Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: BigBrainEnergy on February 14, 2023, 09:59:04 PM

Title: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: BigBrainEnergy on February 14, 2023, 09:59:04 PM
I don't know if this is actually a good idea, but I was thinking that the gryphon could stand to lose 50% of its (missile) rate of fire.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Shinr on February 14, 2023, 10:10:52 PM
It was subjectively frustrating when using Better Deserved S-Mods mod when the ships with built-in mods did not get s-mod bonuses.

But objectively this could get out of hand.

EDIT: Maybe get unique bonuses/penalties from being built-in that are different from s-mod ones?
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: BaBosa on February 14, 2023, 10:20:13 PM
It’d probably be better to have an option to give built in hullmods the s-mod effect or not. So then it doesn’t need to be a blanket rule.
Like a ( s-modEffect: true or false ) line underneath each built in hull mod.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Serenitis on February 14, 2023, 11:31:46 PM
But objectively this could get out of hand.
Which vanilla ships would cause problems if thier pre-built mods also gave them the conditional effects of those mods (which we don't know yet)?

Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Jackundor on February 14, 2023, 11:37:35 PM
bruh this would just nerf the gryphon into the ground
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: BCS on February 14, 2023, 11:40:49 PM
Okay so here's an unpopular opinion: Gryphon needs a buff, not a nerf.

You could have a Gryphon, a ship with no tank and which the AI is suicidal with, or for 5 DP more you could have a ship with an extra large energy mount and two medium energy mounts and a system that boosts its damage and with solid tank(Champion) Or for double the DP you could have extra two large ballistic/medium mounts and absolutely monstrous flux stats on a capital(Conquest) Or for (less than?) triple the DP you could have, in the future, one more large missile mount and an array of medium mounts with accelerated missile racks on a capital(Pegasus)

Hell, next patch we're also getting Pather version of the Manticore which will - presumably - be a large missile mount for just 11 DP with speed of a frigate.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: BigBrainEnergy on February 15, 2023, 06:34:51 AM
Okay so here's an unpopular opinion: Gryphon needs a buff, not a nerf.

Well the gryphon is in a weird spot where a lot of builds are fun but not that good, but it has one overpowered build that turns it into a monster. I'd like to see the needler/reaper builds do better without squall/harpoon becoming even more braindead easy. Maybe drop the missile rate of fire and buff the flux stats.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Doctorhealsgood on February 15, 2023, 05:00:38 PM
Guess you could pay story points to S-moddify it without eating into the smod slots because it was already built in to begin with? You are just going and making it better or something.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Wyvern on February 15, 2023, 06:44:59 PM
Guess you could pay story points to S-moddify it without eating into the smod slots because it was already built in to begin with? You are just going and making it better or something.
I like this idea. Makes it so you aren't permanently locked out of the s-mod bonus just because the hullmod was already built-in, but also doesn't give you the extra 'for free', which seems to have been Alex's main complaint about this idea in the past.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 16, 2023, 03:21:09 PM
Guess you could pay story points to S-moddify it without eating into the smod slots because it was already built in to begin with? You are just going and making it better or something.

Yeah, I like this idea, too - thank you for the suggestion. Did that; calling it "enhanced" in-game and using the same UI. This feels a lot better.

I like this idea. Makes it so you aren't permanently locked out of the s-mod bonus just because the hullmod was already built-in, but also doesn't give you the extra 'for free', which seems to have been Alex's main complaint about this idea in the past.

That, for sure. And also the logistics hullmods have some pretty major bonuses - at least right now, they may need to get reined in. But e.g. Surveying Equipment gives +100% to the survey cost reduction, and if every stock ship that had that got this, that'd be a bit extreme. Which, again, may be an indicator that the effect for those types of hullmods is too much, but it also seems pretty fun to be able to spend some story points to do this sort of thing - a hyper-efficient survey ship, a Dram that has majorly augmented fuel capacity, etc.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Megas on February 16, 2023, 03:34:43 PM
Guess you could pay story points to S-moddify it without eating into the smod slots because it was already built in to begin with? You are just going and making it better or something.

Yeah, I like this idea, too - thank you for the suggestion. Did that; calling it "enhanced" in-game and using the same UI. This feels a lot better.
Would that apply to built-ins that get penalties when s-modded?  If so, might want to block s-mods to built-ins if doing so would add a penalty and make it worse.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: BaBosa on February 16, 2023, 03:38:41 PM
Would you give ships with the expensive built in hullmods the penalty and then “enhance” them to remove it?

