Store Shield Cells in Cargo

[CMDR Corlas]

I think Shield Cell Banks should be reworked to function more like limpet controllers do now. The cell bank can still mostly function as it does, but the actual shield cells should be stored in cargo, as limpets are now. To compensate for the potentially vast increase in capacity, give shield cells an appropriate usage cooldown (it take a while for the unit to be reloaded from your cargo storage).

I think there's a lot benefits here:

1. Eliminates defense-stacking from shield cells and encourages more multirole functionality.
2. More shield cells for those who want them.
3. Enables resupplying of shield cells via ship-to-ship transfer, enabling new logistical gameplay.
4. Gives hatchbreaker limpets new offensive combat potential - pillage someone's shield cells.
5. Encourages shield-tank ships to carry some ECM or Point Defense to protect their cells against those hatchbreakers.

 

[ebbrell]

I like this

 

[Frenotx]

Interesting idea. The reload would have to be extensive though, and you'd need to limit one "SCB controller" per ship if you wanted to eliminate stacking.

 

[RamirezKurita]

An interesting concept there, one that I overall like. It could quite easily differentiate between the different grades of SCB via the shield efficiency per cell, while the different sizes of SCB could either determine the rate they transfer the cells or they could simply allow the usage of multiple shield cells at once. It would also open up new gameplay and potentially profit making opportunities, as NPC tenders in CZs could appear during waves to resupply the shield cells and fuel to allied ships (including players if their rep is high enough) before jumping out, while players could be rewarded in combat bonds for resupplying ships with shield cells.

The concept could also be expanded to include AFMU supplies, with the AFMUs themselves becoming a zero-mass component while they draw from premade AFMU material ingots.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

It would also open up new gameplay and potentially profit making opportunities, as NPC tenders in CZs could appear during waves to resupply the shield cells and fuel to allied ships (including players if their rep is high enough) before jumping out, while players could be rewarded in combat bonds for resupplying ships with shield cells.

Ooh, I like that! Give tradeships a role in CZ's and also deepen CZ gameplay a bit by starting to add in real possible objectives and strategic targets / strategic retreats.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

The concept could also be expanded to include AFMU supplies, with the AFMUs themselves becoming a zero-mass component while they draw from premade AFMU material ingots.

The more I think about this, the better an idea I think it is.

Really, I think making any synthesis use zero-mass components that we don't need to resupply was a big mistake. One that I'd ideally like to see undone (but the whining would be... immense). Putting synthesis into cargo hold items would encourage and reward multiplayer gameplay, and create new areas of logistical gameplay in virtually every single profession.

It would be really cool to see combat fleets with a dedicated repair ship and a dedicated ammo resupply ship, or exploration fleets with not only a heavy supply ship, but with a mining ship to keep the supply ship stocked up.

The more of the game that can be broken up into player-visible, player-tradeable, and player-manageable pieces, the more the game will open up to both new scripted and emergent gameplay opportunities.

 

[RamirezKurita]

The more I think about this, the better an idea I think it is.

Really, I think making any synthesis use zero-mass components that we don't need to resupply was a big mistake. One that I'd ideally like to see undone (but the whining would be... immense). Putting synthesis into cargo hold items would encourage and reward multiplayer gameplay, and create new areas of logistical gameplay in virtually every single profession.

It would be really cool to see combat fleets with a dedicated repair ship and a dedicated ammo resupply ship, or exploration fleets with not only a heavy supply ship, but with a mining ship to keep the supply ship stocked up.

The more of the game that can be broken up into player-visible, player-tradeable, and player-manageable pieces, the more the game will open up to both new scripted and emergent gameplay opportunities.

I quite agree there, the current implementation of synthesis for me destroys so much potential of the game, as well as being completely ridiculous with how a pilot can somehow fashion working ammunition and delicate components with nothing but some iron filings and his own saliva. Personally, I think that there should be an actual synthesis module, with it requiring a particular set of actual commodities to produce certain outputs to reload things. As you pointed out, this would give mining out in the black a whole new lease of life, as explorers would then have good reason to venture into rings and asteroid fields in order to resupply; as an extra side effect the modules would give larger explorer vessels something to actually take with them to help exploration scale a bit more with bigger ships. You could even see military mining fleets setting up shop in RESs if there's a war going on to help resupply the fleets. It might even make ice mining somewhat useful at times to search for the organic compounds necessary to make things. This would overall significantly improve a properly equipped ships ability to function off-grid, allowing prolonged operations without returning to base.

You hinted at it in your post, but it could also expand towards ammunition magazines being commodities, using prefabricated ammunition blocks which are then reprocessed into actual ammunition for normal weapons using either the regular synthesis module or an actual ammunition manufactory. This would give projectile weapons a new lease on life, as they would then be able to be used for prolonged engagements if the ship is built for them, as well as curbing the general health inflation due to defensive modules being basically the only combat related internals.