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[Megas]

I do not mind some random (input/output/whatever) as long as it either does not promote excessive grinding (tens or hundreds of boss runs for item and/or level grinding) or enable undesirable stuff easily and quickly bypassed or undone in favor of optimal results with a few quick reloads (e.g., open chest, trap stings you for damage, reload game, open chest, get powerful rare item, save game, kill the enemy).  However, no random, and you can memorize everything in the game then try to devise the plan to win.  For example, as good as Star Control 2 is/was, I still know exactly what to do and where to go to win the game as efficiently as possible after all of these years.  (I may not remember every single detail, but that will not interfere with winning the game.)  Or, I can look at Doom or Quake (or Super Mario Bros.), and crush levels (or be crushed if I try Nightmare and/or various unofficial conduits like pacifists not killing monsters).  I cannot do something like this in Spelunky or various classic roguelikes.  They are random enough that I cannot devise a single plan to win every game before I play the game then follow the plan mindlessly.

I dislike grinding for items or high levels in games like Diablo 2.  It was somewhat amusing that guides lists the items you should use, yet many of those items were rare enough (especially really rare stuff like Jah and Ber runes required for Enigma runeword) that you would likely not find unless you traded with people who likely duped items.

[Sutopia]

This would be true if you were talking about buying ships on the open market. However, if you have spent large amounts of time/resources to set up ship production facilities, that is an input and the outputs are the ships it produces so randomness in ship production that you have set up is output randomness. This could be neutral or bad. For instance, if hypothetically, there was randomness in what ships were produced, and you got a lot of frigates when you had paid for the capability to produce capital ships, you would likely be frustrated. I'm pretty sure that is not how the production will work though.

You've overlooked some player intentinally engage in fights to recover specific ships, especially for those extremely rare on markets, for instance, Astrals.
In that case you're risking a LOT more than just sitting at your colony waiting the ships you ordered to pop out. I do recall Alex mentioned you're able to specifically order your factory to produce specific ship so I don't think it's a problem that large as long as you got money. I got money, in every end game, literally drawned in cash nowhere to spend.
If properly set up, colonies should be self-sufficient thus making ships will be costing little to none. It's some once-n-4-o investment so I don't see it "risk".

I don't see why it makes the player special. If I rob a bank, I will get a lot of money, but so would anyone else who robbed the bank. The fact that there is a major reward doesn't make me special. I was suggesting big rewards for non-rng mission because it guarantees a big reward for a difficult task. The current gameplay loop is grind easy tasks and then pray to rnjesus that big reward shows up so you can buy it with the accumulated small rewards. I prefer guaranteed rewards associated with consistently difficult tasks (like destroying a large battle station or something). There is minimal rng involved in the task and the reward.

So can every AI fleet do the same so they should be able to "race" you to complete the task and take YOUR reward.
Also, every end game fleet should have recieved such prize so it'll be a hell lot more difficult to fight against but hey, that sounds awfully fun!

Note: the way Alex has implemented production line D-mods is Uniform Output Randomization, which is listed as "okay" on a sliding scale between "Bad - Okay - Great".  If the result of the randomization is extremely consistent and more-or-less under the control of the user, then it's not so bad.

Oh, hey, somehow missed this. I think it came up in more detail earlier in the thread, but basically it's a per-colony value that determines the number of d-mods ships get. 0% (and below) is most likely to generate 5 dmods. 100% is most likely to generate 0. There's some variance but it's limited, i.e. you won't end up with 3+ d-mods at 100% quality.

Things affecting it include doctrine, items, stability, and possibly a couple of other things.

Wierd, what I read indicates it's variable output randomness.

I do support the idea that the odds should be affected by player moves and I've actually emphasised it in previous replies.

I dislike grinding for items or high levels in games like Diablo 2.  It was somewhat amusing that guides lists the items you should use, yet many of those items were rare enough (especially really rare stuff like Jah and Ber runes required for Enigma runeword) that you would likely not find unless you traded with people who likely duped items.

That's why I've proposed the buff should be sufficiently minor for player to even bother grind for it. Similar to d-mods ship recovery, as the effects are minor, players generally ignore them.

[intrinsic_parity]

You've overlooked some player intentionally engage in fights to recover specific ships, especially for those extremely rare on markets, for instance, Astrals.
In that case you're risking a LOT more than just sitting at your colony waiting the ships you ordered to pop out. I do recall Alex mentioned you're able to specifically order your factory to produce specific ship so I don't think it's a problem that large as long as you got money. I got money, in every end game, literally drawned in cash nowhere to spend.
If properly set up, colonies should be self-sufficient thus making ships will be costing little to none. It's some once-n-4-o investment so I don't see it "risk".