I feel like logistic hullmods are okay to make a little overpowered since all their effects can be done with credits buying supplies, fuel, tugs and or cargo ships.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Wyvern on February 16, 2023, 03:45:23 PM
And also the logistics hullmods have some pretty major bonuses - at least right now, they may need to get reined in. But e.g. Surveying Equipment gives +100% to the survey cost reduction, and if every stock ship that had that got this, that'd be a bit extreme. Which, again, may be an indicator that the effect for those types of hullmods is too much, but it also seems pretty fun to be able to spend some story points to do this sort of thing - a hyper-efficient survey ship, a Dram that has majorly augmented fuel capacity, etc.
Huh, yeah, that seems maybe a bit off; I wouldn't have expected s-modding logistic mods to add further logistical benefits. It may be just me, but I typically do already s-mod logistics mods into my non-combat ships just to get more such mods installed on them.

Then again, what would be a reasonable combat effect for s-modded surveying equipment? How would that help you fight? I'm not sure. An ability to scan enemy vessels for weak points, granting a chance of a critical hit that does bonus damage? A wing of makeshift survey drones, or perhaps a single 'free' explorarium frigate that just spawns into battle as a non-commandable ally with an escort order set on the ship with s-modded survey equipment? Maybe surveying equipment s-modded lets you capture nodes more quickly (hm, that'd be an interesting one, more valuable on frigates than on larger ships...)

I'm not sure any of those are really good ideas, but they're what I can think of offhand.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: braciszek on February 16, 2023, 03:49:56 PM
Builtin hullmods with penalties make no sense and are just musings to find a way to nerf them.

Builtin hullmods infer purpose designed and built functions. There is no penalty because the ship was designed around accommodating said hullmods.

Smods are trying to cram functionality into a modular system beyond its intended capacity. We can rationalize a penalty here.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: AcaMetis on February 16, 2023, 03:53:49 PM
Quote
Then again, what would be a reasonable combat effect for s-modded surveying equipment?
Increased in battle visibility? Though IIRC High Resolution Sensors already does that...maybe combining the two could lead to an interesting combo?
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 16, 2023, 04:19:14 PM
Would that apply to built-ins that get penalties when s-modded?  If so, might want to block s-mods to built-ins if doing so would add a penalty and make it worse.

Those just can't be "enhanced"; there's no penalty when they're built in.

Would you give ships with the expensive built in hullmods the penalty and then “enhance” them to remove it?

Hmm - I suppose that's a possibility! Though it's simpler UI-wise that way, and I also like keeping existing ships with built-ins as is, not modifying them with a broad brush.

Then again, what would be a reasonable combat effect for s-modded surveying equipment? How would that help you fight? I'm not sure. An ability to scan enemy vessels for weak points, granting a chance of a critical hit that does bonus damage? A wing of makeshift survey drones, or perhaps a single 'free' explorarium frigate that just spawns into battle as a non-commandable ally with an escort order set on the ship with s-modded survey equipment? Maybe surveying equipment s-modded lets you capture nodes more quickly (hm, that'd be an interesting one, more valuable on frigates than on larger ships...)

I'm not sure any of those are really good ideas, but they're what I can think of offhand.

The derelict drone one is pretty neat! Maybe a little extreme for vanilla, but still neat.

But then what would they do if installed on non-combat ships? And just in general for s-mods bonuses,  want to keep those in line with the idea that "if you want the bonus, chances are very very high that you will also benefit from the base hullmod effect". Otherwise you get stuff like installing and building in hullmods *just* for their s-mod bonus, and that seems backwards to me.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Wyvern on February 16, 2023, 04:31:52 PM
The derelict drone one is pretty neat! Maybe a little extreme for vanilla, but still neat.
Thanks!

But then what would they do if installed on non-combat ships?
Same thing they do now: allow you to install additional logistics mods above the normal limits.

And just in general for s-mods bonuses,  want to keep those in line with the idea that "if you want the bonus, chances are very very high that you will also benefit from the base hullmod effect". Otherwise you get stuff like installing and building in hullmods *just* for their s-mod bonus, and that seems backwards to me.
That's a fair point. My general thought on that topic is that combat bonuses from logistics mods should be tuned to be relatively weak, so that if your primary goal is combat ability, you'd almost always be better off with s-modding a non-logistics mod.

