Scaled reduction of G1 to G5 engineering on weapons, shields and powerplants

[Robert Maynard]

So perhaps I'd modify what I said, in that a low power shield is 'normal' but a high power one is a luxury.

Then the definition of "low" in relation to shield power on a particular ship becomes relevant.

Using the Anaconda as an example, shields can be fitted in the range: 3E to 7A. Would a 3A shield be considered to be "low", due to Class, or "high" due to Grade?

 

[Sylow]

Key engineering in my eyes:

Powerplants: there is far too much power available allowing power hungry weapons with top end engines, shields all at once. If power is reduced it means Guardian PP + distro is a great choice (since it is equivalent to G4 in power output plus extra from the combo)- if regular engineering only went to G1 (+ experimental) you'd have a nice choice to make. Starving power also means that hulltanks become a consideration again, because shields + boosters + Guardian modules would eat power. FSD and engines are fine because they are then brought to heel via powerplant output.

Weapons: if weapons are not super pumped G5 then it means tech broker kit instantly becomes fantastic. Shock cannons would be really nasty for example- and a viable choice, not a novelty unlock.

Shields: de powering shields makes 10K shield monsters impossible, and that you can't stuff Guardian shield boosters / SCBs either.

My one dread is that FD are simply afraid to tweak anything at all, and want to leave it as it is.

On PPs: You are basically right. But you can't simply retroactively reduce the power output of existing PPs. If you do, there'll be plenty of ships exploding for no good reason right after the patch. There will be players around who won't religiously follow patch notes, yet have engineered ships which take advantage of existing PP engineering.

Having ships explode after a patch will be seen as unfair and thus is not a good move. At the same time, you can't just decide that existing PPs remain the way they are, while new ones will be weaker. If that'd be done, I'd just before the patch stack up on fully engineered PPs and create yet another layer of "newer players can't ever get this". Which is not a good thing for any game.

On weapons I agree that it's a thin line. You sure don't want to overnerf them. But a +70% from base still is too massive, before even looking at the special effects. But indeed, if tech broker weapons would be too far ahead, that has to be taken a look at, too. In my eyes fully engineered weapons would still have to be the the better choice. But I think that they currently are too ar ahead.

On shields, I think we both agree: that's where the big cuts would have to happen.

And on FD not doing anything any more: I am actually convinced that they won't ever touch this again. They more than once tried to do just soft nerfs, parts of the community cried rivers of tears and FD backed down. (While those who actually were in the beta and tested the changes found that they were quite soft, nothing to worry about, merely a step in the right direction. ) As FD didn't have the guts to pull through with even so soft nerfs, they won't ever dare to go for real nerfs.

Why though? I'd reduce all that including the mods you mentioned, even if that means I have no 80LY conda any more.
I'd wager there are only a handful explorers out there in systems so far out of reach, and for the goal of nerfing this power creep I'd gladly give support a hectical day or two.
And for all others: well we have to cope with that, and build accordingly. No more instant armoured pp for everything.

Matter of taste and impact. I don't think that the 80ly Anaconda is any balancing problem. No matter how far my enemy can jump, it doesn't increase his damage output or how much of a beating his ship can take.

So why take something away from explorers, who don't really hurt anybody here, if it doesn't really affect anybody negatively? Any nerf results in negative feedback. That's the price you pay for it, so you better make sure that what you get for it is worth this price. I think that the game would benefit from nerfs on shields and weapons, but mostly shields. It would make things much more interesting again.

And that's why I think that FDS engineering should not be nerfed. There's little to be gained, while still having to pay the price of negative feedback. It's not worth it.

Rather than hit powerplants, why not simply increase power consumption of weapons?

That indeed would work. But you have to take a close look on what things you apply the changes to. The base weapons would probably have to stay the same, while the engineering on weapons and shield boosters could get way more energy intensive.

My reason behind that thought again is on the side of not combat oriented players. The long range explorer might still have his mining laser along. And he's not the one who needs nerfing, while he'd have to spend an inappropriate amount of time and effort to travel back and adjust his setup.

