Move Defensive Modules to Dedicated Slots

[CMDR Corlas]

SciTch, there's a lot of apparently unnoticed bias in your posts on this topic. Let me try to point it out.

Even FD made it crystal clear that outfitting is a game of choice and sacrifice

Except currently, for pure-combat pilots, there is no need to sacrifice. That is the problem. As you yourself say:

when I go to combat in PvE I bring nothing at all but combat modules

No other profession can really do that: Combat is an ever-present possibility in literally every other profession, so every profession is required to multirole, to some degree or another.

Only combat pilots are given the option - and rewarded - for opting out of the "choice and sacrifice" of the outfitting game. And no, the "sacrifice" of losing speed and agility for slapping on another HRP doesn't count. Because for other professions, the kind of choice they face is "better at my role vs better able to live", while the combat "choice" is only a combat-internal question of "what makes me most effective in combat?" That's like a miner trying to balance cargo space vs collector limpets, not comparable to a miner balancing more cargo vs HRP/MRP's.

Everyone else has to balance their ship design against at least one (usually two, given pirates) other profession. Dedicated combat pilots do not, and are rewarded for not doing so. That's a design imbalance.

I understand you have a vested interest in preserving this imbalance - it directly benefits you - but it's still a design imbalance.

 

[StiTch]

SciTch, there's a lot of apparently unnoticed bias in your posts on this topic. Let me try to point it out.

Except currently, for pure-combat pilots, there is no need to sacrifice. That is the problem. As you yourself say:

No other profession can really do that:

There is a difference between bias and debating something. I am involved in the discussion, not moderating it, and do not make my points unfairly.

You misunderstand what is meant by "consequence", or deliberately ignore it to make your own point. I bring nothing but combat modules primarily because blowing things up is the part of this game I like: the consequence is that I have no KWS, which means I make less money; that I have no fuel scoop to travel with and have to stay in one spot; that I don't have the ability to collect expensive cargo that drops...the list continues. I often have nothing to show for my time than the wreckages I create - read my signature

For the record it means my PvE combat ships are usually more combat aligned than most PvP murderers. How's that for irony

Why you believe this to be confined to combat only is beyond me. iCutters can choose to run shieldless, with cargo racks only, for pure trade capacity but limited travel or defense ability; they can likewise suffer a very minimal drop to capacity for a large increase to survivability by equipping a C6 (or modded C5) shield, just as most BHers would sacrifice a single utility slot for a KWS that increases their income.

Please discuss what's in front of you as opposed to resorting to implications I have a personal interest in imbalance. We are simply talking about a very fundamental aspect of pretty much any game that has outfitting or personalisation of any kind; you choose tools and abilities that are better for your role. Skyrim wasn't imbalanced because heavy armour made you poor at sneaking (it had other reasons for imbalance...) and Elite isn't imbalanced because players are allowed to choose a role to do rather than being forced into the same ship as everyone else (likewise, it has other reasons to be so).

 

[CMDR Corlas]

I bring nothing but combat modules primarily because blowing things up is the part of this game I like: the consequence is that I have no KWS, which means I make less money; that I have no fuel scoop to travel with and have to stay in one spot; that I don't have the ability to collect expensive cargo that drops...the list continues.

The list doesn't continue - none of that actually impacts your favored role. Again, as you yourself said "blowing things up is the part of this game I like". Your "sacrifice" is not carrying parts you wouldn't carry anyway because you don't like the gameplay associated with it. That is not a "sacrifice". Combat doesn't have to make "sacrifices" to be competitively viable.

Tradeships do, even with stories about shieldless traders in solo. Because the game actively tries to punish them for running shieldless with mechanics that interrupt what they are trying to do - trade and make profit. Nothing similar exists for pure combat - for a punishment to be a punishment, you actually have to care about it. The game doesn't try to interrupt your blowing up of ships in a way that you can mitigate by carrying, say, a cargo rack. Ignoring all other mechanics just increases your capacity for combat with zero gameplay downsides. Running shieldless increases your capacity for the trade at the downside of ship damage, impacting profits, or at risk of dying.

