Overloading modules - sacrificial performance increase

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
A quick idea that is reminiscent of 'overclocking' in Star Citizen (if I recall).

On the system panel we have the ability to 'overload' certain modules like FSDs, energy / plasma weapons, shields(? possibly) and engines so that they operate beyond safe limits, but at the same time eat power, heat up the ship and perhaps quicken the need for advanced maintenance (since they are being thrashed so much).

It would promote the use of the AMFU and cooling a bit more, and make cutting edge engineered ships more dangerous to fly. In some ways it is power creep, but it comes at a cost when used in combination with top end engineering where it could be diminishing returns. For example:

Heat generation: non engineered parts might get a big boost, while a G5 OC PA would be exponentially hotter for a small additional DPS boost, the same for engines etc.

Powerplants: overloading has a direct 1:1 power requirement, meaning you need increasing surplus power to dial up its effect. However, heavily OC powerplants would be very vulnerable since they run hot and are fragile.

Shields: contentious (since they can be 10k Mj thick and more is silly) the overload effect 'curve' might top out very early (i.e. G5 shields see no benefit while lower grades / unengineered see a sharper increase).

For the people with no engineering ability (i.e. starting players, non Horizons Core players) a way to 'self engineer' at least one part of your ship (go faster, more shields, hit harder).

Also:

An experimental effect on a powerplant might add a second overload 'slot' (which is then doubling the heat).

It might (theoretically) provide a reason for lower levels of traditional engineering to find a more personal 'sweet spot' based on your preferences- and as a bonus it is situational (so you can tinker in real time as you fly / fight etc).

This could also replace certain engineering altogether, if so you should be able to overload anything with a corresponding cost in power and heat. This would be good for balance, since high end performance would come at a greater price that makes such builds fragile / need special care. In this respect it would make engineering temporal, in that you are selectively engineering your ship in real time based on the situation (rather than having 'fixed' engineering effects).
 
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Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
I suppose what I'm angling at is its you fiddling the numbers and not simply going up a fixed ladder of upgrades. Engineering V1 although painful did make ships unique, V2 has made engineering impersonal since everyone is the same. If commanders could fiddle around more it gives agency to players to really tweak the nuts of your ship- and since everyone is different it would lead to more variation since its situational. More Han Solo and less Ford garage.
 

CMDR M. Lehman

CMDR M. Lehman
I've long been of the opinion that engineering should carry with it some significant potential downsides like rare (but certainly possible) module or weapons failure, significantly increased maintenance costs, and steady module degradation even when it works "perfectly".
 

Koben

Koben
I'd agree to that for unegineered modules/ships so it would reduce the advantage gap from vanilla and horizons players
 

DiabolusUrsus

D
IMO this would work better as an extension of the pip-based power management.

4 would be the "normal" distribution maximum and 5-6 would be small degrees of overclocking. This would make it more intuitive to enable/disable overclocks for brief spurts of enhanced performance.

I don't see any good reason to allow overclocking passive internal modules like the PP; it would really just complicate balance while really only being useful in niche situations.

Scaling overclock effects to be inversely proportional to Engineering is a nice touch, but I think simply applying blanket nerfs to the upgrade power creep would be a more comprehensive solution in that respect.

I would strongly prefer to follow a fixed ladder of useful-but-balanced upgrades; Engineering that introduces critical failure potential (combat damage notwithstanding) is, simply put, bad Engineering. If people are somehow enticed by the thought of their modules giving up the ghost at random because it makes life "interesting," that type of instability ought to be limited to experimental effects IMO.

To better illustrate what I'm getting at:

Rubbernuke said:
Shields: contentious (since they can be 10k Mj thick and more is silly) the overload effect 'curve' might top out very early (i.e. G5 shields see no benefit while lower grades / unengineered see a sharper increase).
Click to expand...

In this case 10k+ MJ shields should be straight-up removed. They are grossly excessive for PVE and to my limited knowledge have no POSITIVE impact on PVP. Rather than prevent benefits to some shields, limit the maximum possible shield capacity to something remotely reasonable.

Overclocking would then instead be balanced by other penalties. For example:

- Progressive module damage when taking fire, meaning you can prevent your shields from breaking in a pinch but risk losing them altogether down the line. This could be implemented through heat accumulation, like Silent Running but driven by gunfire.

- Significantly extended recovery period if shields break within a short time of having been overclocked, similar to how the FSD has a longer safety cooldown after an emergency drop out of SC. This window should be long enough to prevent skipping the penalty by disabling overclock right before shields fully break.

- Reduced effectiveness for chaff, ECMs, etc. while overclocking is active or shields are on safety cooldown.
 
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