Yes, but as this was a post about giving the Keelback a small buff to give it a little bit more utility, not making it more powerful, and not about changing the entire ship build system. If you want a discussion about rebalancing every ship in Elite and completely overhaul the ship build system go and start your own thread about that.
Small buff to the Keelback
- Thread starter BackToTheMud
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Yes, but as this was a post about giving the Keelback a small buff to give it a little bit more utility, not making it more powerful, and not about changing the entire ship build system. If you want a discussion about rebalancing every ship in Elite and completely overhaul the ship build system go and start your own thread about that.
This i like a lot.
Especially the shield booster stacking solution - max 2 subslots in the shield gen itself.
That would be neat, but keelback would need a bit more than that.
For a ship purposely build for combat, i find it weird to be much less maneuverable and slower than it's trader variant and it's even less maneuverable than the AspS.
But the thing that annoys me most is the fact that it's not identical externally with the T6.
There is no way someone could mistake a Keelback for a T6
To be clear, my suggestion was tailored to give the Keelback a small utility buff while not increasingl its combat performance.
With the bigger powerplant, extra armour, and added hard points compared to the Type 6 it fits that it's a little bit sluggish, it's part of its charm. The Keelback got the wrong name; it's not a snake, it's a tortoise.
And why should it look exactly like a Type 6? It's not a Q-ship Not only does the vector nacelle engines motivate the Keelbacks amazing roll and yaw rate, it also make the ship look so much better.
While we are at it, they could give the Imperial Clipper a small buff by changing the class 6 optional slot with two class 5's.
From the Keelback's ingame description:
"Based on the Type-6 Transporter, the Keelback is a hardy freighter designed for hostile-environment deliveries."
Freighters aren't known for speed. The Type-6 is an exception rather than the rule.
And based on the heavier armament and defense capabilities of the Keelie, which includes an SLF, it's too much of a stretch to include speed and manueverability.
It's a miracle all that fit in such a small medium ship in the first place.
"Based on the Type-6 Transporter, the Keelback is a hardy freighter designed for hostile-environment deliveries."
Freighters aren't known for speed. The Type-6 is an exception rather than the rule.
And based on the heavier armament and defense capabilities of the Keelie, which includes an SLF, it's too much of a stretch to include speed and manueverability.
It's a miracle all that fit in such a small medium ship in the first place.
Can have different numbers of slots for different sized generators. For bonus points, make SCBs fit in those slots, too. Suddenly you have to choose between a big shield, or the ability to quickly refill it in emergencies.
Problem is that you just can't move combat based modules from utility slots go new added slots without adjusting the number of utility slots, and that screws it up for those that aren't flying a pure combat build. Or let's leave the the utility mounts at their current numbers: The Keelback wouldn't be op, but what about already very powerful ships? The fdl would be able to run more than enough heatsinks and chaff and still have a make scanner, making it impossible for anyone to get away. A Chieftain could fit an ECM and some point defences while still maintaining pretty decent bi-weaves. Not to mention a Cutter that could literally cover themselves in point defences, making it impossible for anyone to try to break their still ridiculous shields with torpedoes. This would mean a complete overhaul of every ship in the game. I'm not saying that wouldn't be a good thing, just that my suggestion is an easy change with a chance, albeit small, of being implemented.
Now I rather like your ideas, that's why I adjustes my original suggestion to split one of the Keelbacks slot to instead making the DSS go imto a sub-slot on the sensors. It would give an utility buff to all ships while not making combat/pirate ships any more powerful.
Why NOT?
You say "they can't do that." But your reasons are all PVP balance that could be fixed otherwise. The reason that 50 size 1 optional slots would be broken would be 50 size-1 hull extenders in each slot. (Extreme example, just for illustration.) If that's not possible, what are they going to do? Put in limpet controllers? That's pointless too- there should be a limpet subsystem. Fill it with cargo racks? So? Cargo tonnage is it's own drawback, every ton of cargo decreases jump range. (IMO, jump range decrease via cargo tonnage should be different per ship. Less effect on transports, MUCH greater effect on warships.)
Chaff and heatsinks should simply have a global cooldown. Or be one per ship. This should go for NPCs as well, because sheez. Point defenses could be limited to a pair, because of techno mumbo jumbo or something.
So what if people stack up things in optionals? Does it break the game if everyone can afford to bring an SRV everywhere? Main things that screw with balance are engineering, stacked modules, and stacked upgrades. If upgrades get limited, then it's just engineering. (IMO, everyone should get tier 1 engineering for anything, for free at this point, as well.)
Again, this is all IMO, but I feel that optionals will be in a good place if people are weighting their contents with simply leaving the slot empty, and saving tonnage and possibly power.
For instance, ALL empty space could be usable for cargo, except without cargo racks, a hatch breaker is 100% effective at dumping anything not safely stowed in a rack.
Adding significant content nearly always requires rewriting older systems after extended periods of time.
EVE did some frankly massive changes, to... what, nearly every system, especially backend? Massive graphics overhaul from the "classic" original stuff that was just plain dated, and... the rest of whatever they did.
WoW systems. They redid the ENTIRE original map to allow flight, I thought they might never bother with that!
FFXIV shut down and relaunched entirely, because they mucked it up the first time.
So sure, they could try and just shoehorn stuff in as best they can, while slapping bandaids on things that break. But this doesn't fix the cracked foundation that everything is built on, it's just limping forward on a broken leg, chewing painkillers.
The One Major thing you have not talked about is that all those games 'needed' such an overhaul to keep then fresh and up to date.
This is not 'needed' in a similar manner at all. It would be simply to satisfy some players desire to be able to fudge ship builds for their own needs.
The current system works, it is NOT broken, hence no need for an entire system overhaul.
Does it do everything that everyone wants? Obviously not but it works fine in the context it was built.
I repeat and stand by my previous comment.
I would much prefer them to spend development time fixing bugs and adding new content that spending time 'rebuilding' a base system that ISN'T broken just to satisfy some players OCD around class size distinctions.