In contrast, the combat player usually docks at a station regularily. Adjusting the setup for him is more easy, so it's not that a big deal if combat ships have to be adjusted.

 

[Bigmaec]

Matter of taste and impact. I don't think that the 80ly Anaconda is any balancing problem. No matter how far my enemy can jump, it doesn't increase his damage output or how much of a beating his ship can take.

So why take something away from explorers, who don't really hurt anybody here, if it doesn't really affect anybody negatively? Any nerf results in negative feedback. That's the price you pay for it, so you better make sure that what you get for it is worth this price. I think that the game would benefit from nerfs on shields and weapons, but mostly shields. It would make things much more interesting again.

And that's why I think that FDS engineering should not be nerfed. There's little to be gained, while still having to pay the price of negative feedback. It's not worth it.

Ok I can relate to that.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Ill shoot my own powerplant and then ill never have to remember it

Just don't click on the spoiler button again

 

[Rubbernuke]

Then the definition of "low" in relation to shield power on a particular ship becomes relevant.

Using the Anaconda as an example, shields can be fitted in the range: 3E to 7A. Would a 3A shield be considered to be "low", due to Class, or "high" due to Grade?

Its hard to define, but its more about making shield tanks hard to make without significant sacrifice in other areas, while a ship can have decent weapons, a semi decent shield and be relatively fast.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

This. But also please take a look at hull stats and base shields. I don't want all traders pop by one pass of a gimbal frag Mamba.

You'd have to sit down and go through everything though, so it would be more labour intensive.

But what I had in my head was that shields, SCBs, boosters, drag drive engines etc were luxuries and not the default. If you have them, then you have to sacrifice something else, or use more exotic modules.

That's called balancing. It's fun and keeps the community boiling. But I don't think it's a concept they like at FD. I once asked about balance and got replied with the old "Anaconda isn't balanced vs Sidewinder either" by Sammarco. Imo, proper balance also means fairer fights and environment and less lolstomping.

 

[Rubbernuke]

On PPs: You are basically right. But you can't simply retroactively reduce the power output of existing PPs. If you do, there'll be plenty of ships exploding for no good reason right after the patch. There will be players around who won't religiously follow patch notes, yet have engineered ships which take advantage of existing PP engineering.

Having ships explode after a patch will be seen as unfair and thus is not a good move. At the same time, you can't just decide that existing PPs remain the way they are, while new ones will be weaker. If that'd be done, I'd just before the patch stack up on fully engineered PPs and create yet another layer of "newer players can't ever get this". Which is not a good thing for any game.

On weapons I agree that it's a thin line. You sure don't want to overnerf them. But a +70% from base still is too massive, before even looking at the special effects. But indeed, if tech broker weapons would be too far ahead, that has to be taken a look at, too. In my eyes fully engineered weapons would still have to be the the better choice. But I think that they currently are too ar ahead.

On shields, I think we both agree: that's where the big cuts would have to happen.

And on FD not doing anything any more: I am actually convinced that they won't ever touch this again. They more than once tried to do just soft nerfs, parts of the community cried rivers of tears and FD backed down. (While those who actually were in the beta and tested the changes found that they were quite soft, nothing to worry about, merely a step in the right direction. ) As FD didn't have the guts to pull through with even so soft nerfs, they won't ever dare to go for real nerfs.

This is why I came up with the kluge of after destruction you can't have the OP modules and have to use the legacy ones. For combat pilots this would be much sooner than an explorer (or that was the intention).

In an ideal world engineering, Guardian modules and tech broker stuff would sit as stablemates and complement each other- if thats achievable now I'm not sure but thats what I would like to happen.

And FD need to engage some grey matter with tweaks. The mine arming one was silly for example as it broke the weapon.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Its hard to define, but its more about making shield tanks hard to make without significant sacrifice in other areas, while a ship can have decent weapons, a semi decent shield and be relatively fast.

Changes to power distributors could come in to play as well - in relation to the size and charge rate of the WEP "capacitor" - and associated engineering modifications.

 

[Sylow]

This is why I came up with the kluge of after destruction you can't have the OP modules and have to use the legacy ones. For combat pilots this would be much sooner than an explorer (or that was the intention).