And don't tell me it's the same because without a KWS you're also losing profits. As you said yourself "blowing things up is the part of this game I like" - profit is not your goal. For players that it is, then a KWS is a choice, yes. But when pure combat is your goal, there is no decision making process that pays attention to non-combat aspects of play.

It's utter nonsense to try to claim that this system not-having-to-choose is what prevents you from being "forced into the same ship as everyone else". In reality, no-downsides defense-stacking promotes sameness, because then all pure combat pilots, as we've all seen and you've admitted to, just stack defenses. That is sameness.

Regardless of if you see it or not, there is clear bias in your posts on this topic. You only care about combat, the game rewards you for that without a tradeoff, and you obviously think that is "good". Meanwhile, anyone who enjoys any other aspect of gameplay has to balance that interest against combat, against your interest. Regardless of how they choose to act in that balancing, it's a tradeoff they are making and one that only pure-combat gameplay gets to ignore. Those two things - "ignore everything but what I like" vs "always have to keep in mind at least two aspects of gameplay" are not equal.

And I say that as a mostly combat-oriented player myself. We shouldn't be allowed to ignore everything else, and yet have everyone else have to always keep our interest in mind. It's unrealistic, it's imbalanced, it promotes lack of diversity in ship builds, and it works to make players feel excluded from aspects of the game they would otherwise be interested in. It's bad for the long term health of the game.

 

[StiTch]

The list doesn't continue - none of that actually impacts your favored role. Again, as you yourself said "blowing things up is the part of this game I like". Your "sacrifice" is not carrying parts you wouldn't carry anyway because you don't like the gameplay associated with it. That is not a "sacrifice". Combat doesn't have to make "sacrifices" to be competitively viable.

Tradeships do, even with stories about shieldless traders in solo. Because the game actively tries to punish them for running shieldless with mechanics that interrupt what they are trying to do - trade and make profit. Nothing similar exists for pure combat - for a punishment to be a punishment, you actually have to care about it. The game doesn't try to interrupt your blowing up of ships in a way that you can mitigate by carrying, say, a cargo rack. Ignoring all other mechanics just increases your capacity for combat with zero gameplay downsides. Running shieldless increases your capacity for the trade at the downside of ship damage, impacting profits, or at risk of dying.

And don't tell me it's the same because without a KWS you're also losing profits. As you said yourself "blowing things up is the part of this game I like" - profit is not your goal. For players that it is, then a KWS is a choice, yes. But when pure combat is your goal, there is no decision making process that pays attention to non-combat aspects of play.

It's utter nonsense to try to claim that this system not-having-to-choose is what prevents you from being "forced into the same ship as everyone else". In reality, no-downsides defense-stacking promotes sameness, because then all pure combat pilots, as we've all seen and you've admitted to, just stack defenses. That is sameness.

Regardless of if you see it or not, there is clear bias in your posts on this topic. You only care about combat, the game rewards you for that without a tradeoff, and you obviously think that is "good". Meanwhile, anyone who enjoys any other aspect of gameplay has to balance that interest against combat, against your interest. Regardless of how they choose to act in that balancing, it's a tradeoff they are making and one that only pure-combat gameplay gets to ignore. Those two things - "ignore everything but what I like" vs "always have to keep in mind at least two aspects of gameplay" are not equal.

And I say that as a mostly combat-oriented player myself. We shouldn't be allowed to ignore everything else, and yet have everyone else have to always keep our interest in mind. It's unrealistic, it's imbalanced, it promotes lack of diversity in ship builds, and it works to make players feel excluded from aspects of the game they would otherwise be interested in. It's bad for the long term health of the game.

Nope, you are inventing bias by making this far more complicated than it needs to be.

There's nothing in outfitting stopping someone going full trade outfit. You can optionally align all modules towards trade just as I can align all my modules to combat, and in this instance you suffer no concession in your chosen specialisation. A 100% pure combat ship would be good for combat and literally nothing else, which is what I have. A 100% pure trade ship would be good for trade and nothing else.