...Even with that, though, I could see niche cases, like someone deciding that their Tempest really needs s-modded Augmented Drive Field for an extra +10 to the zero flux boost for point-capping. (Do I think that would be a good investment? No, I don't. Would someone do it anyway? Yeah, probably. Also note that the listed effect here is an idea of what I think s-modding augmented drive field might do; I don't know what the current bonus is set as.)
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 16, 2023, 04:42:56 PM
Thinking about this a bit more - a logistics hullmod on a combat ship is a sacrifice in combat power anyway, right? It feels like increasing/augmenting its bonus may be a more fun direction to go in than reducing the amount of sacrifice.

(Augmented Drive Field gives an extra +1 to max burn for its s-mod bonus, right now.)
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Wyvern on February 16, 2023, 04:54:52 PM
Thinking about this a bit more - a logistics hullmod on a combat ship is a sacrifice in combat power anyway, right?
Sometimes! There are logistics-tagged mods that I take primarily for their combat benefit, with the logistical bonus being a nice extra.

The three that I like having on my combat ships are:
It feels like increasing/augmenting its bonus may be a more fun direction to go in than reducing the amount of sacrifice.
This is a fair point, though.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 16, 2023, 05:22:15 PM
Ah, that makes sense! In my head, Solar Shielding and Insulated Engines were not tagged as "Logistics" even though in reality they are :)
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Megas on February 16, 2023, 05:47:02 PM
  • Efficiency Overhaul: Mostly useful on larger ships that have particularly slow CR recovery, this one's a bit more arguable, since it only provides combat benefits if you're fighting several battles in relatively rapid sequence. So... I can't really argue that I take this one primarily for the combat benefits, but they're certainly a nice bonus already.
There are two hangar queens:  Radiant with Alpha core and no more than 50% max CR (in the yellow after one fight), and Ziggurat (-50% CR per deployment, and only 4.5% CR recovered per day with EO.  If Z e-dived, then it pays double deployment and loses all CR).

Sometimes, being able to fight a second round without imploding would be nice, especially if the hangar queen is the backbone of the fleet.  I consider Efficiency Overhaul vital for those two ships.

  • Solar Shielding: If I install this at all, it's pretty much exclusively for the combat benefit; I don't find the logistical side of it to be very useful unless I've decided to put it on every ship in my fleet.
Me too.  It is for anti-Ordos, and Ordos, being significantly stronger than any human faction, is the only recurring enemy that seems to matter late in the game.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: SonnaBanana on February 16, 2023, 05:48:12 PM
Will completely fixed hullmods like Ground Support Package, Vast Hangar and Salvage Gantry be s-moddable?
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: FooF on February 16, 2023, 05:50:39 PM
(Augmented Drive Field gives an extra +1 to max burn for its s-mod bonus, right now.)

Not to hijack but I would...kill...for an Augmented Drive Field that was +1 Burn but half the OP cost and the S-modded version was +2 Burn speed. Most of the time, I only need +1 Burn to get my one slow-poke Cruiser to hang with Destroyers or a Battlecruiser to not slow the whole fleet down. Right now, ADF is sort of an all-or-none venture with a huge opportunity/combat cost.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 16, 2023, 06:12:05 PM
Will completely fixed hullmods like Ground Support Package, Vast Hangar and Salvage Gantry be s-moddable?

Nope - this is only for regular hullmods that already have an s-mod bonus and happen to be built into the hull. Modding wise, though, it's entirely possible to add s-mod effect to hullmods like the ones you've listed, though.

Not to hijack but I would...kill...for an Augmented Drive Field that was +1 Burn but half the OP cost and the S-modded version was +2 Burn speed. Most of the time, I only need +1 Burn to get my one slow-poke Cruiser to hang with Destroyers or a Battlecruiser to not slow the whole fleet down. Right now, ADF is sort of an all-or-none venture with a huge opportunity/combat cost.

Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, IIRC it being somewhat unwieldy is the original design intent, to keep burn levels more meaningful and not something that can just be worked around easily for a few OP.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: BaBosa on February 16, 2023, 06:47:00 PM
I always thought that a +1 burn drive would be good but make it only 25% cheaper. So it’s less burn/OP but at least you’re not wasting. Though it should have a different s-mod effect to augmented field drive like maybe 25% less fuel.

I also like the idea of giving true logistics hullmods logistic s-mod bonuses. Solar shielding and insulated engines should get combat bonuses and possibly buff their non combat effects at the same time by a bit.

