This idea would probably complicate implementing ship interiors.. 
Ship internal customization and more NPC crew SLF’s
- Thread starter Ghststlkr051
- Start date
My point was that the only fact we know about a cargo rack is its capacity, we don’t know anything about its structure or how it mounts to the ship. Just the maximum mass it can contain.
If the inside of the ship is pressurised then the modules mounted inside it don’t necessarily have to be pressurised as well.
Concidering how trounced you have been here without showing even the slightest inclination towards having the ability to reconsider, I see little point in continuing trying to hammer that nail.
But as I'm working on a amateurish hypothesis connected to this, I do have a couple of questions:
How many hours do you have in the game?
Which are you 3 favourite/most played ships, and what is their weapon loadout?
I have over 2000 hours on Xbox before Odyssey. I restarted on PC for Odyssey and currently have 1000 hours racked up, that’s what Steam says anyway. Working on Titan Raijin now, participated destroying 6/8 (well 7/8 so far) of the Titans.
The Krait mk2 was the workhorse as I did missions and unlocked fed rep for the Vette.
I have a krait mk2 built as a titan bomber, basically same as those that are used on the AXI discord links; except I use guardian shard cannons with anti-guardian field engineering. I was using pre-engineered ax missile racks before the engineering was implemented.
I primarily use a corvette with 2x small MGPC, 2x medium MGPC, 1 large corrosive MC and 2x huge efficient beams. Is it unorthodox, yes, but I enjoy blowing up elite anacondas, other vettes and cutters in less than 6-7 seconds. Smaller ships are not as easy to hit due to their speed, but manageable.
A second Vette with 2x focused pulse lasers (6km range to agro pirates and tag enemies), 2x pack hounds, 1 large corrosive MC, and 2x huge efficient beams. It is a fun build.
And I have an alliance crusader with 3x cytoscramblers, 2x packhounds, and a large corrosive MC.
When I need to farm raw materials, guardian materials, or travel, I use a DBX, 70ish ly jump range, fully fit. Large efficient beam with 2 medium MCs.
They are all grade 5 engineered ships.
I like having a fighter bay and tend to use ships that allow them, personal choice.
I hope that answers your questions.
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Core modules really wouldn't work for this, for two reasons, even if you just allowed a single swap of one level of size.
1) You can't undersize sensors or life support currently - or everyone would! A 1D life support has identical performance to an 8D; 1A sensors aren't quite as good as 7A but they're better and substantially lighter than 7D. Similarly, for balance reasons with the SCO fuel consumption compared with typical fuel tank sizes, you can't undersize a SCO FSD at all.
2) Even with the ones where undersizing is allowed, the modules don't have identical performance curves relative to their size number. Increasing the size of a FSD by one level isn't linear from level to level but usually about doubles your range. Conversely, increasing the size of a Power Plant by one level only gives about 25% extra power, and so long as you're within minimum mass at all, increasing the size of Thrusters might only be another 10% speed. So there's much bigger benefits to going in one direction than the other - undersizing the power plant to boost the FSD is a massive bonus (and on some ships, like the Kraits/Python, barely a penalty at all) ... whereas oversizing the power plant by cutting the FSD is probably only workable on ships you never intend to fly between systems.
It'd make the existing weirdness with some of the modules even more obvious. A 2A power plant fits the pattern by being 1/64th of the mass of an 8A. But a 2A power plant has just over a quarter of the output of the 8A. So 4x2A plants are just 1/16th of the mass of an 8A, but more powerful! (You're not suggesting being able to split a core module slot and fit two of the same, but the fact that it would break horribly if you could is also a problem with swapping size levels between modules)
It's a bit more complicated than that - the "size" of an optional internal isn't really defined rigorously, and "scale" for anything smaller than a planet is really arbitrary in Elite Dangerous.
A cargo pod is 2x1x1m, so that puts certain minimum sizes on the volume of an optional internal (which are roughly the same as those implied for passenger cabins).
But the SRV (which fits in a size 2) is much bigger than four cargo pods
And the SLF (which fits in a size 5) is much bigger than 32 cargo pods (and some of them are also bigger than 8 SRVs, at least in terms of bounding box) even before you count the material storage for the flat-packed rebuilds.
But if you assume that the SLF is definitive for the size, or at least sets a floor on it, a size 5 internal should be able to hold far more than 32 cargo pods.
Similarly, if you fit a T-9 out for maximum cargo ... if you piled those almost 800 cargo pods up outside the ship, their total volume would be less than 1% of the T-9's. So what's taking up the rest of the space? (Whatever it is, its mass is barely more than that of the pile of cargo)
The internal space just isn't "real" enough for apparently logical things like 4*2=8 to necessarily be true of it.
