Suggestion: Remove Military Slots

sandkid

S
Not a new suggestion, I'm sure, but I have to wonder what purpose they actually serve besides locking ships into certain roles?

I mean, if we removed the military slot restrictions on all ships would you actually unbalance anything? Combat ships by and large still lack the jump ranges of true multi-roles, the current kings and queens of PvP would still be the kings and queens. Honestly, if we remove military slot restrictions the only downside is that more ships can be built as multi-roles or miners or traders with better defensive capabilities via their hardpoints.

Which really just showcases how shoddy non-combat ships are built, despite similar pricing. The Type-7 or Asp Scout being prime examples of this.

I suppose the only real reason I suggest this is so that I can fly ships I actually like to fly for tasks they're not designed for. I've never been an efficiency-oriented player (see: my exploring Alliance Chieftain or Mining Type-9), I just know there are some ships I really like the look and flight mechanics of and some I really don't. I hate Asp Explorers. Glorious cockpit, sorta, but ugly frame and less utility than the much more personable DBX. I love my Alliance Chieftain but would kill for those three size three slots if only for more cargo space or a slightly-improved exploration build at a whopping 27 lightyears range.

Ok, end rant. Nix military slots - they serve no purpose, kinda like the dedicated slots on Saud Kruger ships served no purpose.
 

sandkid

S
Factabulous said:
And explorers. But yeah, while it is nice to use a 'luga as ax explorer it does feel wrong.

Certainly the 'make all ships the same' gang is putting out a lot of threads recently, I guess the ship diversity is getting them down ;)
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Ok, ok...some quick clarification of what gang I'm in and not in...lol

For Starters, the Saud Kruger line removal made sense for the sake of getting those ships into a better place of utility. Now if we rebuilt passenger missions to where those ships were actually competitive, then yeah, the slot restrictions make sense. But we didn't. It dropped as a feature and its been the same since. Luxuries rarely spawn and a Type-9 or other large ship can haul more (people or cargo) than a Beluga...which totally makes sense.

So, lemme flip around and waffle on you:

Why aren't more modules restricted? I could totally back the suggestion of restrictions on shield boosters and the like. That doesn't solve my desire to explore in my chieftain a little easier, but I'm still doing it anyway so what does it matter? Why not restrict exploration modules?

I guess what I'm getting at...what is the point of military restrictions when literally nothing else in the game that is role-specific is restricted?
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
sandkid said:
People asked for the restriction?
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People asked for the ships - specifically, the Federal bricks - to have more scope for HRPs and the like. Their original design didn't have the military slots (or the new class 1 optional, of course), and the FGS was a pitiful 6-6-5-2-2 for internals ... and one of those had to be the fighter hangar, or why fly an FGS to start with?

So they ended up being outclassed by multiroles like the Python at being hulltanks - and basically their only job was to be a hulltank, so that was pretty silly.

But if they'd just been given open optional slots, the FDS would have become 6-5-5-4-4-4-3-3-2 - not far off a Python in terms of internals, but much much cheaper, and better than the Kraits ended up. That was clearly never going to happen.

So the choices were:
- Fed bricks are terrible even at the thing they're supposed to be good at
- restricted slots
- just stick a ridiculous amount of base armour in (which would have worked without the benefits of stacking engineering on lots of HRPs)
- Fed bricks are better armed traders than the ships which are supposed to be good armed traders

(Note that while it's definitely a military-grade combat ship, the FDL got no military slots, because it was already doing perfectly well as a high-end shieldtank without them)
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Northpin said:
oH no.
I would not remove military slots.
What i would do is to limit all the military modules (hrp, mrp, scb) only to military slots and also put a limit on maximum number of shield boosters.
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Totally agree.
Now those luxury liners got transformed in container barges
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IIRC, liners could always equip cargo holds instead of passenger lounges. Makes sense, UPS and FedEx use passenger jets converted for cargo hauling. What the change allowed is for explorers like myself to put a size 5 fuel scoop on my Dolphin, and since may passengers want to go on these long distance tourist trips, that just makes sense IMO.
 

sandkid

S
Ian Doncaster said:
People asked for the ships - specifically, the Federal bricks - to have more scope for HRPs and the like. Their original design didn't have the military slots (or the new class 1 optional, of course), and the FGS was a pitiful 6-6-5-2-2 for internals ... and one of those had to be the fighter hangar, or why fly an FGS to start with?