Also can I ask what efficiency overhauls s-mod bonus is? I use it on every ship for the quicker recovery and I’m hoping that is enhanced.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 16, 2023, 07:34:20 PM
Also can I ask what efficiency overhauls s-mod bonus is? I use it on every ship for the quicker recovery and I’m hoping that is enhanced.

It increases the "efficiency" portion, not the recovery one. IIRC 10% more, from 20% to 30%. Though, honestly, increasing the recovery might be more interesting; let me make a note to think about that.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: BCS on February 16, 2023, 07:59:15 PM
Just saw the tweet, and again I want to reiterate that giving massive bonuses to S-modded logistics hullmods is a straight-up buff because putting them on logistics ships is a no-brainer with no downside, especially since these ships are rarely replaced or lost. Story points are practically infinite so the player WILL get these hullmods built-in eventually, it's not a case of "if" but "when".

On a different note, Solar Shielding kind of sucks for its main purpose because unless you put it on all of your ships you always risk that one ship without it getting hit and then rest of the fleet has to wait until it gets the CR back. So how about making built-in Solar Shielding double as a "lightining rod", i.e. ships with built-in Solar Shielding are MORE likely to get hit in storms? Then if you have, say, 3/5/whatever Solar Shielded ships in fleet the probability of hitting a ship without it goes down to 0.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 16, 2023, 08:42:47 PM
Just saw the tweet, and again I want to reiterate that giving massive bonuses to S-modded logistics hullmods is a straight-up buff because putting them on logistics ships is a no-brainer with no downside, especially since these ships are rarely replaced or lost. Story points are practically infinite so the player WILL get these hullmods built-in eventually, it's not a case of "if" but "when".

It's definitely a buff. I mean, it's a buff even if the bonuses were tiny :) I think it might also make for some interesting decisions earlier, give you other options when you're far out from core and need more capacity after a successful salvage operation, etc. And I'm not sure that endgame fleets requiring less "stat stick" ships is a bad thing. (If, as was talked about in some other threads, there are mechanical changes that make logistics ships show up on the battlefield more often, that might change.) That said, going to keep an eye on it in playtesting and see how it feels; might tone it down some, might not!


On a different note, Solar Shielding kind of sucks for its main purpose because unless you put it on all of your ships you always risk that one ship without it getting hit and then rest of the fleet has to wait until it gets the CR back. So how about making built-in Solar Shielding double as a "lightining rod", i.e. ships with built-in Solar Shielding are MORE likely to get hit in storms? Then if you have, say, 3/5/whatever Solar Shielded ships in fleet the probability of hitting a ship without it goes down to 0.

Interesting idea! Seems like it runs the risk of trivializing storms for a fairly low investment, though, hmm.


... especially since these ships are rarely replaced or lost. ...

(Kind of unrelated, but seemed like a good opportunity to mention that you get bonus XP equivalent to what was spent on building hullmods in when you scuttle a ship or lose it in combat.)
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: SafariJohn on February 16, 2023, 08:59:31 PM
(Augmented Drive Field gives an extra +1 to max burn for its s-mod bonus, right now.)

TBH I am surprised ADF has an s-mod bonus at all. Does it still cost 8-16-24-40 OP?
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: BigBrainEnergy on February 16, 2023, 09:03:39 PM
TBH I am surprised ADF has an s-mod bonus at all. Does it still cost 8-16-24-40 OP?

Yes, all logistics hullmods are getting bonuses regardless of op cost.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: SonnaBanana on February 17, 2023, 05:36:14 AM
Just saw the tweet, and again I want to reiterate that giving massive bonuses to S-modded logistics hullmods is a straight-up buff because putting them on logistics ships is a no-brainer with no downside, especially since these ships are rarely replaced or lost. Story points are practically infinite so the player WILL get these hullmods built-in eventually, it's not a case of "if" but "when".

It's definitely a buff. I mean, it's a buff even if the bonuses were tiny :) I think it might also make for some interesting decisions earlier, give you other options when you're far out from core and need more capacity after a successful salvage operation, etc. And I'm not sure that endgame fleets requiring less "stat stick" ships is a bad thing. (If, as was talked about in some other threads, there are mechanical changes that make logistics ships show up on the battlefield more often, that might change.) That said, going to keep an eye on it in playtesting and see how it feels; might tone it down some, might not!
Shameless self-promotion: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19714
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: FooF on February 17, 2023, 05:54:59 AM
Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, IIRC it being somewhat unwieldy is the original design intent, to keep burn levels more meaningful and not something that can just be worked around easily for a few OP.

