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Author Topic: Increased variety of D-Mods  (Read 6405 times)

Zibywan

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Increased variety of D-Mods
« on: October 05, 2017, 03:24:27 PM »

Ships in Starsector have a plethora of systems, and as the D-mod system stands now only a small swath of them show the ability to be crippled beyond repair.
It would be nice to see a bit more variety, both for immersion purposes, and also to further lessen the overall harshness of the early game by making "good" D-mods (ones that don't hurt specific ships quite so much) feel more common.

In addition to suggesting several new possible D-mods, I would also like to suggest increasing the number of max D-mods to 5, allowing more parts of the ship to show wear and tear.
 
NEW D-MOD IDEAS

Fused Turret Gyros: The turn rate of the ships turrets is reduced by 60%

Jammed Ammo Feeders: The ships rate of fire for Ballistics is reduced by 40%

Sluggish Charging Coils: The ships rate of fire for energy weapons is reduced by 40%

Fried Targeting sensors: Target leading for Auto Fire is much less effective, weapon recoil dissipates more slowly.

Loose Weapon Mounts: Adds a permanent 5-degree arc to target reticles, increases recoil effect, and greatly increases recoil recovery time.

Shoddy Power Couplings: Gives weapons a chance to have minor malfunctions. (Lower malfunction rate than 30% CR)

Crippled Maneuvering Thrusters: Ships turn rate is reduced by 50%

Disabled Targeting AI: Weapons cannot be set to auto-fire {OR} PD will not target missiles

Warped Shield Generator: Shield arc is reduced by (30-degrees? 50%?)

Faulty sub-system: Ships special system is useless

Weak shortwave Coms: Missile and fighter range reduced by 50%

Broken Hailing System: Ship cannot give or receive orders

Buggy intercoms: In battle weapon repairs take 50% longer

Exposed Conduits: Weapon and engine HP -50%
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Morbo513

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #1 on: October 05, 2017, 04:27:32 PM »

Most of these sound very harsh, but that's just a question of numbers - I really like the general ideas. It'd be cool to have varying degrees of severity to each d-mod so you could have a ship with minor dysfunctionality in many systems, or one with a few severely compromised ones
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Alex

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2017, 05:22:37 PM »

Hmm. The set of d-mods is intentionally limited to fairly broad ship stats that are as universally useful as possible. Sometimes a d-mod won't be a big deal for a ship, and that's alright, but generally the system doesn't encourage that being a common occurrence.

Consider what would happen if it did, per your suggestion - certain ship and d-mod combinations would become better than undamaged ships, and the player would be encouraged to look for those specifically. Heck, the player might even want to lose a ship in battle and save-scum repeatedly to get the "right" set of d-mods for that ship, to minimize its deployment cost. This doesn't sound like the kind of play-pattern we want the design to encourage, does it?
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Mr. Nobody

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2017, 11:21:50 PM »

Tell that to my logistic ships will you? Being able to diminish the maintenance cost of a Atlas directly affects how much dosh i get every cargo run, regardless of whether it is a contract, food or popping in a Remnant system to get stuff.
Tl;dr it's already the case
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AxleMC131

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2017, 11:40:27 PM »

Regardless of the disappoint fact that Mr. Nobody is technically right (Yeah, people already are doing this Alex...  :'( ), I'd be all for adding a bit more variety to the D-mod collection. While I consider this whole list a bit overwhelming - and some of the concepts way too damning to ever be ignored, like removing a ship's system (Eww. Bad. No. Ship systems are a key way to make a ship unique.) - I do appreciate some of them, and could definitely see them working in-game.

For the sake of discussion, the ones that popped out to me first as "good ideas" are generally the ones that relate to weapon mods, especially the ones affecting turret turn rate and weapon/engine repair speed, as well as the reduced manoeuvreability one.. Those sound like they could sidle in alongside stock D-mods easily, on any old ship, without being either completely insignificant or overwhelmingly crushing.
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Zibywan

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2017, 03:38:21 AM »

Quote
Insert Quote
Hmm. The set of d-mods is intentionally limited to fairly broad ship stats that are as universally useful as possible. Sometimes a d-mod won't be a big deal for a ship, and that's alright, but generally the system doesn't encourage that being a common occurrence.

This makes sense, and there may be cases where certain D-mods may only show up on certain types of ships. We already see this with only carriers getting damaged flight decks. Perhaps constraining what types of D-mods show up on certain types of ships is the way to go in the future?