Investments are risk. There is opportunity cost to spending a lot of money on something. That money (which I presume will be very substantial) could be spent on ships and weapons that will allow you to make more money fighting bounties, or it could be spent (presumably) on other colonies/industries that would make you more money so you could buy more ships on the open market. If your ship manufacturing facilities don't provide the same value as alternate investments, then you are effectively losing value. That is risk. If there is a substantial amount of randomness in ship production, you risk losing value that you could have gotten elsewhere. If you already have so much money that any investment is trivial, then the game is over anyway, there's no point in playing past that point except to mindlessly slaughter everything.

So can every AI fleet do the same so they should be able to "race" you to complete the task and take YOUR reward.
Also, every end game fleet should have recieved such prize so it'll be a hell lot more difficult to fight against but hey, that sounds awfully fun!

I don't think there are many AI fleets wandering around that would be capable of fighting a battle station. Certainly anyone could try to rob Fort Knox, but no one is actually capable of it. That is the point of end game content. Something that is very difficult to do, that you have to work very hard to achieve, with a big reward, not boring grinding of basic easy fights to slowly gain money. Perhaps we are just looking for different things in games...

Additionally, I would imagine that end game fleets would definitely have these hull mods, in the same way that they have many officers with skills. I'm also not sure if you were being sarcastic but that legitimately sounds fun to me. End game is super boring right now, you get a full fleet of good ships and wipe out everything with no resistance.

[Sutopia]

Investments are risk. There is opportunity cost to spending a lot of money on something. That money (which I presume will be very substantial) could be spent on ships and weapons that will allow you to make more money fighting bounties, or it could be spent (presumably) on other colonies/industries that would make you more money so you could buy more ships on the open market. If your ship manufacturing facilities don't provide the same value as alternate investments, then you are effectively losing value. That is risk. If there is a substantial amount of randomness in ship production, you risk losing value that you could have gotten elsewhere. If you already have so much money that any investment is trivial, then the game is over anyway, there's no point in playing past that point except to mindlessly slaughter everything.

Well what I proposed was random B-mods not random D-mods and B-mods actually INCREASES value of the outcome randomly. As Alex said you'll be able to completely remove the random D-mods given enough investment to upgrade your facilities to max.

I don't think there are many AI fleets wandering around that would be capable of fighting a battle station. Certainly anyone could try to rob Fort Knox, but no one is actually capable of it. That is the point of end game content. Something that is very difficult to do, that you have to work very hard to achieve, with a big reward, not boring grinding of basic easy fights to slowly gain money. Perhaps we are just looking for different things in games...

Additionally, I would imagine that end game fleets would definitely have these hull mods, in the same way that they have many officers with skills. I'm also not sure if you were being sarcastic but that legitimately sounds fun to me. End game is super boring right now, you get a full fleet of good ships and wipe out everything with no resistance.

No, it's not sarcastic, I'd love to see more challenge and competitions popping here and there. Especially the competition part, currently no AI fleet will try to race you to some goal and I'd love to see such mechanics implemented.

[Megas]

That's why I've proposed the buff should be sufficiently minor for player to even bother grind for it. Similar to d-mods ship recovery, as the effects are minor, players generally ignore them.

Since Starsector is not a multiplayer game, it may work decently enough, especially if player orders a ship, stats locked in, and needs to wait a while before the ship is produced.  If it was multiplayer, things with perfect stats command a much higher premium than a slightly inferior item that is only 1% less than max, then it probably be duped later.  Do not underestimate the lengths munchkins will go to get the best items with perfect stats.  Things can get irrational and insane when random items, multiplayer, and trading mix.  Even single-player as in Starsector may not be immune, depending how significant a perfect item or equivalent is (like boarding a Hyperion you cannot find for sale) and how easy it is to do it (boarding pre-0.8 was very tedious, but much less so than item or level grinding in Diablo 2).

I remember people offering an inventory full of Stones of Jordan (or equivalent) to me having the audacity to mentioning (in casual conversation) my lucky find of a perfect Windforce during a random Pindleskin run during the 1.09 era (when Amazons were the god-tier class).  Windforce was valuable, but one with 8% mana leech was much more valuable than one with merely 6% or 7% mana leech.  (As for what I did with Windforce, I gave it to my Act 1 merc.  I was mainly a barbarian or sorceress player.)  Eventually, 1.10 came, then Paladins became the super class, and infamously extreme-power stuff like Enigma (with high +STR, high magic-find, unlimited teleport) came.  I quit after one or two ladder seasons because I did not want to grind anymore.

P.S.  I avoided World of Warcraft (which became the next big game as I quit Diablo 2) like the plague because I suspected it would be a grindfest, and I did not want to get sucked into it.  Same thing with Diablo 3 when it came out later, although I might have bought that if it could be played offline and single-player like Diablo 1.  When I saw Diablo 3 could only be played on BattleNet, I walked away.  One more note, Starsector (then Starfarer) won over SPAZ at the time because it used on old-fashioned key to activate instead of online access beyond initial download.  If SPAZ was old-fashioned, it would have won over Starsector/Starfarer (because it appeared more polished and arcade-like).