rolls that the new system cannot reproduce:

Grade 5 lightweight sensors. The new blueprint only goes to 80% mass reduction, but a really good secondary on the old blueprint could beat that (I have 81.91%)
The aforementioned secondary boost to maximum mass that permits a class 5 shield to be used on an Imperial Cutter

Edit – it seems there are quite a few other beneficial secondaries from the old system that the new system cannot replicate. Others have posted them below.

Shir · May 4, 2020

There are also a number of bugs related to legacy modules. Unpinning engineering schematics, pinning wrong grade ones..

I have a Krait Phantom ship where the distributor module has become haunted due to a legacy module there (which is long gone now). Whatever I put in the slot can never be stored, it can only be sold..

Bigmaec · May 4, 2020

JonathanBurnage said:
AFAIK there are two legacy god-rolls that the new system cannot reproduce:

Grade 5 lightweight sensors. The new blueprint only goes to 80% mass reduction, but a really good secondary on the old blueprint could beat that (I have 81.91%)

The aforementioned secondary boost to maximum mass that permits a class 5 shield to be used on an Imperial Cutter

And legacy focused Plasma Accelerators with a heat reduction

Kimosabe_X · May 4, 2020

Fitting a Class 3 shield in a Type 7 was also the outcome of a lucky combination, iIrc

bladebss · May 4, 2020

There were actualy loads of unobtainable mods. I have quite a few lol. Capacitor draw reduction on lasers. Getting a waight reduction on heavy duty hull renforcments. Basicaly heat, waight and cap draw reductions on stuff that you just cant now. And way more than the silly 3% you can have now in exchage for your special effect lol.

What will realy bake your noodle is that before the game came out there was stealth lasers and high impact multicannons and stuff that you could get from specific stations.. you got to keep them as long as you never sold them.. i had a high impact multicannon i kept from back then.. thogh i think its gone now as i cant find it on my old viper over in AO and i sure that where i left it but for a long time people were running around with them even tho they wernt in the game lol

Kenneth McGrew · May 4, 2020

JonathanBurnage said:
AFAIK there are two legacy god-rolls that the new system cannot reproduce:

Grade 5 lightweight sensors. The new blueprint only goes to 80% mass reduction, but a really good secondary on the old blueprint could beat that (I have 81.91%)

The aforementioned secondary boost to maximum mass that permits a class 5 shield to be used on an Imperial Cutter

Legacy PAs, Legacy Rails too with massive heat reduction.

there are also some god rolls in obscure other modifications and items which allow other traits not only giving advantages to combat but other avenues, not possible in new engineering.

the mess of balance.

metatheurgist · May 4, 2020

Yep. I have lightweight lasers on my iCourier that don't overheat it. Not that they're very effective but you can't get them now.

Rubbernuke · May 4, 2020

Bigmaec said:
And legacy focused Plasma Accelerators with a heat reduction

I have an FDL stuffed full of them somewhere.

Morbad · May 4, 2020

JonathanBurnage said:
AFAIK there are two legacy god-rolls that the new system cannot reproduce:

Grade 5 lightweight sensors. The new blueprint only goes to 80% mass reduction, but a really good secondary on the old blueprint could beat that (I have 81.91%)

The aforementioned secondary boost to maximum mass that permits a class 5 shield to be used on an Imperial Cutter

Bigmaec said:
And legacy focused Plasma Accelerators with a heat reduction

Maro-Val · May 4, 2020

Its been so long now with these modules in the game that most people that play now, dont even know they exist. Especially plasmas can make some really deadly ships on the right hands. I guess who cares for being fair.
Pity for new players that get rekt when a ship like that gets in their way.
If they post it, i m sure that many people will tell them to git gud. They also should say to them that is impossible.

Bigmaec · May 4, 2020

Morbad said:
snip

Can I haz your stuff?

Morbad · May 4, 2020

bladebss said:
There were actualy loads of unobtainable mods.

Yep, quite a few things that are unobtainable now; far too many permutations to list.

Maro-Val said:
Its been so long now with these modules in the game that most people that play now, dont even know they exist. Especially plasmas can make some really deadly ships on the right hands. I guess who cares for being fair.
Pity for new players that get rekt when a ship like that gets in their way.
If they post it, i m sure that many people will tell them to git gud. They also should say to them that is impossible.

Plenty of people around at the time are unaware of many of the possibilities. I sure can't claim to know them all.

I have things like a +56% SYS charge rate charge enhanced distributor (that can keep a reinforced class 7 fast charge bi-weave shield gen from bottoming out the SYS cap during rebuild), and an A7 rapid charge G1 SCB that recharges ~720MJ of shields a pop.

Anyway, I've always been in favor of Frontier removing or forcibly converting legacy modules and their failure to do so has significantly harmed the game's balance by requiring massive inflation of module capabilities in the new system to keep pace.

Of course, I play the game as it exists, even if it's not always as I would have it be. So, until something is done about legacy modules, my CMDR will continue to make use of them.

Bigmaec said:
Can I haz your stuff?

Not until the game has actual salvage.

bladebss · May 4, 2020

I have a ship i made back before the great power kreep of 3.1, a viper, that i spent ages modding to get all the mods to line up just right to make the fastest and toughest viper i could. The powerplant has just enough juice and just the right amount of waight reduction and heat reduction to work with the drives and so on, it was just perfect.. took ages of rng and fiddleing to get it to work but my god!

I still have it and when im flying it i know that noone else is going to be flying around in a ship speced out like it. Makes me feel real smug lol.

If frontier were ever to take my legacy mods away it would make me sad, but only if that same move was not acompanied by a sweeping rebalance of all engeneer mods to make them a bit more sensable and balanced across the board both amoungs them selvs and overall. Then i would be happy even thogh i lost my baby and all the hours and mats and endless fiddling for just the right roll.

The way engeneers ballance is now i feel is a real tragedy. Im not sayong it was perfect before but 3.1 made it worse and it took the finesse out of it too.

metatheurgist · May 5, 2020

Yep, the decision to leave legacies was mind boggling. It's not like they didn't force existing modules to conform once already when the blueprints were shifted the first time.

CMDR Harada · May 5, 2020

OK, cool.

I was just crazy/lazy when I did the original engineering and stopped at 3.

I knew some CMDRs were keep stuff stock-piled. Maybe there should be a video of some of those unique ships comparing what can be done today..

JonathanBurnage · May 5, 2020

Here’s one for you...

Source: https://youtu.be/M8cCxSCBjJU

This trip was only possible thanks to my legacy sensors

I finished the flight with just 0.4T fuel remaining; my sensors are 1.22T better than the new G5 blueprint.

It seems that these beneficial secondaries fall into two categories:

Boosts to the primary roll that take it beyond the maximum of the new blueprint
Improvements to other parameters that make the module more advantageous than the new blueprint, even though the primary roll might not be quite so good

Navigare Necesse Est · May 5, 2020

New engineering works just as well for lolclubbing seals and surpasses lower grade pre-rework engineering.