There could even be some things like "punctured fuel tanks" and "depressurized cargo holds" that reduce the fuel and inventory storage for ships that are freighters, tankers, and combat/logistic hybrids. It may even be worth looking into the possibility of keeping specifically weapon effecting or combat oriented D-mods, from showing up on logistics ships.

Quote
While I consider this whole list a bit overwhelming - and some of the concepts way too damning to ever be ignored, like removing a ship's system (Eww. Bad. No. Ship systems are a key way to make a ship unique.) - I do appreciate some of them, and could definitely see them working in-game.

There are many ships I would still use the weapons frame for if the system didn't work. The hammerhead, Lasher, Enforcer, Sunder, Eagle, and Astral immediately spring to mind as being good frames, even without their special systems intact. As for very advanced frames, where the system is the selling point of the ship such as the Hyperion, Tempest, and Afflictor, paying to remove the d-mods from these already seems to be the norm, since finding the frames is often difficult to begin with, and their stats being tarnished ruins the ship for the people who usually choose to run them.

As for the list, it was meant more as a brainstorm or idea pool. I'd also prefer the in-game list didn't get too long, but as it stands now the pool of potential mods feels lacking, and I wanted to throw out as many suggestions as possible to get creative juices flowing. 
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orost

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #6 on: October 06, 2017, 03:45:46 AM »

Tell that to my logistic ships will you? Being able to diminish the maintenance cost of a Atlas directly affects how much dosh i get every cargo run, regardless of whether it is a contract, food or popping in a Remnant system to get stuff.
Tl;dr it's already the case

That doesn't work, though, does it? D-mods only reduce combat deployment costs, basic maintenance is unaffected.
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Alex

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #7 on: October 06, 2017, 09:19:42 AM »

Tell that to my logistic ships will you? Being able to diminish the maintenance cost of a Atlas directly affects how much dosh i get every cargo run, regardless of whether it is a contract, food or popping in a Remnant system to get stuff.
Tl;dr it's already the case

That doesn't work, though, does it? D-mods only reduce combat deployment costs, basic maintenance is unaffected.

It'll only work if you have the relevant Industry skill to make the d-mod cost reduction apply to maintenance. I did already acknowledge that it's a possibility in some cases with the current implementation, but there's a lot of gray area and difference between "happens sometimes" and "system actively encourages it" :)


This makes sense, and there may be cases where certain D-mods may only show up on certain types of ships. We already see this with only carriers getting damaged flight decks. Perhaps constraining what types of D-mods show up on certain types of ships is the way to go in the future?

There could even be some things like "punctured fuel tanks" and "depressurized cargo holds" that reduce the fuel and inventory storage for ships that are freighters, tankers, and combat/logistic hybrids. It may even be worth looking into the possibility of keeping specifically weapon effecting or combat oriented D-mods, from showing up on logistics ships.

Hmm, yeah, but the impression I got from your original post was that the intent of this is to ... let me quote, actually:
Quote
... lessen the overall harshness of the early game by making "good" D-mods ...
So that's what I was responding to.

What you're talking about here, though, yeah, that could be promising. My concern would be that in making the system more complicated, it's making it more difficult to accurately figure out which d-mods are meaningful for which ship - which is the reason for the current set of d-mods being small and relatively broad in effect, with a few specific d-mods (for carriers and phase ships) that seemed necessary. The cargo/fuel/crew capacity d-mods do sound interesting, though.
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FooF

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #8 on: October 06, 2017, 07:15:52 PM »

For me, there's really only 2 D-mods: Degraded engines and "everything else." I can live with "everything else" but degraded engines is instantly a deal-killer on any ship. I'd argue about half of the OP's suggestions would end up "deal killer" territory, which means I wouldn't salvage a ton of ships.

Reduced cargo/fuel is interesting, though. Unfortunately, since it has no effect on combat, it would be a "good" D-mod to have on pure combat ships. It really only affects transports/tankers negatively.
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cjuicy

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #9 on: October 06, 2017, 08:07:02 PM »

For me, there's really only 2 D-mods: Degraded engines and "everything else." I can live with "everything else" but degraded engines is instantly a deal-killer on any ship. I'd argue about half of the OP's suggestions would end up "deal killer" territory, which means I wouldn't salvage a ton of ships.