So they ended up being outclassed by multiroles like the Python at being hulltanks - and basically their only job was to be a hulltank, so that was pretty silly.

But if they'd just been given open optional slots, the FDS would have become 6-5-5-4-4-4-3-3-2 - not far off a Python in terms of internals, but much much cheaper, and better than the Kraits ended up. That was clearly never going to happen.

So the choices were:
  • Fed bricks are terrible even at the thing they're supposed to be good at
  • restricted slots
  • just stick a ridiculous amount of base armour in (which would have worked without the benefits of stacking engineering on lots of HRPs)
  • Fed bricks are better armed traders than the ships which are supposed to be good armed traders

(Note that while it's definitely a military-grade combat ship, the FDL got no military slots, because it was already doing perfectly well as a high-end shieldtank without them)
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Maybe this is an oversimplification...but here is what I'm reading between the lines:

The Python (and Anaconda) are horribly unbalanced, which just throws the entire ship lineup of Elite into a dumpster as a result. If you don't care about efficiency, it's not that big of a deal (I have yet to own either of those ships but have almost every other ship in the game)...but most players do care about efficiency.

So...is this a kill your darlings kinda problem? Which means it will never be fixed?
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
I'm not sure - the Python and Anaconda are both pretty reasonable ships for their price. They might not design them exactly like that nowadays - the Anaconda is a little too good because it was once pretty much the only large ship, so it had to be able to do anything - but they're pretty comparable to other ships of their class, and not as good as a specialised ship of the same sort of price. The Kraits are better than the Python nowadays at anything other than bulk cargo, for example ... and the really cheap T-7 can outhaul the Python while not being as good at other things.

The problem is I think more with the general outfitting model making it very easy for any ship to do anything - especially post-engineers when other constraints like power, heat or weight are mostly out of the window too - because of the way module sizing works. That's certainly unlikely to be fixable now.

Thinking about it, given how good 1D HRPs are, sticking a lot of size 1 internals on the Fed ships would probably have achieved similar results to the military slots while still being mostly useless for cargo hauling. Maybe that would have been the better approach.
 

RamirezKurita

R
I fully support the despecialisation of military slots, at the moment they serve to strip away player choice and artificially restrict our options.

They can't even use the "balance" argument, as they still wouldn't make military ships any better traders than similarly priced multiroles. A FDS with the slots opened up would only gain a further 32 tonnes of capacity, pushing its maximum shielded cargo capacity up to 182 tonnes. This might seem like a sizable increase, however it still wouldn't be much better a freighter than an AspX once jump range is factored in (an AspX would have about 2/3rds the capacity but a 40% increase in jump range, not to mention being half the price and not being rank locked). An unrestricted FGS would have 186 tonnes of cargo, which is still not great considering its pitiful jump range, moderate price tag and rank requirements and a Krait Phantom offers a much better overall trading package for only a small cost increase.

Even the large ships have been victims of power creep over time, as the Anaconda, T10 and Corvette have been rendered practically useless for noncombat roles (except the Anaconda and its exploration capabilities) due to the massive buffs to the T9. Giving the Anaconda an extra 32 tonnes of cargo capacity would help lessen this gap and make it an okay trader while an extra 64 tonnes would provide quite a bit more utility to the Corvette and the T10 (and heaven forbid, the T10 needs every buff it can get).

The only ship that could potentially become truly overpowered for its role is the iCutter as an extra 64 tonnes of cargo would make it decisively the best trader in the game. However, I'd argue that is more of an issue of no other ships being available in its price point, the combination of credits and rank required leave it in a class of its own and what it needs is competition at its own price point rather than being dragged down to its weaker peers.
 

Arry

Arry
sandkid said:
Maybe this is an oversimplification...but here is what I'm reading between the lines:

The Python (and Anaconda) are horribly unbalanced, which just throws the entire ship lineup of Elite into a dumpster as a result. If you don't care about efficiency, it's not that big of a deal (I have yet to own either of those ships but have almost every other ship in the game)...but most players do care about efficiency.