I have lost exactly one ship in well over a year. And the one ship I lost was a non-engineered Imperial Eagle, when I was doing some nonsense with some friends, who now (due to covid) have more time to play and also decided to spend a little time in ED. So the one ship loss I had in over a year would not even have affected my engineered equipment.

Based on this, it would take many years for my engineered modules to be removed from the game. If I did nothing when the patch comes. But if such a patch would come, I'd go ahead and engineer up some more modules and store them away. Which would move the thing from "years" to "decades". (Read: "till I stop playing the game." )

Of course things might be different for some other players. But even from the perspective of a mediocre pilot like me, I could "outrun" the nerf you propose for a long time. I just don't see how it would really work. (Before even noting that the few who would, due to lack of information, be hit by it, would consider it very unfair. And rightfully so. )

Thus I think that such a nerf would have to be applied to the existing modules right away, without any "on ship destruction" mechanic. It's the only reliable way.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Based on this, it would take many years for my engineered modules to be removed from the game. If I did nothing when the patch comes. But if such a patch would come, I'd go ahead and engineer up some more modules and store them away. Which would move the thing from "years" to "decades".

Rather wait until ship destruction to "fix" legacy modules it could be done at the next docking.

 

[znôrt]

 

[Sylow]

Rather wait until ship destruction to "fix" legacy modules it could be done at the next docking.

Seems easier on paper. But what if somebody docks his fully engineered ship at a remote outpost without the necessary facilities? In some extreme cases it might then suddenly result in him not being able to leave the system any more. It then of course depends on how far you'd nerf things, but my imperial courier would not be able to power all essential systems without at least a little bit of PP engineering.

And that's just one random example of what could be a problem. It's not that hard to come up with more, which all would have to be tackled, while not watering down the intended goal. So yes, when done properly, the "nerf at docking" might work, but it would be much more complex than it might seem at first glance.

But while it could work, in my eyes this is all about combat. I don't mind how much jump range another ship has and how much power it has spare when not fighting. The balancing problems in my eyes start when combat comes into play. Thus I think that upping the power draw of engineered weapons and shield boosters would go a long way already.

No, I am not under the illusion that it by itself would be the cure-all. There's too many options on how ships are configured and I am rather sure that clever minds would, when the actual numbers and changes would be known, again adjust and find a way to squeeze plenty of performance out of their ships. But at least the gap would be smaller and we could progress from that.

Thus I'd really rather aim for the main problems first, smack them hard, then see where we stand and determine the further path after things have settled.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Seems easier on paper. But what if somebody docks his fully engineered ship at a remote outpost without the necessary facilities? In some extreme cases it might then suddenly result in him not being able to leave the system any more.

The situation could be exactly the same on destruction - as the nearest dock might be an outpost.

 

[Sylow]

The situation could be exactly the same on destruction - as the nearest dock might be an outpost.

True. Which would double the problem of the "on destruction" suggestion. I stick to my point: nerfs have to be applied directly, not triggered by some arbitraty in-game event, be it destruction, docking, opening GalNet and staring at empty space or entering the Nintendo code.

 

[Just Paul]

That, or generally limit SCB usage (military slots only)

You killing my Orca. I think I have to sent the pod after you, heretic.

 

[Darth Ender]

I'll simplify things.

Get rid of player modules.

Instead, have a bunch of variants of ships with different loadouts baked in. This allows excellent ship balance control while eliminating min-maxed loadouts that cause balance problems.

Engineers then no longer offer changes to modules. But rather, they offer their own special variants of certain ships. Again, this still allows full balance control in a fairly easy way to manage. You use your donor ship as a sort of "core charge" and along with the various materials needed, they give you their variant. This eliminates stacking engineers and instead, you can only ever have one. Bonus would be to have engineered insurance be 50% of cost of the ship rather than normal insurance since the pilots fed isn't who insures them, but rather the engineer who is producing the modded variant.

The backend doesn't really need to change, the game engine can still treat the differences of all these variants as having different modules on the standard ships, those modules just aren't removable or user modified anymore. And maybe they have a special name they're known by to differentiate them from other variants and ties them to the faction/company that produces the variant.

