It is just not realistic for someone to purchase a Huge Multicannon, that is literally the size of a sidewinder, and have it installed on their Anaconda in a matter of seconds. These things should take time. There should be a time delay during which your ship does not have anything in that hardpoint. It will force players to commit to a given loadout and not change it too often. The actual time delay should be based on how long it takes to swap a Deck Gun on a US Navy Ship. Perhaps 10% of that time would be appropriate.
Similar thing should be done with thrusters, FSD, and other (smaller) hardpoints).
Letting players have instant outfitting just opens the door to a very slippery slope into the abyss of players abusing outfitting.
Let me know your thoughts.
I think a lot of people here have a broken sarcasm detector.
But, on a completely unrelated topic not related to the above sarcasm comment, I think that's an excellent new feature, from a realism perspective.
I also have a suggestion, but this time, to enhance gameplay: Create a key mapping to insta-kill any ship (NPC or not) you have as a target and that has a lower combat rank than you. Why wait to kill it? You were going to kill it any way, so why the wait? It's a gameplay feature that would improve the life for all people (if you are a trader you can get rid of that pesky pirate bothering you, or if you are a pirate you can get rid of that noob bountyhunter wanting to hunt you). Even griefers would be benefitted, because they would only need to sit outside of stations and insta-kill until they get bored. Or, even newbies, because once griefers get bored, they will be able to finally play. It's a win-win scenario. A no brainer.
The obvious benefit is that we can focus on simply exploring the universe, fighting any other worthy opponent (your rank or higher), or landing and taking off from stations. Or even waiting for a new module to be outfitted, as per your suggestion. You know,
actual gameplay. Quality time, folks.
This should have a price: not getting any reward for the fight. A big, big cost that will make people think twice, or even three or four times before actually using the button. I think most high-ranking pilots will even freeze in space, thinking about the consequences before using the button. Some pilots will even wake up in the middle of the night, shouting "why did I use the button with that newbie!!!!". And in order to balance the feature even further, when you are insta-killed, you don't pay an insurance for your new ship. This way, since the abuse doesn't have any material consequence, that means that the abuse doesn't exist at all.
It's way better to what we have now, where you have to actually use your skills and invest time in actually defeating an opponent, because folks, this consumes time and stops me from focusing on important things. Because if I want to trade in an anarchy system, I want to do that, and I don't want to lose my time fighting pirates and that, that's not quality gameplay.
Of course, there is going to be people worried with potential exploits, like noobies not being able to kill nobody, or the guys being at the top of the combat rank becoming actually invincible, but that's not going to happen, those exploits are easily avoidable, because, you know, it wouldn't be mandatory. Any player that took this as too unrealistic, or unfair, or whatever, wouldn't be forced to use it. You know, you can always fight manually. Since the option to not use that feature exists, the exploits or potential abuse also disappear magically. Like griefing will do once this feature is implemented.
And, lore-wise and realism-wise, hey, if we have insta-player-rescues, or insta-teleports, or insta-outfitting ships, why not going one step further?
Let me know what you all think.