So...is this a kill your darlings kinda problem? Which means it will never be fixed?
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it would seem that you are looking for some form of balance, across the ship range. That is an Eve thing and the reason I left that game.

Elite Dangerous, is not and should never be; about balance. It is about one player, making the best, out of the ship they chose to play with. Even without using the Engineers, you can build some insane, but specialist ships. If F.D. tried to 'balance' ships, the options that the engineers offer; would throw all that work, out of the window.

The Military slots, were the result of players requesting them; in one form or another. Removing them, would be a step backwards, for the game. Having them modified in some way; maybe an option in the future.
 
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sandkid

S
Arry said:
it would seem that you are looking for some form of balance, across the ship range. That is an Eve thing and the reason I left that game.

Elite Dangerous, is not and should never be; about balance. It is about one player, making the best, out of the ship they chose to play with. Even without using the Engineers, you can build some insane, but specialist ships. If F.D. tried to 'balance' ships, the options that the engineers offer; would throw all that work, out of the window.

The Military slots, were the result of players requesting them; in one form or another. Removing them, would be a step backwards, for the game. Having them modified in some way; maybe an option in the future.
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I get what you're selling, really. And as an bittervet from EVE I really get what you're selling.

That said, balance does in fact play a role in Elite. I agree it should not be rigid like EVE or other similar titles, but for our purposes let's redefine what balance means: it is simply the relative comparison between ships. Elite has intentionally been designed with this in mind - small ships will always be inferior to large ships, with the sole exceptions being docking restrictions and heat management. That's it.

I think we arrive back at the same point made again and again: is Elite meant to be a jumble of ships, some of which are great and the rest are not? Or is it a progressive lineup that escalates in power and utility? Or, like EVE, is it meant to be a highly articulated lineup of role-specific classes with multi-roles filling the gaps between those classes?

If you keep military slots (and reinstituted passenger slots) you're aiming at that last one - role-specific designs. That's EVE, and that's ok...just do it and be done with it. If, however, we're not going to slot ships into role-centric designs, then we need to remove restrictions and leave it to the commanders to decide what ship best suits their personality for a task. There will be those who will seek the most efficient design (there will always be one, unless we make all ships identical) and there will be those who will seek the design that suits their sense of character - they'll play the game as a game, not as a challenge.

Neither are right or wrong, it's just play style is all. You can build any of these systems to support that...just pick one. Doing the jumble of ships with no clear sense of design purpose is just annoying. It's how you get an Asp Scout: a ship that is obviously designed as a stepping stone that is nothing but a step in the wrong direction.
 

Arry

Arry
sandkid said:
I get what you're selling, really. And as an bittervet from EVE I really get what you're selling.

That said, balance does in fact play a role in Elite. I agree it should not be rigid like EVE or other similar titles, but for our purposes let's redefine what balance means: it is simply the relative comparison between ships. Elite has intentionally been designed with this in mind - small ships will always be inferior to large ships, with the sole exceptions being docking restrictions and heat management. That's it.

I think we arrive back at the same point made again and again: is Elite meant to be a jumble of ships, some of which are great and the rest are not? Or is it a progressive lineup that escalates in power and utility? Or, like EVE, is it meant to be a highly articulated lineup of role-specific classes with multi-roles filling the gaps between those classes?

If you keep military slots (and reinstituted passenger slots) you're aiming at that last one - role-specific designs. That's EVE, and that's ok...just do it and be done with it. If, however, we're not going to slot ships into role-centric designs, then we need to remove restrictions and leave it to the commanders to decide what ship best suits their personality for a task. There will be those who will seek the most efficient design (there will always be one, unless we make all ships identical) and there will be those who will seek the design that suits their sense of character - they'll play the game as a game, not as a challenge.

