Suit specialization in tools makes no sense

Frags

F
Why can't I equip a tool with Dominator suit, for example, in a primary weapon slot or a second primary weapon instead of tool with Maverick?
It makes no sense. The tools as the weapons are not parts of the suits. Tools are detached devices and could be modded as well. Reduced tool consumption mod, for example, could be a tool mod, not suit mod. The suits have their own parameters which make them special:
Dominator - more armor
Maverick - larger backpack
Artemis - bigger battery

I even would go further, only one suit type and you put shield, backpack, battery etc. as modules on it with engineering for shield, backpack, battery etc. as well.
 
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SteveWW57

SteveWW57
Frags said:
Dominator - more armor
Maverick - larger backpack
Artemis - bigger battery
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You forgot:

Dominator an extra primary weapon
Maverick the Arc cutter
Artemis the plant scanner

Each suit has 3 weapons/tool plus the energy link and profile analyser. This is the way that the suits have been made unique. Otherwise you would only have one suit with a lot more modifications. I am content with this.

Steve 07.
 
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Lugh

Lugh
I mean you say they aren't parts of the suit but what makes you think that? its not hard to believe that the art. suit has computer equipment built in to analyze samples or that the maverick suit has been modified to handle the power draw of the cutter then that the dominator not having either of these systems built in allows you the space/weight to bring a second primary.
 

Linnunrata

Linnunrata
Frags said:
Exactly. Why not? Want bigger backpack? - engineer backpack. Want bigger battery - bigger battery mod on the battery, not suit.
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Probably because they already made three suits and engineering tree for them. Without tool specialization there would probably be two meta build suits - one for combat, one for stealing and the current artemis would just be pointless.
 

Darth Ender

D
Frags said:
My point is that why they didn't use the same approach as with ships. There are no mining-only ships or cargo-only ships.
The specialization of the ship depends only on installed modules.
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because they realized that was a mistake for ensuring longer time to play.

if i have upgrade paths on 3 different suits that i need to do 3 different tasks, that is more time to spend playing the game to upgrade them than an optional number of upgrade paths from 1 to 3 where my efforts are spent on interchangeable modules and the suits only really matter for aesthetics.

What they did with ships is arguably (rather easily arguable) a bad choice for gameplay as it makes it difficult to leverage the ships strategically and devalues unit balance which is often used to make for more thoughtful challenges to the player (more skill) by positioning the player to use certain items in certain scenarios.
 

TheRoninX

T
Darth Ender said:
because they realized that was a mistake for ensuring longer time to play.

if i have upgrade paths on 3 different suits that i need to do 3 different tasks, that is more time to spend playing the game to upgrade them than an optional number of upgrade paths from 1 to 3 where my efforts are spent on interchangeable modules and the suits only really matter for aesthetics.

What they did with ships is arguably (rather easily arguable) a bad choice for gameplay as it makes it difficult to leverage the ships strategically and devalues unit balance which is often used to make for more thoughtful challenges to the player (more skill) by positioning the player to use certain items in certain scenarios.
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They more than likely did what they did because there are an order of a magnitude less suit combinations that they would have to deal with. As apposed to what we have with ships. Three suits, three configs which is far less time designing and implementing the system. Personally I think it is a system that does not fit in a game all about customization but I don't have to pay the staff man hours.
 

Morbad

Morbad
Lugh said:
its not hard to believe
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It does further stretch my suspension of disbelief that these tools aren't more modular.

Linnunrata said:
Probably because they already made three suits and engineering tree for them. Without tool specialization there would probably be two meta build suits - one for combat, one for stealing and the current artemis would just be pointless.
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The Artemis is the best combat suit because it's got the most mobility and highest endurance, which easily trumps protection in any fight that doesn't involve being cornered inside a structure (in PvE I've already killed all the backup that could arrive from outside, while in PvP, I won't enter a structure where other CMDRs are holed up...I make them come to me). Lack of the cutter is the only thing that keeps it from being the only worthwhile suit, IMO.

I still think the current system was about the most needlessly arbitrary way to differentiate and incentivize the use of the various suits.

