Module splitting...

Hello everyone. I was thinking about how certain ships with great looks and flight model have their usefulness potential "wasted" by the extremely low number of internal slots.

This is even more evident now that the guardian fsd boost module is promising to make ships with abysmal jump range, a bit more livable.

But how can one fit such a module to a ship with lets say 5 slots, without leaving behind the srv, or the DSS, or the tiniest of cargo hold?

Two examples that come in mind, are the FDL and the Mamba. They boast good flight model and combat potential and they are certainly not military ships (thus no HRPs slots). To me at least their looks and feel suggest that their target market is the affluent freelancer, who likes to hunt some bad guys among other stuff but doesn't want to give up all the luxury in the place he/she lives in.

But how on earth can a freelancer/roamer use an, otherwise perfect ship for the job, but with only 5 internal slots? And how can one increase the number of slots, just to be able to fit one more tiny module, without upsetting the "pvp ballance" ?

No, Im not suggesting making those ships multipurpose ofc. What I am suggesting is that, when you fit lets say a grade 4 module in a grade 6 slot, another module slot appears, letting you fit another grade 2 module. A grade 4 slot could fit two grade 2 modules, and so on. This is also lore-wise consistent with the modular design of the ships.
That way, the total internal capacity of each ship will not change at all (we will still have to make hard decisions), but this could possibly make some ships more livable and give us some quality of life options, without boosting the ships' combat or defense potential. (assuming that a grade 5 HRP will give 1,66 times the protection of a grade 3 HRP).

I am not a regular pvp player so there might be some oversights on my account concerning how this could disturb combat balance. Please feel free to point out any false assumptions I may have made, and tell me if you would agree with such a change or not, and why.

Thanks.
 
That would provide a massive resistance imbalance.

1X size 4 HRP G5 HD with Deep Plating gives +625 Hull and +15% damage resistances
2X sise 2 HRP G5 HD with Deep Plating gives +360 Hull and +15% damage resistances EACH

Hull bonus aside, the ability to get 30% resistances from one slot would be massive on slot restricted combat ships.
 
That would provide a massive resistance imbalance.

1X size 4 HRP G5 HD with Deep Plating gives +625 Hull and +15% damage resistances
2X sise 2 HRP G5 HD with Deep Plating gives +360 Hull and +15% damage resistances EACH

Hull bonus aside, the ability to get 30% resistances from one slot would be massive on slot restricted combat ships.

Yeah, I see what you mean. Good remark :)
Are you sure the RES are additive? And, if yes, we could easily add the restriction that the module split feature doesn't work with HRPs.
Thanks for your reply :)
 
That would provide a massive resistance imbalance.

1X size 4 HRP G5 HD with Deep Plating gives +625 Hull and +15% damage resistances
2X sise 2 HRP G5 HD with Deep Plating gives +360 Hull and +15% damage resistances EACH

Hull bonus aside, the ability to get 30% resistances from one slot would be massive on slot restricted combat ships.

Simple solution : stop module stacking except for cargo-style modules. Remove inconsistency (why can some modules be stacked but not others) -AND- get a tiny bit of balance back into the game.

*dons fireproof overalls as the inevitable flames from the combat pilots approach*


EDIT: As for the OP; this has been suggested MANY times. Given that and the fact FDev have not implemented it (I can't recall whether or not there was ever an official response to it) it's certainly not going to come anytime soon, if ever.
 
Yeah, I see what you mean. Good remark :)
Are you sure the RES are additive? And, if yes, we could easily add the restriction that the module split feature doesn't work with HRPs.
Thanks for your reply :)

To a point, yes, every time I add one my hull resistances increase, but there must be some magical formulae with diminishing returns.
Regardless, I don't see module splitting ever happening - too many variables to even try and manage ship balancing.
 
Simple solution : stop module stacking except for cargo-style modules. Remove inconsistency (why can some modules be stacked but not others) -AND- get a tiny bit of balance back into the game.