I appreciate your long post and agree with most of what you’re saying. No module has a defined volume, only a mass. The correlation is made because 64 tons of Commodity A has X volume and 128 tons of Commodity A has 2X volume; therefore size 7 cargo rack is 2x the size of a size 6. This same principle is then applied to all other modules. Mass = Volume X density. If the density is held constant (it is in this case), then 2x mass = 2x volume. This is an extremely simplified case so Technically, a size 7 cargo rack is larger total volume than 2x size 6 cargo racks because of the structural support required to hold 128t of cargo vs 64t. I am ignoring this difference and simply stating a size 7 rack is 2x size 6 racks.
I can see how this can cause issues with core internal modules. For example 8D (64t) sensor vs 8B(256t) vs 8A(160t). If the volume of the space the sensor is in is held constant (on the ship), the density has to be different. At the same time, if the density is held constant, the volume must be different. Why can’t I use the extra space for something else in the core area of the ship? Expanding on that idea; why can’t I install a 7a sensor in the place of an 8a and use the extra space for extra fuel? Bigger FSD? Bigger thruster?
Core component module performance is non-linear between sizes; but that is not the point/argument of my suggestion. FDev could change that at the same time if they want to.
Did you know EVERY thruster (excluding the 2 and 3 size Enhanced thrusters) that is engineered for Dirty/Drag drives has the exact same multiplier of 146% optimal and 168% max? The only difference is the minimum/optimal/max mass that the thruster supports. This makes it extremely easy to calculate the max ship speed/boost.
I did the math (with the few ships I have). My 1900 tonne corvette would travel at 324ms with a size 8 thruster vs 292 with size 7. Boost would be about 468 m/s vs 378. So yes, it is 11% increase, but I would gladly sacrifice sensor size to increase the speed by 11%. As you said, sensor size does nothing at the moment so everyone would change that. I would drop my corvette’s 8d Long range (14km/10.8km) to a 5a (14km/12.18km) to increase thruster to size 8, then FSD to size 7, and fuel tank to size 6. It would more or less be the same as a Cutter (with worse life support, worse sensors, slightly slower speed/boost, but better distributor) with better maneuverability.
Again, as you said, life support and sensors can not be undersized anyway. Life support time has saved me only twice in 3000 hours of play; but it did save over 1b in bonds between those 2 times. The sensors are completely useless. Now if the sensor size affected the ships ability to track low-heat producing ships, or affect the chaff durations, then it would be a much bigger trade off. At this time, there is no negative trade off.
A Krait mk2 with a size 8 thruster would be faster than an eagle; however, power plant, distributor, and other components would have to be sacrificed to get there. Possible, but not practical.
You’re comparing a deployed SRV to a volume inside a bay. The SRV (and SLF’s) fold up into a smaller volume when inside the bay. You can see this when the Scarab is retracted into the bay; you see the front wheels appear on the screen. Is it a perfect volumetric calculation? No, I’m sure it’s not because FDev kept it simple; however, notice the size 6 bay (2x 8) holds more than 2x the number of fighters than a size 5 (6)? The size 7 is 2x 15, so just under 2x the size 6. Why these arbitrary numbers? No one knows but it goes against my argument anyway.
Now, food for thought, do the thrusters on the Beluga, t10, t9, corvette, and anaconda all look the same when looking at them from the rear? They should because you can take a thruster from one ship and put it in the next. Do all of the size 6 thrusters look the same on all ships that use size 6? I’m sure not because FDev just took a ship design they liked and put it in the game with no regard to what the exact same thruster looked like on a different ship.
All of this is probably just a moot point as FDev won’t consider it because of the complexity involved with re-coding every ship and engineer; but also how it can undermine the already present balance issues between ships, especially in PvP.
I’m surprised no one mentioned having more than 1 NPC SLF. I would love to have 3 SLF NPC’s flying around, granted, that would require the size 7 fighter bay to be changed to 3 bays with X amount of fighters. Maybe 3 bays of 10? That would be in-line with the 5 and 6. 5D bay is 1x6, 6D bay is 2x8, so a 7 could be 3x10, or 4x8, but would gladly accept 3x10 to launch 3 SLF’s.
In the end I comes down to the fact that ED is a game which has rules which limit what we can do to soup up our ships, which is a good thing as being gamers we would over do it.
I have done it myself decades ago in FASA’s STTCS where they made the ‘mistake’ of releasing a construction set book. There were rules but you could bend the heck out of them.
I see no advantage to that sort of thing here.
I have done it myself decades ago in FASA’s STTCS where they made the ‘mistake’ of releasing a construction set book. There were rules but you could bend the heck out of them.
I see no advantage to that sort of thing here.