So the issue you have is that players are allowed to push combat on a trade ship and not vice-versa. If you read what I put earlier in the thread I actually agree that while this shouldn't be removed as an option, there should be a sensible deterrent in the form of C&P alongside incentive to play more "constructive" PvP playstyles.

The primary issue here is not of base outfitting but the roles available to players. Recent C&P changes have incessantly made it harder for the PvE and PvP relationship to be natural, because the only real PvP interaction available to us is pure combat. Develop piracy and traders that choose to make a concession on trade ability would more often find themselves against "combat" ships that have made multiple concessions; I can assure you that any given pirate build has at least on glaring hole in it, and that is a good thing. Usually it's a concession on speed/agility and/or hull survivability once shields drop.

Pure combat vessels should generally have reasons to instead clash with other pure combat vessels.

So yes, there are issues. Yes, there are game mechanics that foster disparity between PvP and PvE players. However, this is not in the basic outfitting; it is in the interactions themselves. Combat ships are encouraged to attack traders because they have nothing to do, and true pirate ships are left to muddle through consequence that murderers should be experiencing as part of an optional but consequence-laden playstyle.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

When a pirate interdicts a shieldless trader and kills them, that's a pretty big concession.

The issue I have isn't specifically that a combat ship can push combat on a trader but not vice versa, that's just one way of illustrating it.

I'm excluding actual pirates from my "pure combat" definition, because I think we'd both agree they're not. There's nothing in the design that makes a tricked-out pirate vs tricked-out trader or miner PvP interaction unbalanced:

• The pirate will have defensive and offensive modules, but also cargo racks, hatchbreaker and/or collector limpets, utility scanners, maybe an interdictor, etc.
• Their prey will have defensive and offensive modules (less offense in the case of the miner), but also cargo racks, and other internals.

Each of them needs to balance their desire for defense with their desire for utility in their role: And the choice of functionality and optimization, choices of more or less risk for more or less profit, and all the huge wealth of build variety arises from that.

Therefore, from a loadout itemization perspective:

• Pirate vs Trader PvP is fundamentally fair
• Pirate vs Miner PvP is fundamentally fair
• Pirate vs Explorer PvP is fundamentally fair
• Pirate vs Scavenger PvP is fundamentally fair
• Trader vs Miner PvP is fundamentally fair
• Trader vs Explorer PvP is fundamentally fair
• Trader vs Scavenger PvP is fundamentally fair
• Miner vs Explorer PvP is fundamentally fair
• Miner vs Scavenger PvP is fundamentally fair
• Explorer vs Scavenger PvP is fundamentally fair

This works for every single profession, except those who go "pure combat". They are the exceptions that break the loadout balancing subgame. They have no need for any other utility, thus no need to put anything else on their ship other than what directly contributes to their offense and defense, making them inherently imbalanced in their PvP interactions with every other profession.

Ideally, combat modules are changed so that some utility is a part of combat (ie, my idea elsewhere here to make shield cell ammo be stored in cargo racks). Barring that though, artificial constraints should put in so that while a combat-focused ship can maintain an edge over another ship, it's not to the overwhelming degree that it is today.

 

[Frenotx]

When a pirate interdicts a shieldless trader and kills them, that's a pretty big concession.

The issue I have isn't specifically that a combat ship can push combat on a trader but not vice versa, that's just one way of illustrating it.

I'm excluding actual pirates from my "pure combat" definition, because I think we'd both agree they're not. There's nothing in the design that makes a tricked-out pirate vs tricked-out trader or miner PvP interaction unbalanced:

• The pirate will have defensive and offensive modules, but also cargo racks, hatchbreaker and/or collector limpets, utility scanners, maybe an interdictor, etc.
• Their prey will have defensive and offensive modules (less offense in the case of the miner), but also cargo racks, and other internals.

Each of them needs to balance their desire for defense with their desire for utility in their role: And the choice of functionality and optimization, choices of more or less risk for more or less profit, and all the huge wealth of build variety arises from that.

