Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Cyan Leader]

Before .9 lands, please consider adding an option to 100% recover weapons from player owned destroyed hulls. This is my main source of frustration in the game. I understand that in .9 we'll be able to manufacture weapons but considering station costs, blueprint rarity and everything else involved I'm sure some weapons will still be rare for most of the playthrough. I was glad when .8 introduced the new salvaging system and reduced frustration by a ton, but weapons often makes or breaks a ship and losing them often means reloading, which I feel the salvaging system was build to prevent. Not to mention how most of us don't entrust the AI with precious rare weapons since they would just disappear in time as the AI starts dying, by enabling this option it'd allow us to actually share these and give the fleets more flexibility.

I don't mind if enabling this requires a hullmod and/or skillpoint investment, I would just like a legit way ingame to have this be guaranteed.

My second point, which I already brought up in another thread, is to make player owned destroyed hulls maintain their settings and configurations. There is nothing more tiring than having to go ship by ship, refitting them and trying to match what you had before (and not even being sure since some weapons will be missing). Moreover, correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't this destroy the CR bonus that some of the skills provide? (since it's being done out of dock) Either way, this would be a really positive QoL change.

[Megas]

Moreover, correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't this destroy the CR bonus that some of the skills provide? (since it's being done out of dock)

It does (under some circumstances), which is why that one Industry perk that gives some CR to recovered ships is useless, because refitting the ships the way you want eats the bonus CR away.

Weapons are harder to replace than ships.  Because of that, I tend to rely on ships that can be effective with mostly Open Market weapons, which gets old fast.  I do reload games the moment I lose a ship with rare weapons on it, which is anything not commonly found in Open Market or pirates' Black Market.

[Alex]

As far as CR, spending unspent points should not reduce it. If it's a ship you had in the first place, then restoring it back to whatever it had should not reduce its post-recovery CR.


So for re-equipping ships - well... let's see. It seems like if this was something attained through a skill or a hullmod or whatever, that wouldn't be good - it's essentially a convenience, right, so that generally shouldn't have a cost. At least, it's a convenience in the case of common weapons. For uncommon weapons, it's more of a game-changer, but a positive one.

I think I've just about talked myself into making the base weapon recovery cost for your own ships being 100%. I reserve the right to change it back, though

Currently thinking that the CR, hull, supply cost, and a d-mod are a sufficient penalty for losing a ship, thought it might be a bit weird feel-wise to keep everything else; not entirely sure. If anyone has some thoughts on why that might be a bad (or good) idea, I'm all ears.

... is to make player owned destroyed hulls maintain their settings and configurations.

Oh, hmm - looking at it, it does clear out hullmods and vents/caps, doesn't it. Doesn't seem like there's a real reason to do that; let me make it so those are kept.

[Megas]

If there needs to be a cost to guarantee weapon recovery, then maybe link it to Reinforced Bulkheads or Armored Turrets hullmod.

I have no idea if weapon production from colonies will finally mitigate ship and weapon loss from combat.

[Alex]

Mostly what I think we're talking about here is mitigating the "sigh, I've got to refit these 5 ships *again*" scenario.

Autofit is there to make that less of an issue, though. So, actually, yeah - @CyanLeader - does autofit factor into this for you?

[Cik]

heavy energy weapons in particular are like once a campaign find for me

i'm pretty sure there are weapons in vanilla that i have literally never seen actually they are so rare

even midline stuff like ye olde railgune you find like a handful every now and then.

so if you lose a ship with railgune on it it's a huge pain to find again.

likewise needlers, blasters, you name it

personally i don't lose enough stuff for refitting to be a pain. for me it's mostly just weapon availability being pretty crazy

but i'm only one guy

that is to say, every time you lose something expensive it's basically irreplaceable. you have to do the galactic equivalent of searching your couch for your wallet for a few ingame months at least to find the weapons to replace the ones you lost (even in function.. they don't have to be exactly identical)

[Megas]

@ Cik:  Same here.  Even commission does not help for every weapon you may want (because no one faction has everything).  For really rare stuff that only a rare enemy may use, I have save-scummed such fights for maximum rare loot, not unlike magic-find runs in Diablo 2.

My flagship may have rare stuff, but the vast majority of my fleet is something like Dominator with Mark IX, Heavy Mortar, and either LMGs or Vulcans (Vulcans are semi-common in Black Market and as loot), Eagle and Falcon with Arbalest and Heavy Mortar, with lots of LR PD beams, maybe Graviton Beams after I loot enough.  If I want to use Sunder or Medusa in my fleet, they tend to have Pulse Lasers (fairly common in Black Market) and Light Autocannons.

so if you lose a ship with railgune on it it's a huge pain to find again.