Personally, I would have liked something like the following...

Dominator:
  • Highest armor.
  • Highest physical strength, which would translate directly into carrying/lifting capacity, melee damage, and high-gravity tolerance/mobility.
  • Lowest base sprint speed, but due to the above strength considerations, the fastest walking and sprinting speeds above 1.2g or so, and possibly the only suit that was still mobile past ~2.5g.
  • Highest base energy consumption (and thus highest heat signature), but most efficient shield generator.
  • Highest mass, which would eat into vehicle carrying capacity, if we had a better inventory system, which we should, as well as worst mobility in softer terrain.
  • Worst thruster performance.
  • Worst life support performance/heat tolerance.

Artiemis:
  • Inferior armor.
  • No strength augmentation.
  • Lowest mass (other than the flight suit) and thus highest low to mid-g mobility.
  • Best thruster performance.
  • Lowest base energy consumption and thermal signature.
  • Most efficient lifesupport system and highest thermal tolerance.
  • Weak shields with high battery drain.

Maverick:
- An all-rounder generally in the middle of the previous two.

Flightsuit:
  • Worst of everything, except mass.
  • No shield generator.
  • Could still carry multiple tools/weapons, constrained by an inventory system, not arbitrarily dedicated slots.
 

Lugh

Lugh
Morbad said:
The Artemis is the best combat suit because it's got the most mobility and highest endurance,
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you're really stretching this... for one the mav has more than enough mobility and then you have the fact that unless you're stuck inside all the suits can sprint indefinitely except on high grave planets
 

Bigmaec

Bigmaec
Lugh said:
you're really stretching this... for one the mav has more than enough mobility and then you have the fact that unless you're stuck inside all the suits can sprint indefinitely except on high grave planets
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Huh? Sprint indefinitely? Care to elaborate?
 

Morbad

Morbad
Lugh said:
you're really stretching this... for one the mav has more than enough mobility and then you have the fact that unless you're stuck inside all the suits can sprint indefinitely except on high grave planets
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The Artemis suit can jump further/more often and has twice the total battery capacity. It can keep distance from an equivalent Maverick and run down the Maverick's battery. Without ship/SRV support, most Mavericks I fight will run out of air before landing a hit, because I'm going to stay at maximum rocket range.
 

Lugh

Lugh
Bigmaec said:
Huh? Sprint indefinitely? Care to elaborate?
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bunny hop. sprint, jump, coast, then repeat the second you hit the ground. Your sprint timer pauses while you are in the air. So unless its high grav where you can't really jump you can go practically indefinitely. You will eventually have to pause but I have gone well over 5km on a .23 planet before I ran out. This was in a mav that had no mods.
Morbad said:
The Artemis suit can jump further/more often and has twice the total battery capacity. It can keep distance from an equivalent Maverick and run down the Maverick's battery. Without ship/SRV support, most Mavericks I fight will run out of air before landing a hit, because I'm going to stay at maximum rocket range.
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considering the utter lack of pvp I have done on foot ill take your word for that. but as far as pve goes the mav is more than enough.
 

Linnunrata

Linnunrata
Morbad said:
The Artemis is the best combat suit because it's got the most mobility and highest endurance, which easily trumps protection in any fight that doesn't involve being cornered inside a structure (in PvE I've already killed all the backup that could arrive from outside, while in PvP, I won't enter a structure where other CMDRs are holed up...I make them come to me). Lack of the cutter is the only thing that keeps it from being the only worthwhile suit, IMO.
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You are without doubt right - I need to try Artemis in combat. I've just used Dom in PvE combat and haven't really had any significant problems with the mobility considering how potato AI is in mobility and... well, everything.

But yeah, definitely agree that the tools should be modular, merely noted that it was clearly their attempt to differentiate the suit uses by shoehorning them by tool use.
 

Linnunrata

Linnunrata
I have no clue in practice what kind of problems the AI coders face, but I wouldn't be surprised if the jetpack use was quite advanced. I mean, the AI seems to lack basic awareness of their surroundings even now, so would AI just jetpack randomly around if they enabled it? 🤷‍♂️
 
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