Therefore, from a loadout itemization perspective:

• Pirate vs Trader PvP is fundamentally fair
• Pirate vs Miner PvP is fundamentally fair
• Pirate vs Explorer PvP is fundamentally fair
• Pirate vs Scavenger PvP is fundamentally fair
• Trader vs Miner PvP is fundamentally fair
• Trader vs Explorer PvP is fundamentally fair
• Trader vs Scavenger PvP is fundamentally fair
• Miner vs Explorer PvP is fundamentally fair
• Miner vs Scavenger PvP is fundamentally fair
• Explorer vs Scavenger PvP is fundamentally fair

This works for every single profession, except those who go "pure combat". They are the exceptions that break the loadout balancing subgame. They have no need for any other utility, thus no need to put anything else on their ship other than what directly contributes to their offense and defense, making them inherently imbalanced in their PvP interactions with every other profession.

Ideally, combat modules are changed so that some utility is a part of combat (ie, my idea elsewhere here to make shield cell ammo be stored in cargo racks). Barring that though, artificial constraints should put in so that while a combat-focused ship can maintain an edge over another ship, it's not to the overwhelming degree that it is today.

Thank you. In order to do their profession with any amount of efficiency (or in some cases at all), all other professions need to use many of their internal slots for various modules. Combat (especially player assassination) is the only one that can spend as many as it can on MOAR HEALTH. My proposal would allow all professions to mount a respectable defense for that ship. Not all ships would be the same, since FDev gets to choose how many armour slots (and what size) a given ship has. They also get to set the shield characteristics of a ship, sand reign in shield inflation a bit. All class X generators might have the get the same slots, but FDev can compensate for ships with large or small generators by tweaking their base shield values (kind of like how the FDL has a small generator, but a high base shield).. FDev can also set the generators up such that grade A generators tend to have fewer slots but some of them are large (good for SCBs), and grade B has more slots but they're generally smaller (better for SBs).

In general, there will still be lots of variety between different types of ships. I would actually argue MORE variety, since the degree in which they can blur together is smaller. All cobras will have a similar overall level of defense (good, as "the target is a cobra" actually means something when assessing what the fight will be like) , but how that's divided up between the various modules will vary (so there's still variety there)

 

[RamirezKurita]

Thank you. In order to do their profession with any amount of efficiency (or in some cases at all), all other professions need to use many of their internal slots for various modules. Combat (especially player assassination) is the only one that can spend as many as it can on MOAR HEALTH.

And there's the whole point, the only ships that can do their job while focusing exclusively on combat are CZ brawlers and PvP Murderhobos (for a very liberal definition of "job"). CZ equipped ships don't tend to spend much time outside CZs except for the occasional bounty hunting session so they are usually fighting against similarly equipped ships, the real problem is when a player decides to go hunting other players. The problem you have is entirely endemic to open play, and is entirely related to a small number of goons that are taking advantage of the lack of effectiveness of system security, so it's unreasonable to throw out the current system when that's the real issue. What's needed is a working C&P system (hopefully less than 24 hours!) as well as making system security matter more, making NPC pirates more effective/intelligent and making high-value trading riskier due to it attracting pirates, as that would unlock the viability of trading using ships ranging from just a minimal shield generator all the way through to a 2/3rds combat vessel for high value, rare and/or mission goods.

In general, there will still be lots of variety between different types of ships. I would actually argue MORE variety, since the degree in which they can blur together is smaller. All cobras will have a similar overall level of defense (good, as "the target is a cobra" actually means something when assessing what the fight will be like) , but how that's divided up between the various modules will vary (so there's still variety there)[/QUOTE]
​

Specialising ships never really produces variety, as all it does is cut down available options. If we have 10 potential roles and 10 specialist ships, there will only ever be a single option for a given task. If instead we had 5 ships that were each capable of performing reasonably in 4 roles each, then we would on average have a choice between 2 ships for each given job - double the choice despite having half the number of ships. Ideally, we would want most ships to be capable of most roles, so that players have the widest possible variety to choose from. It's also far more efficient from a dev resources point of view, as they can produce far fewer ships to get the same choice. Obviously, we don't want all ships to be identical, but they can still have their own styles and twists in each role they can assume as long as they are overall balanced after taking into account costs and engineering investment. The ships in game are simply hulls, empty shells, it's what you put in the hull that matters.