Malfunctions: increase in chance with engineering grade to reduce power creep

[znôrt]

Pretty simple really: the higher you go, the higher the chance of failure.

goblin tech ftw!

I don't like not being informed of the relative downsides of something before spending my time on having my CMDR acquire it.

evolving galaxy and all that. materials rot, stuff changes.

of course it will never happen, but not really for fear of outcry. power creep, hit inflation, grind trees, low risk ... those are all features, not bugs.

 

[Sysmon]

As for weapons, I'd say wear and tear of heavily tuned weapons should be way bigger. Real life example. Benchrest rifle shooting. Those accuracy freaks use typically exotic cartridges with extreme muzzle velocities and very flat trajectory. (And they shoot so accurate that one needs to measure hole in the papertarget with some measurement tool to differentiate between winners and loosers in competition...)Why do not more everyday weapon hobbyist use such cartridges. Well reason is, that those monster cartridges eat barrel innards as breakfast. After some hundreds of shots best accuracy is gone. After 1000-2000 shots barrel is ready to be scrapped. While with normal rifle rounds lifetime of barrel could be about 20 000 rounds. And accuracy would be nominal for many thousands of fired rounds.

We used 12.5 mm shells with 7.62 mm points in heavy machine guns when I trained with the UN. The trajectories were so flat you hardly had to compensate even out to 1000 m, and the rounds wandered through engine blocks like through butter (almost). The bolts of the guns, however, did not last long. Neither did the vehicles the guns were mounted on - they were shaken apart eventually! We also did some continuous firing drills with light machine guns: One gun per team, 3 barrels and pretty much all the excess ammunition of the year (several 10s of thousands of rounds). Gun mounted in a frame, and you fired at moving targets until you couldn't see the sights for the heat shimmer anymore. Pop in new barrel and set old aside to cool. Switch between 3 barrels that way. Eventually the barrels would warp and/or the gun would start to jam.

So yeah, wear and tear is definitely lacking on engineered weapons. Don't get me started on healing beams...

S

 

[Sysmon]

True, but to me it feels like a more useful nerf without going the hard route of taking the whole lot down, or increasing powercreep.

In reality FD have a multitude of options and have done nothing to sort the situation out.

Adding this in will also open up game play opportunities! FDEV painted themselves into a corner with many of the implementations after Horizons.

S

 

[Sysmon]

So lets say stock weapon is designed to last very long with minimal care. But G5 tuned up monster would be like our benchrest shooters expensive tool. It wears down fast and is hard to keep at maximum performance.

Or how about making a type of engineering that is unable to surpass A-rated module specs? That would be standard "tuning" and not necessarily that material expensive, nor would there be many downsides to it. That could be used to make B-rated modules lighter without much integrity loss, D-rated modules sturdier without gaining too much mass gain, and so on. Then leave the "real" Engineering for A-rated modules, add increasing risk of malfunction with each round of engineering.

And both types of engineering should void insurance on the ships: You can get the boat back after destruction, but it will cost you full price for engineered modules (including needed materials).

S

 

[Bloodsign]

Such a change would likely have significant consequences for players who may not have docked for a very long time (and don't plan to any time soon).

Really important observation here, good thought Robert!

If this idea is implemented, it should probably be rolled out to engineered weapons first. And I think logically it makes sense that the higher a weapon's thermal load, the higher the chance of malfunctions. Curious to hear others' thoughts on this.

 

[Sea_Kerman]

I’d be fine with my multicannons having the odd misfire and my g5 dirty drives making a “phut” sound instead of boosting if I push them too hard...