Reduced cargo/fuel is interesting, though. Unfortunately, since it has no effect on combat, it would be a "good" D-mod to have on pure combat ships. It really only affects transports/tankers negatively.
I honestly can live with all but Degraded Engines and Glitched Sensor Array. Compromised armor hurts me the least as I almost always use Reinforced Bulkheads, but that's mostly my paranoia. Damaged Phase Coils also stings like a B***
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King Alfonzo

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #10 on: October 06, 2017, 08:16:54 PM »

I wouldn't mind seeing a more serious version of Degraded engines that ups fuel used and more seriously cuts maneuverability, and make the more serious comprimised substructure mod reduce cargo. I feel cargo cap, fuel cap and fuel used could use some affecting by d-mods.

Morbo513

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #11 on: October 07, 2017, 04:39:10 AM »

As far as the choice to salvage a ship or not goes - if it's a hull I want, I don't care which or how many d-mods it has, it's getting salvaged and tossed into storage until I can afford to restore it
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Sy

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #12 on: October 07, 2017, 05:17:33 AM »

Regardless of the disappoint fact that Mr. Nobody is technically right (Yeah, people already are doing this Alex...  :'( ), I'd be all for adding a bit more variety to the D-mod collection. While I consider this whole list a bit overwhelming - and some of the concepts way too damning to ever be ignored, like removing a ship's system (Eww. Bad. No. Ship systems are a key way to make a ship unique.) - I do appreciate some of them, and could definitely see them working in-game.

For the sake of discussion, the ones that popped out to me first as "good ideas" are generally the ones that relate to weapon mods, especially the ones affecting turret turn rate and weapon/engine repair speed, as well as the reduced manoeuvreability one.. Those sound like they could sidle in alongside stock D-mods easily, on any old ship, without being either completely insignificant or overwhelmingly crushing.
i'll just quote this whole post, because i agree with literally everything in it. ^^


the only thing i'd like to add is that, even if adding a larger number of d-mods in general is undesired, the one d-mod i think is really missing is a shield-specific one. yes, Faulty Power Grid already indirectly affects the shield, but we also have 3 different hullmods that affect armor & hull durability, to a very large degree in combination. i feel, for well-shielded high-tech ships in particular, those 3 d-mods are often not a big deal, while for low-tech ships they can be devastating, and Faulty Power Grid alone isn't enough to even it out.

and unlike many of the suggestions in the OP, i'd say shield efficiency & upkeep (combined into the same d-mod) would count as "fairly broad ship stats that are as universally useful as possible".

it would also fit in nicely alongside Phase Coil Instability, even if the numbers aren't tuned to be quite as punishing (since PCI is introduced primarily to make pirate phase ships less crazy, iirc).


Reduced cargo/fuel is interesting, though. Unfortunately, since it has no effect on combat, it would be a "good" D-mod to have on pure combat ships. It really only affects transports/tankers negatively.
yep.. it could just be added as side effect of all d-mods though. a single one wouldn't be a big deal then, just as a single d-mod is (usually) not a huge deal for a combat ship, but having a few of them might make make a transport much less attractive.

could be explained with something along the lines of "makeshift replacement hardware for critical ship systems taking up cargo/fuel/crew space" or "parts of the ship becoming entirely unusable due to partially unrepaired damage in non-critical compartments" -- which would also fit thematically with the reduced upkeep costs, imo.

i imagine it would be unwise to store fuel in areas in danger of uninsulated flux surges, food in areas with strong radiation leaks, luxury goods in areas with missing extreme heat shielding, or crew in areas that may occasionally undergo sudden, unscheduled depressurizing... unless it's a Pather ship, naturally. :D
« Last Edit: October 07, 2017, 05:20:42 AM by Sy »
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Alex

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #13 on: October 07, 2017, 08:38:58 AM »

Oh, hey, I like the idea of a shield one - that kind of slipped through the cracks. As for capacity d-mods, I think it's either "only apply to relevant type of logistics ship" or, as you say, as an extra effect - maybe to Compromised Structure, which feels a bit weak for what it is, being the "this ship was in several pieces but the welders did a bang-up job, can hardly see the seams" d-mod.
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Sooner535

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Re: Increased variety of D-Mods
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2017, 06:06:24 AM »

If I may weigh in a hit >.< I feel like adding say.... 20? Different d-mods with say.... 3 levels of harshness apiece? Would severely limit the amount people save scum anyways, think about it. When you save scum to try and get 1-2 of the (10?) D-mods now you have an okay chance, but with 60 d-mods? Trying to get the right 1-2 becomes a lot harder simply because it's raising the chance you won't get it. Feel like that would be a nice setup. (Also why balance the game after people who are technically cheating? If they do it for that they'll do it for other mechanics)
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