*dons fireproof overalls as the inevitable flames from the combat pilots approach*

I have suggested/supported this in previous threads - limiting HRPs, MRPs, SCBs (add GSR to that list) to one per ship to ease the defensive stacking, but it may not even be viable. It would require a full revision of weapon damage, NPCs, etc. and there'd be no end of whinging. It would, however, make surviving in a cargo ship much easier (after the weapon balance).
 
Simple solution : stop module stacking except for cargo-style modules. Remove inconsistency (why can some modules be stacked but not others) -AND- get a tiny bit of balance back into the game.

*dons fireproof overalls as the inevitable flames from the combat pilots approach*


EDIT: As for the OP; this has been suggested MANY times. Given that and the fact FDev have not implemented it (I can't recall whether or not there was ever an official response to it) it's certainly not going to come anytime soon, if ever.

But then a corvette is forced to become multi-role as there arent enough types of combat optionals.
 
I have suggested/supported this in previous threads - limiting HRPs, MRPs, SCBs (add GSR to that list) to one per ship to ease the defensive stacking, but it may not even be viable. It would require a full revision of weapon damage, NPCs, etc. and there'd be no end of whinging. It would, however, make surviving in a cargo ship much easier (after the weapon balance).

Yeah, pvp interactions take WAY too long, to the point of boredom. I think FD should perform another pass on which ships are to have military slots and how many of them, and then restrict HRPs only to those slots. No one should be able to amass THAT many defences, and the military designated ships should have just a little bit of hull advantage over the others.
 
Ultimately, I'd like to see FDev get rid of "slots" completely.
Instead, a ship would just have a "module capacity" of however many tonnes and you'd just bung in whatever modules would fit.

Before they could do that, though, they'd have to go through a serious process of balancing modules to ensure larger modules were always a little bit better than a stack of smaller modules.

I suspect this is on Fdev's To Do list, right underneath "Fix the Anaconda's magical hull" and "remove all the fiddle factors that artificially inflate some ships' capabilities".
 
To a point, yes, every time I add one my hull resistances increase, but there must be some magical formulae with diminishing returns.
Regardless, I don't see module splitting ever happening - too many variables to even try and manage ship balancing.

There is no diminishing returns, at one point during Horizon season frontier tried diminishing returns on defensive modules and resistances but oh boy forums got upset. The discussion around new exploration tools is nothing compared to that outrage we had when diminishing returns were in beta. Frontier abandoned the idea and it never came to live game.
 
Balancing nightmare, to put it lightly. It's one of those cases where it would be cool if enough work were put in to make it work. Problem is it would be so inordinately complicated balancing that system that I would have zero faith in FD managing it. The only way I could see this idea being implemented without being a total nightmare for balancing would be diminishing returns on module splitting. I think the best way to do this would be to introduce new Modules that themselves mount smaller modules, to represent the loss in power/space.
Example;

Class 6 Module Rack
  • E fits 1x Class 1, 2x Class 2
  • D fits 1x Class 2, 1x Class 3
  • C fits 2x Class 1, 1x Class 3
  • B fits 1x Class 1, 1x Class 4
  • A fits 4x Class 1

Module racks themselves would have some Power Draw as well for routing as well as some moderate Mass, and would not be able to fit Reinforcement Modules.

The returns would be diminishing enough that you can never gain specs by splitting, but can only gain utility by sacrificing specs. You could not gain cargo space, nor use it to fit more Reinforcements. This would leave it only useful for people trying to fit more utility into their ship and prevent it from being a new min-maxing meta.
 
yeah, exactly. Total potential of the ship as far as cargo and defense wont change. You will just get the chance to fit another small module for your utility, by "downgrading" a bigger slot.
 
The only place where we are currently hurting is from limpet controllers. And for this we do not really need a general module split, it would be sufficient to add more flexible controllers. Say, we add a class 4 controller. It would allow up to 2 limpets concurrently, same as the class 3, but it would gain 4 specialization slots.

Let’s say you put into them 2x collector, 1x prospector and 1x hull repair. Then you can have either two collectors, or two different limpets active at the same time. The only annoying part would be to decide which limpet to destroy when firing another one with 2 already active, but we maybe could:
  • enable/disable specializations in the module panel
  • change the fire groups to show limpet types, that is you fire a collector limpet, not a specific limpet controller
  • Ideally, allow us to define a few limpet configurations we can quickly change, e.g., combat, mining, fuel rescue.
 
