Military Restricted Module Slots
- Thread starter Yure
- Start date
Subject been done to death many years ago, many requests, many different arguments for and against, never changed by FDEV, so I expect not.
these module slots exist just to balance combat specific ships because it was too easy to make non combat ships more effective at combat than the combat ones. this way you increase the amount of slots without swinging the other way and making combat ships good at trading or mining.
They're not there to make in lore sense.
I'd have gone a different route with balancing ships for roles entirely. as it is, having the module options we have for those slots makes sense. i think they should have made module reinforcements military slot only. or like a top tier of the different types only available in military slots.
They're not there to make in lore sense.
I'd have gone a different route with balancing ships for roles entirely. as it is, having the module options we have for those slots makes sense. i think they should have made module reinforcements military slot only. or like a top tier of the different types only available in military slots.
For me it would be a case of how useful this would be. In the case of things like the bigger ships, it's not going to help at all because a class 5 (which is your largest size military slot) is fairly useless for this as the shields aren't going to fit in those slots (the underweight Anaconda being the exception, but it's not like you're short of module slots there).
Medium ships wouldn't be great either as those that do have military slots have mj values so low with suitably sized shields for their module slots that you might as well not bother with them at all and just stick some more hull in there (you are talking ships like the Fed and Alliance bricks, so combat focused ships anyway. Not sure what you'd really do with the larger unrestricted slot that couldn't be better achieved by having an unengineered T-7 on standby).
Potentially this would work with the small ships like the Vulture or Viper mk4 but the gains in space seem minimal, especially when you consider that just getting a Dolphin or Cobra mk3 will work better if it's space in a small ship that you're after.
Medium ships wouldn't be great either as those that do have military slots have mj values so low with suitably sized shields for their module slots that you might as well not bother with them at all and just stick some more hull in there (you are talking ships like the Fed and Alliance bricks, so combat focused ships anyway. Not sure what you'd really do with the larger unrestricted slot that couldn't be better achieved by having an unengineered T-7 on standby).
Potentially this would work with the small ships like the Vulture or Viper mk4 but the gains in space seem minimal, especially when you consider that just getting a Dolphin or Cobra mk3 will work better if it's space in a small ship that you're after.
At first glance, good idea. But on the second thought, not so much. While FDL and Mamba could have a few military slots and it wouldn't hurt their balance too much, it would throw Corvette, Vulture, Vipers and Courier out of balance. It would also hurt Krait, which is probably the most popular PvE ship out there.
Also, certain career "opportunist PvP-rs" love their fletchette launchers and MRP-s are mandatory when you're interrupted by them. Whenever I feel like going to a busy system in open in search of trouble, I do it in a fast ship which has at least 2, preferrably 3, MRP-s and some teeth to keep the opportunists busy for a while. Phantom and Orca are excellent for this, being faster than pretty much all medium combat ships (only Mamba is potentially faster than Phantom, but not faster than Orca) and thus being able to dictate the engagement and pretending to be a typical alluring soft target at first glance
Even if I never can outright win the fight, I can engage, enrage and then lure the opponent into a fruitless pursuit, keeping them off the real soft targets for a while and getting some practice plus amusement for myself.At first glance, good idea. But on the second thought, not so much. While FDL and Mamba could have a few military slots and it wouldn't hurt their balance too much, it would throw Corvette, Vulture, Vipers and Courier out of balance. It would also hurt Krait, which is probably the most popular PvE ship out there.
Also, certain career "opportunist PvP-rs" love their fletchette launchers and MRP-s are mandatory when you're interrupted by them. Whenever I feel like going to a busy system in open in search of trouble, I do it in a fast ship which has at least 2, preferrably 3, MRP-s and some teeth to keep the opportunists busy for a while. Phantom and Orca are excellent for this, being faster than pretty much all medium combat ships (only Mamba is potentially faster than Phantom, but not faster than Orca) and thus being able to dictate the engagement and pretending to be a typical alluring soft target at first glance
the purpose isn't to make non combat only ships still good at combat. so if it hurts ships in combat who don't have combat slots then that is good, that's the intention. and by consequence, that improves combat for ships that do have them. and by ensuring it can only be used there, you make combat ships far less bullet spongy and able to tank armour and shields effectively. they will have to pick one to focus on. and that too, is good design.
you should have to specialise when min/maxing a ship. that specialization resulting in weaknesses that can be exploited if done properly is good game design, and makes for a more interesting and fun game than being able to find ways to eliminate all weaknesses
No, it isn't. All it does is making (hybrid) hull tank Kraits and Viper MKIV unviable. At the same time, FDL would be one of the best combat ship even without MRP-s, but it's only good at combat and a very poor PvE mission ship where combat is just one part of the equation. Alliance C-ships and Federal brickships are a bit better at this, but lack in jumprange and module size to truly function as PvE mission runners.
On the other hand, Krait MKII is clearly a combat-focused multi-role ship, perfect for PvE missions. Making it worse in combat by not allowing MRP-s would be a bad move and would be disastrous for thargoid war activities, combat and non-combat. A few MRP-s are a must in a ship doing even occasional combat or venturing into thargoid controlled space. MRP-s and hull upgrades go hand-in-hand, doing one without the other is a bad recipe however you slice it.
Min-maxing results in drawbacks and weaknesses as it is now. A Krait min-maxed for pure combat is only good for combat. And FDL requires min-maxing to be any good, and is very good at only one specific combat style.
Min-maxing is only good for PvP, anyway. For PvE, you should take what your mission needs and use a balanced setup. Eg for extended bounty hunting I need 32 tons of cargo space for limpets, ops controller to get 4 collectors in a small package, 32 tons of fuel for plasma slug PA-s, biweave shield with one Guardian reinforcement, a good hull beneath it with 2 MRP-s to keep my modules alive, plus around 30 ly jumprange to get around easily seeking for opportunities. Pure combat ships are not a good choice for this combat-as-one-part-of-equation PvE.
It's a well balanced setup with drawbacks one needs to consider (you need to be good at gunnery when fighting small ships, going against a wing of 3 dangerous+ NPC-s in medium ships is risky, venturing into massacre mission signal sources where a dozen ships light you up is extremely ill-advised) and strengths that are undeniable (staying power and no need for rearm/refuel every 30 minutes, outmaneuvering large ships and having great firepower to beat them fast, ability to quickly collect all dropped engineering mats or mission items, being great for CSAR and special ops missions).
If there's a module type that should be restricted to military slots only, it's the shield cell banks. This would result in positive balance shift—no more ubiquitous NPC SCB spam and FDL-s outrageous shields get toned down.
You don’t need those for bounty hunting you just want them to farm mats.
SCBs are fine- a hard counter to them exists in feedback cascade railguns. That wouldn't fit in with your builds, but in this game no matter how balanced you try to get your ships, you're still having to make compromises- yours is in reduced effectiveness against a ship with those defences. Mine is in the fact that my specialist combat builds pretty much need my fleet carrier nearby to rearm if I want a quick turnaround. But then, I'm ok with that.
As far as most of the game is concerned though, shields on one of my 3000mj prismatic FdLs are as effective as those my 650mj biweave FdL. Neither will drop unless I allow that to happen since it makes little difference to me whether I have all the shield I need upfront, or I use a superior regen rate to replenish shields over time.
Also- none of my FdLs use SCBs, so if I had to rebuild some of my other ships because SCBs now had to go in military slots, I'd use FdLs even more for combat.
I need them for bounty hunting because I don't like farming mats.
Making compromises is the definition of balance.