Neither are right or wrong, it's just play style is all. You can build any of these systems to support that...just pick one. Doing the jumble of ships with no clear sense of design purpose is just annoying. It's how you get an Asp Scout: a ship that is obviously designed as a stepping stone that is nothing but a step in the wrong direction.
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Do you understand that many of the ships, in E.D have 'history', within the game itself? I.E. The Cobra is an iconic ship from the 84 game. So are the Asp and ships like the FDL. There is a kind of lore thing with them and so have to be designed to fit that history. Plus, we have players that will never use a faction type of ship, purely on principle. I will never fly Fed ships; even though they are the hull tank specials; because I am an Imp role player. (He says mounting his pack-hounds) But you get the idea.

Again, I will say, each player, can with all the tools at hand, (engineers etc.) can take basically any ship, and make it fit their needs or desires. Some more than others; obviously. We have had players, take out Anacondas, with Vipers and Sidewinders. because of builds and skills. (not eve type skills, but experience skills) Look on you-tube. The type 10 for example, was sold as a cargo carrier, but in the right hands, with the right build, it can be an excellent ship, in a combat zone.

I have a little cobra IV that can hit at over 70hps and have a hull over 1,000hps, without any engineers, so you cannot say, ship 'X' can beat ship 'y', because of the random player build options. Which to me, spices up the game.

Edit:- Your ideas and desire are valid, but I think, don't quite fit the game model.
 
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Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
Icybow73 said:
If you dont remove them, add surveyor slots and trader slots
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No, we do not need more locked slots.... I find it bad that Passenger ships had locked slots to begin with, and that was the entire reason why we got military slots....
Because how the game works today, we cannot simply remove the restrictions on these slots, as that would turn many combat specific ships into competitive multi role ships, and that would be plain wrong... so there is no easy way forward...

FDev did try one thing, change how shield boosters worked, and the outcry was gigantic before people even had tried it out...so they skipped that change, and no fixing shield boosters, left the HRP as is, and thus, we have still have this mess... because I am fairly certain, that if the changes to shield boosters would have done, they would have done a very similar change to HRP. So that leave SCB banks and Guardian Shield Reinforcement, where the later is mostly useless on bigger ships, as that gives an absolute shield boost by a number, not a percentage. And SCB should have lost some effectiveness if shields could not be boosted as much by shield boosters...

but it would still not solve the basic problem, that if these military slots would have been unlocked, they would give these ships a totally new use, that was not intended in the first place.



I have suggested, that every ships should have more bulkheads to choose from, the current hulls we have could be the military bulkheads, so we would need to add,
  • trader
  • explorer
  • mining
bulkheads, we have 5 bulkheads today, and if we call all of those military bulkheads, we could add a few variants of these new roles

So stuff we could change to optimize the bulkheads is to change the internal components, so for trader we could go with smaller PD, Thrusters etc to maximize the cargo capacity for a trader. We could even change the size of the weapons slots.... to smaller compared to the military bulkheads... so what todo with the hauler for example? as it currently have a single small hard point, and it makes sense for the military variant to have 2 small... (there is another a potential for a second small weapon).
For explorer, we could add a size bigger FSD, and have smaller other modules, and even skip some bigger optional slots for less weight, etc.
So we could create a lot of new specialized that excel in specific category at the expense on other things... like speed, jump, cargo capacity etc. etc.


Sadly this suggestion have some huge isues , take the type 9, how much cargo could we add to this with a trader bulkhead? and would it really "fit" inside the ship with a trader bulkhead? Before it got its second size 8 slot, then it would not have been an issue, but now... The core balance would be change alot.... and how could we even begin to implement this now, without causing huge issues? and if redo the existing bulkheads too, then retrofitting existing ships is another nightmare... and trying to have existing to be called legacy would not solve the issues, as we have alreayd seen with engineering that legacy engineered modules can still be superior to what we can do today, I am lucky owner of a size 5 shield for my trade cutter! this is no longer attainable for any players who did not get this in the old engineering system. why would i ever re-engineer that shield if there is nothing new that is better? same issue would we have if we tried a legacy bulkheads approach.
 

Crimson Echo

Crimson Echo
This might cause more issues w.r.t balance etc than it would solve. The idea of civillian variants of military ships were firepower and armour is traded for the slots being unlocked vs the orginal version might be neat. The issue is that for most ship sizes and roles there already exist effectively equiv. Civillian ships. (Lakon's Type line of ships comes to mind)
 
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