Military FSDs

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

There was talk of this a while back.
So long ago I forget if it was official or not. Lol

Anyhoo, just as a refresher idea, I thought I'd post my take on Military FSDs.

Military FSDs
Military FSDs are improved standard FSDs, but come with some pros and cons, Federation and Empire Military FSDs have slightly different bonuses;
+Increased Range (+50%, +66% for Federation FSD)
+Increased Supercruise Acceleration and Deceleration (+100%, +150% for Empire FSD)
+Increased Integrity (+100% HP, +150% for Federation FSD)
+Decreased Charge and Cooldown Times (-30%, -50% for Empire FSD)
+No Supercruise Speed Limit (can go beyond 2001c, if possible)

-Increased Mass (+50%)
-Increased Power Consumption (+100%)
-Increased Boot Time (+200%)
-Increased Fuel Consumption (+50%)
-Increased Purchase Costs (+200%)
-Rank Locked
-Military Fuel Is Not Scoopable.
-Military Fuel Costs 100x More per Tonne.

Unlocking Military FSDs
Military FSDs are locked behind military ranks of the major factions.
Each class of FSD is locked behind that specific rank, for both factions.
So a Class 3 M-FSD would require rank 3 in either Federation or Empire military, class 4 would require rank 4, and so on.
Each power has special bonuses to FSDs, but they can be fitted to any ship.

And that's about it so far.
Most of the improved stars are made up. Lol

Thoughts?

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Teh Smoo]

You lost me at not-scoopable.

You missed one thing: what are these for? Even in the bubble, I scoop, so that I don't have to waste time docking. You're making something that would provide no bonus for anything but ships that dock constantly, and those ships just don't jump a lot, so the bonuses are wasted, and the drawbacks are significant.

So the Empire version is for people who want to PVP intercept, and the Federation version is for people who want to move their Corvette around, and refit back to a normal FSD once they get there?

 

[Captain Willard]

The coffee is strong with this one.

 

[Allchemyst]

Most of the downsides of the proposition seem fair. I like the fed/emp variance.

The increased boot time, among others, adds an interesting weakness vs well-equipped pirates.

In the difference between factions, given the fed one gets the best deal (better straight jump range), I would also add smaller heat generation to the empire one, so it can carry a different but quite nice advantage in high-heat environments.


That being said, I'd completely exchange some of the downsides for another.

Issue : Making the fuel unscoopable and increasing fuel consumption at once would make the FSD useless in nearly all situations. Doubling fuel consumption means that the longer jumps (whose consumption is already non-linear and increases with a sligh exponential factor) would not only eat up more fuel for the same distance, but would be made worse by the additional flat 50% increase in consumption and would translate into an overall smaller operational range. The "Quick deployment" that military drives imply would have an even smaller range (in non-economical routes terms) than the normal FSDs, without the flexibility of scooping. Economical routes, on the other hand, since they simply go for the smallest distance anyway, would be wrecked by the 50% fuel consumption and lack of scooping - on top of being as slow as economical routes are usually.

So I'll propose this fix : Make the military FSDs use normal fuel and remove the 50% added consumption ; just let the exponential distance factor eat its toll on reservoirs, but make them much more sensible to mass-locking.

That way, a Cutter with an 8A mil FSD could be significantly slowed down by, say, an anaconda.

[EDIT] : I also think the jump charging time should be +50% fed and +30% emp. We're taking about removing 30% of jumps on any travel route, charging time shouldn't be smaller, I believe. [/Edit]

That, to me, would be a much better way of actually "balancing" the drive's power with gameplay mechanics, rather than ruining its QOL potential.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Good feedback!

The reason (which I probably should have mentioned earlier) for lack of fuel scoopable fuel, was to prevent military FSDs being the ultimate exploration FSD.
The idea was they are specifically designed for bubble travel.
If you needed extended range, you'd fit a fuel tank.

The increased fuel consumption is probably a mistake on my part.
It wasn't supposed to be taken as "fuel per jump" but just overall fuel per hour consumption. But that's actually determined by your power use I believe, which is already in there as a negative, as increased power consumption.

I actually ran out of time to tweak all the Federation and Empire bonuses, and was planning to add some to the negatives aswell.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Nero Tacitus]

+1.

While I'm not onboard with all of the specifications of the drives, I like the idea of rank locked modules to complement ships. Also, how billion credit ship can only jump 17LY is beyond me.