I was going to say it would be tricky to justify from an 'technical internal logic' point of view, ie: You would have to rebuild the ship interior so that everything would still connect up (I'm thinking pipes, cables, conduits and mounting points here).

But then I realised you can swap out a shield generator for a cargo rack now without batting an eye lid. Which in turn means there must be a large amount of space inside every ship given over to redundant connectors, so every optional internal can take a shield generator. And every manufacturer must adhere to strict design rules for both ships and modules so everything is interchangeable.
 
For me, the biggest argument for internal compartment splitting was to avoid taking an entire size 3 slot for the ADS and another for the Suface Scanner. With that ADS going “built in” (I like to think into the sensors) I think the issue is largely sorted.
 
For me, the biggest argument for internal compartment splitting was to avoid taking an entire size 3 slot for the ADS and another for the Suface Scanner. With that ADS going “built in” (I like to think into the sensors) I think the issue is largely sorted.

Yeah, for explorers, module splitting is not so much a concern anymore since we effectively got a free slot with this update.

But it'd still be nice to take, for example a Size4 slot and fit a small AFMU and a 2G vehicle hangar, for example. And yeah, whatever does the "splitting" would have to take a bit of overheads so while you'd gain utility, overall you'd lose some potential max stat. A bunch of smaller modules should never equal one larger module for a given size slot.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, FDev have been petitioned for a long time about this and have not caved in, so there's no reason to expect them to do so now.
 
Yeah, for explorers, module splitting is not so much a concern anymore since we effectively got a free slot with this update.

Depends on the ship - I've headed out in a Krait (as it has more space than my usual DBX). Even so, I can't take Repair Limpets, 2xAFMU, DSS as I run out of slots, so I have to choose which types of repairs I can do (which is fine, if I really cared I would suffer the 'conda I guess).

Also, OT : Now I understand why people want Heatsinks on explorers ;) Normally I head out in a DBX, so I've never needed one, sometimes I miss my cool-running DBX :)
 
Hello everyone. I was thinking about how certain ships with great looks and flight model have their usefulness potential "wasted" by the extremely low number of internal slots.

This is even more evident now that the guardian fsd boost module is promising to make ships with abysmal jump range, a bit more livable.

But how can one fit such a module to a ship with lets say 5 slots, without leaving behind the srv, or the DSS, or the tiniest of cargo hold?

Two examples that come in mind, are the FDL and the Mamba. They boast good flight model and combat potential and they are certainly not military ships (thus no HRPs slots). To me at least their looks and feel suggest that their target market is the affluent freelancer, who likes to hunt some bad guys among other stuff but doesn't want to give up all the luxury in the place he/she lives in.

But how on earth can a freelancer/roamer use an, otherwise perfect ship for the job, but with only 5 internal slots? And how can one increase the number of slots, just to be able to fit one more tiny module, without upsetting the "pvp ballance" ?

No, Im not suggesting making those ships multipurpose ofc. What I am suggesting is that, when you fit lets say a grade 4 module in a grade 6 slot, another module slot appears, letting you fit another grade 2 module. A grade 4 slot could fit two grade 2 modules, and so on. This is also lore-wise consistent with the modular design of the ships.
That way, the total internal capacity of each ship will not change at all (we will still have to make hard decisions), but this could possibly make some ships more livable and give us some quality of life options, without boosting the ships' combat or defense potential. (assuming that a grade 5 HRP will give 1,66 times the protection of a grade 3 HRP).

I am not a regular pvp player so there might be some oversights on my account concerning how this could disturb combat balance. Please feel free to point out any false assumptions I may have made, and tell me if you would agree with such a change or not, and why.

Thanks.

this has been suggested many times... always gets ignored
 
For me, the biggest argument for internal compartment splitting was to avoid taking an entire size 3 slot for the ADS and another for the Suface Scanner. With that ADS going “built in” (I like to think into the sensors) I think the issue is largely sorted.

It certainly opens a whole plethora of options for the DBX, now doesn't it?!?
 
Back
Top Bottom