@gundrik That's a very interesting idea for a hullmod, though I can see it definitely being abusable. Most ships are already more powerful in the player's hands than the AI's (with some exceptions), and giving such a blatant buff to such ships at the expense of logistical stats isn't the best way to balance the pros and cons, because at the sort of stage a player would use this mod to buff their flagship, logistics (supplies and such) are rarely an issue.
I wouldn't recommend Peak Performance Time as a stat to buff here either, and certainly not by such a huge amount. Most capitals for instance already have 10-12 minutes of PPT. If you want to solo in a 20+ minute battle before you start to suffer CR losses, then go for it, but PPT and CR exist to prevent such scenarios, and encourage the player to retreat/deploy ships over time during long battles. If you're going to buff PPT or CR in any way, then I'd reduce the rate at which CR decays once PPT runs out (such as what the Hardened Subsystems hullmod already does).
As for stuff that affects a ship system, I don't believe you can achieve such a thing without heavy scripting (if at all) and you might need to do an awful lot of edge-case scripting. System cooldown time and number of charges (for those that have them) aren't "mutableStats", which means you can't simply change a ship's value in a hullmod. Whether they can be changed at all I do not know, but if they can it's a pretty safe bet it will be far more trouble than it's worth. On the flipside, all the other stat changes are easily edited in a hullmod file.
I'm not rightly sure how you can make such a hullmod interesting I'm afraid, because at the moment while potent, it's also kinda boring sorry to say. And at the same time, the penalties should also be more interesting, and have bigger impact on a late-game fleet where the player would be most likely to use it (and where it would be at its most powerful). There are a number of nerfs you could give the ship - more expensive weapons so you have to specialize the loadout; chances of engine and weapon malfunctions; overall improved flux stats but worse active venting rate - and some are more interesting than others. But balancing such a mod would be quite a challenge. I'd have to give it more thought.
TLDR: The concept sounds fun, but the current execution is a bit dull and potentially extremely abusable. Needs some work, but definitely deserves the time.
... it sounds like a great thing for stuff like the Hyperion and a few other High Tech toys, which desperately needs better CR and other bonuses to be competitive right now, as well as providing meaningful efficiency bonuses for certain player flagships, like the Aurora.
@xenoargh, forgive me if this is going to devolve into another balance discussion (and to the OP forgive me for not immediately addressing the point of the thread), but when you make statements like this as you frequently do...
If possible, can you disclose on whether your opinions are based on vanilla or your balance pack? Because:
- The Hyperion is one of (if not
the) most competitive ship in the stock game. Have you played the "Sinking the Bismar" mission?
- The Aurora is arguably the most powerful and verging-on-broken cruiser, especially under player control. It's price and logistical profile are extremely appropriate. Why would you ever want to make it cheaper?
If you're speaking from the standpoint of content within your mods, then you need to disclaim that as other forum users may not know that. And if you're speaking from the standpoint of the unmodified game, then I guess we just disagree very strongly on game balance... Out of curiosity, how much time have you put into the stock game to learn its ins and outs?