Ship Passives??

[Syrelai]

I read it on a reddit thread the other day, and someone generally mentioned the idea that ships would have a special unique passive. The idea IIRC is simply to incite a desire to obtain more than 3-4 ships... As it stands, I've got an Asp X, FDL, Anaconda, DBX, and a Vette... an asp for my exploration/material gathering, FDL for jousty combat, Anaconda for my passenger missions and possibly trade (because you can't really beat that 400T "mass" on a large ship), a DBX just because it's a token explorer ship (and one that befits the name Roach, near and dear to my heart for other reasons), and a Vette of course for the behemoth combat juggernaut it is in PvE.

Really though, why get a Type 9 when I can get a Conda and jump farther, at the cost of maybe a few thousand credits per trip? My time saved is certainly worth the loss in CR... although I might consider it if it, lets say, gave a 3% increase to all commodities purchased and sold with it (to prevent exploiters).

Or a DBX, a % increase to exploration payouts when achieved/relinquished with that ship.

FDL could get something like an increase or bonus payout when turning in bounties you get with it
Vette could get something like a bonus to Combat Bonds, or ship launched fighter damage

For your multi-role ships, you could spread out certain benefits, like better mission payouts, etc...

Some of this is already in the game, with Passenger Ships like Orcas and Belugas being able to take Luxury passenger missions (although they are in my experience rare to find and not always worth it).

I'm interested in your ideas that are fair, un-exploitable, and that perhaps give a certain value to a ship that would be meaningful but not game breaking.

I'd sure feel a bit more attached or incentivized to spend my hard earned credits on new ships this way.

Your thoughts?

 

[Daynen]

I don't think we should associate payouts with different ships arbitrarily; that's changing the way NPC's react to the ships rather than the ships themselves. I'd much rather see distinct mechanical advantages due to the physical design of the ship. For example, some ships have tightly clustered hardpoints, making them great jousters; some ships have powerful FSD's, making them exceptionally fast jumpers for their class. The cobra III has the fastest boost speed in the game. The Cutter basically mass locks anything near it, preventing escape. Some of these things are incidental advantages, some are purposeful design choices, but all are directly resulting from the physical shape, mechanical design and construction of the ship, not the way the game pays us for using it. Engineers did a LOT of damage in this regard, allowing us to engineer away a lot of distinction between ships; I feel like some ships do need some more unique technology or characteristics to be attractive. We also need more diverse and enticing gameplay features to make more ships useful; as it is, several ships are totally uncalled for and can be completely ignored, even by very diverse playstyles.

Where I come from we have an old saying: Necessity is the mother of invention; laziness is the father. We should take care to ask for things that bring their own rewards, rather than things that simply speed us through the game faster. The first adds to the game; the second takes away from it.

 

[SirOleg]

I was thinking about it back in a day. But instead of payout increases (which generally doesn't do anything special), i thought of some ship passives in technical part.
Say you got a T9. It's a freighter, it carries cargo, so because of that it gets a passive bonus of decreased cargo weight (or more like decreases a cargo impact on ships jump range) for example.
Vette with a bonus to hull kinetic/explosive damage resistance as well as kinetic/explosive damage increase from MC's and Missiles.
Or iCutter with shield thermal resistance bonus and laser damage increase (decreased thermal load, capacitor drain speed etc.)
Ofc i didn't think about passive bonuses that increase jump range by 200, or hull strength by 5000, that's stupid really. But small bonuses of up to 25-50%.
That'd make ships a little more.. unique. imo ofc.