Perhaps a little premature, but I've been thinking on the changes to ITU and DTC in 0.8. Since the topic at large was discussed months ago, I figured I'd split further discussion into its own topic.
According to the upcoming patch notes:
- Dedicated Targeting Core: reduced cost
- Integrated Targeting Unit:
- Reduced cost to match DTC
- Slightly increased range bonus for cruisers (+5%) and capital ships (+10%)
By my reckoning, this puts DTC at -/-/35/50 percent range increase, and ITU at a 10/20/40/60 percent range increase. On cruisers and capitals, this puts ITU at "must-have" and DTC at "I don't have ITU available".
My suggestion with this is:
- Make DTC a free built-in for (most) cruisers and capitals. Give it a bonus like -/-10/20 percent range. Exclude it from non-combat ships as desired.
- Make ITU compatible with DTC, for a slightly more modest 10/20/30/40 percent range increase. Total range increase would still be 40/60 for ships with both.
What I think are advantages of this:
- Not every build needs range, so builds that don't want to pay OP for more range are a little bit more competitive than if they just have +0%.
- DTC goes from "that option in my hullmod menu that takes up space now that I unlocked ITU" to a small bonus that players don't have to worry about.
- Purposefully omitting DTC from certain ships becomes a useful balance lever. (Or conversely, inventing a frigate/destroyer bonus for specific frigates/destroyers to make use of.)
- Minor, but one less bit of clutter in the hullmod selection screen. DTC can't be installed on the majority of ships, and once you have ITU, won't be installed on any.
What I think are the disadvantages:
- Getting capitals before you get ITU is gonna have a definite aspect of "man I wish I had ITU".
- Another bit of clutter in the list of installed hullmods.
You can of course, mitigate the disadvantage by making DTC stronger and ITU weaker. eg. -/-/15/30 and 10/20/25/30 or possibly even -/-/20/40 and 10/20/20/20. (IMO, making the frigate version more expensive with a higher bonus might not be the worst idea either. 10% is just barely noticeable.) This will of course make ITU-abstaining builds stronger as well, possibly turning ITU into a "do I really need this?" hullmod.
(A side note: This suggestion is functionally similar to a 'free range bonus by ship size' present in a certain popular mod.)