This is the main reason to do tutorial - free rare weapons!  If heavy blaster or railguns do not drop in the ship graveyard, I seriously consider restarting the game and re-do the tutorial to reroll the drop (i.e., start-scumming).

[Death_Silence_66]

Armored weapon mounts could make weapons always recoverable, just like how reinforced bulkheads works.

[Cyan Leader]

Thanks a lot Alex!

Oh, hmm - looking at it, it does clear out hullmods and vents/caps, doesn't it. Doesn't seem like there's a real reason to do that; let me make it so those are kept.

It clears weapon configurations too, no? As in, the hotkeys and grouping.

Autofit is there to make that less of an issue, though. So, actually, yeah - @CyanLeader - does autofit factor into this for you?

It does actually. Really helpful when I save my loadout as a custom variant as it automatically fills out the weapon slots that I lost and reduces the tedium of having to configure again. I have two small issues with it though:

1. Every time I make changes to the variant in port it needs saving, including when getting a new weapon or when acquiring new skill that changes things around. Through multiple ships I can often forget to do it. This is more noticeable in the early-mid game when you constantly acquire new ships and weapons. The base saved ones are alright but they aren't tuned to my fleet needs and weapons. In all, I started treating saving each ship configuration as a backup, to reduce the hassle when that ship gets destroyed and I'm not sure if that's the intention of the system.

2. Custom variants aren't shared through all saves.

[Gothars]

How about a "Restore" button in the refit menu, that restores the ship to its last configuration before its destruction? Or, if not a dedicated button, an autosaved, temporary variant.
That would require the game to autsoave all variants before each battle, of course.

[mehgamer]

How about a "Restore" button in the refit menu, that restores the ship to its last configuration before its destruction? Or, if not a dedicated button, an autosaved, temporary variant.
That would require the game to autsoave all variants before each battle, of course.

I really like this idea, actually!  I don't know how reasonable it'd be to actually implement, though, since it means the game has to save quite a bit of data - it miiight eat up a bit of a PC's resources in a game already bottlenecked slightly by preloading everything at once.  Not that I'm complaining about that feature, it's really a game that benefits from zero loadtimes.

In general, regarding the issue faced by OP, I agree there's a desire to reduce the losses of valuable hardware, and in a way having d-mods, crew loss, and CR degradation is *already* a heck of a punishment for losing a ship, but since actually recovering the ship after battle isn't guaranteed, a part of me wonders whether or not weapons should be beholden to the same rule.  Personally I'm fine with losing the guns on my fancy ship when it dies, but I'm also a hoarder so I always have spare stuff lying about to put in the slot, at least once i get past the early game struggle for power.  Ultimately this seems to me like more of a design decision than a balance or QoL one, so whatever Alex decides to do (which seems to be the "make weapons come back with the ship always" route) is OK in my book.

[Linnis]

A restore button would help alot. I find using some D frigates and destroyers and not be stressed about losing them in battle great.

But the biggest annoyance is having to refit a few ships every major battle. Takes really long and is very tideous.

If the was a button on the fleet screen like (m)othball that could just restore it to the previous setting that would be great.

[Alex]

How about a "Restore" button in the refit menu, that restores the ship to its last configuration before its destruction? Or, if not a dedicated button, an autosaved, temporary variant.
That would require the game to autsoave all variants before each battle, of course.

Funny, wrote down this exact "maybe look at" item yesterday! Great minds?

If the was a button on the fleet screen like (m)othball that could just restore it to the previous setting that would be great.

Yeah, that's definitely a point. Originally I was thinking to have autofit available from the fleet screen and have it automatically step through ships that needed attention but that had some, let's say, technical issues.

Well, recovered ships keeping weapons should make this more or less a non-issue. If I decide to go back on that, then I'll definitely have another look at these.

It does actually. Really helpful when I save my loadout as a custom variant as it automatically fills out the weapon slots that I lost and reduces the tedium of having to configure again. I have two small issues with it though:

1. Every time I make changes to the variant in port it needs saving, including when getting a new weapon or when acquiring new skill that changes things around. Through multiple ships I can often forget to do it. This is more noticeable in the early-mid game when you constantly acquire new ships and weapons. The base saved ones are alright but they aren't tuned to my fleet needs and weapons. In all, I started treating saving each ship configuration as a backup, to reduce the hassle when that ship gets destroyed and I'm not sure if that's the intention of the system.

2. Custom variants aren't shared through all saves.

Thank you for the info!