This allows the BGS to also be leveraged to limit access to certain variants in various ways as rewards for achieving certain things with certain factions. You could lose access to those variants if you lose favor or do something negative to them .. and they would only be available in the certain areas those variants are married to (maybe it's a corporation that only exists in one place ..or maybe it's a faction that exists across many and can grow/shrink over time.

Totally eliminating balance breaking combinations while retaining the variety for players to have in whatever role they wish to use them for all the various ship models available.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Get rid of player modules.

Instead, have a bunch of variants of ships with different loadouts baked in. This allows excellent ship balance control while eliminating min-maxed loadouts that cause balance problems.

I might be misunderstanding your idea, but I think you are suggesting rather than a player building ship with available modules (tons of combinations), players purchase prefabbed ships that a player can select. Obviously there would be a "best in class" to select for most activities (even with the idea of "engineering variations") so really there would be no player choice. And you would need to buy a dedicated ship for each activity.

This would be a massive dumbing down of the game. Pretty sure this idea would lose about 80% of the current player base.

 

[Darth Ender]

I might be misunderstanding your idea, but I think you are suggesting rather than a player building ship with available modules (tons of combinations), players purchase prefabbed ships that a player can select. Obviously there would be a "best in class" to select for most activities (even with the idea of "engineering variations") so really there would be no player choice. And you would need to buy a dedicated ship for each activity.

This would be a massive dumbing down of the game. Pretty sure this idea would lose about 80% of the current player base.

As opposed to the current min-maxing ... Nobody uses ships for roles, they just abuse the module / engineer stats so they can do everything with 1, where the most they do is shuffle a few modules around. The availability of these modules being everywhere means nobody cares about locality ...making the entire political-economic makeup of the bubble pointless.

There wouldn't be a best in class for most activities, unless you make such a ship available. Every ship could be specifically loaded to be poor to mediocre at most activities and excel at one or two. Forcing players to shuffle ships. Each balanced positive to a ship's loadout can be carefully selected to have a desired negative.

What's eliminated, is the player being able to shift those negatives into non-existence or into something they dont care about while retaining all the positives.

This forces the player to be strategic in which ship they pick for a given mission ..since it wont be great at everything. And placing the availability of these variants behind specific barriers means players will have to invest in getting to know the BGS and factions in order to find the variant that they want ...which may be rare or even unknown given the number of factions out there. Players may have to compromise in what ships they can afford to get and how many they have in total ... further making such decisions matter to their overall game because they wont be able to have everything and do everything at once. which is good for gameplay.

 

[Greasetrap42]

As opposed to the current min-maxing ... Nobody uses ships for roles, they just abuse the module / engineer stats so they can do everything with 1, where the most they do is shuffle a few modules around. The availability of these modules being everywhere means nobody cares about locality ...making the entire political-economic makeup of the bubble pointless.

Again I think I might be misunderstanding you. Are you saying currently nobody uses ships for roles, they just use 1 ship and swap modules? If this is what you are saying you are absolutely wrong. Or are you saying in your proposed idea everybody has 1 ship and they just swap modules around?

Prefabbed ship idea is awful. It places all the ship balancing on FDev, and then the tantrums begin. Ya, I have played enough PvE/PvP games to know how that turns out. And yes, people will figure out pretty quick the "best ship in class" for each major activity. Especially when it comes to combat.

Also, a huge part of the fun is building your own custom ship. Pretty sure 80% of players don't want that taken away. Just a guess, but from all the positive discussions about ship building... its a huge element of the player experience.

 

[tolm]

Personally I quite enjoy the engineering - still have a few to unlock but it’s nice to be able to spin a couple more LY onto my FSD when I find I have the spare mats via Remote Engineering and I will - at some point - go for that 5000LY distance to unlock Palin, nice to have in-game rewards for little challenges!

Rather than get rid of it ... why not just cap them all down to G3 if there’s a concern for too much power creep? But then I’d not need Palin ... and I like that there is something more for me to do there that will further improve my ships.