I agree that Burn speeds shouldn’t be too malleable but current ADF is kind of weird as-is. In general, only 1 burn speed separates the hull class sizes but ADF gives a bonus that shoots the ship 2 class sizes smaller. Cruisers have Frigate speed? Capitals move like Destroyers? It seems that if Burn speed was modifiable, it would be more graduated and you wouldn’t see such huge gains. It should take some serious engineering to make a big ship move 2+ Burn faster.

There’s also other ways to increase burn speed now that didn’t exist when ADF first came out. Logistic ships have Industry skills that increase it by 1 without OP so the +2 is less necessary on large haulers.

I guess the primary use-case, for me, is to put it on the one ship that slows my fleet down. I wouldn’t slap it on everything because I’d lose too much combat power. But that first Cruiser or first Capital that is the weight that slows the fleet down? I’d put ADF on temporarily until I get a second at that speed. Maybe put a “can only have X number ships with ADF in the fleet” type system?
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: SCC on February 17, 2023, 06:07:21 AM
I don't really care if logistic s-mod bonuses are strong, because logistics aren't something I ever have issues with. Then again, combat encounters are typically free supplies and fuel to me.
But that first Cruiser or first Capital that is the weight that slows the fleet down? I’d put ADF on temporarily until I get a second at that speed. Maybe put a “can only have X number ships with ADF in the fleet” type system?
Do people even use ADF in any other way? Find one capital ship or cruiser early on and it's worth it with ADF for the performance. Find more of them, and you either cannot integrate this many into your fleet and end up stashing some of them until later, or you can integrate them and you are more likely to simply drop to a lower burn level.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Doctorhealsgood on February 17, 2023, 10:52:13 AM
Huh the thread moved really fast out of the sudden
Yeah, I like this idea, too - thank you for the suggestion. Did that; calling it "enhanced" in-game and using the same UI. This feels a lot better.
Glad to be of help!
The derelict drone one is pretty neat! Maybe a little extreme for vanilla, but still neat.
I agree is a bit extreme but as a fan of the explorarium ships i would not complain at all if something like that it were to happen (To clear it up i know it will not happen just wanted to mention i liked the ships)
On a different note, Solar Shielding kind of sucks for its main purpose because unless you put it on all of your ships you always risk that one ship without it getting hit and then rest of the fleet has to wait until it gets the CR back. So how about making built-in Solar Shielding double as a "lightining rod", i.e. ships with built-in Solar Shielding are MORE likely to get hit in storms? Then if you have, say, 3/5/whatever Solar Shielded ships in fleet the probability of hitting a ship without it goes down to 0.
Yeah solar shielding can feel a bit binary if you want to use it to shield against storms. It makes sense that viable storm surfing should be a fleet wide expenditure but sometimes there just is that one ship you just cannot manage to fit it in or you just salvaged... That then pretty much explodes and it is a pain. Wish there was a way to at the very least fudge the dice in some way so to speak.
Just saw the tweet, and again I want to reiterate that giving massive bonuses to S-modded logistics hullmods is a straight-up buff because putting them on logistics ships is a no-brainer with no downside, especially since these ships are rarely replaced or lost. Story points are practically infinite so the player WILL get these hullmods built-in eventually, it's not a case of "if" but "when".

It's definitely a buff. I mean, it's a buff even if the bonuses were tiny :) I think it might also make for some interesting decisions earlier, give you other options when you're far out from core and need more capacity after a successful salvage operation, etc. And I'm not sure that endgame fleets requiring less "stat stick" ships is a bad thing. (If, as was talked about in some other threads, there are mechanical changes that make logistics ships show up on the battlefield more often, that might change.) That said, going to keep an eye on it in playtesting and see how it feels; might tone it down some, might not!
Shameless self-promotion: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19714
Would be fun if civvie/logistic ships had some incentives to field them by being able to support the rest of the fleet in some way. But considering they would still eat your DP it might be hard to make it worth it.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: WhisperDSP on February 17, 2023, 12:42:17 PM
Yeah solar shielding can feel a bit binary if you want to use it to shield against storms. It makes sense that viable storm surfing should be a fleet wide expenditure but sometimes there just is that one ship you just cannot manage to fit it in or you just salvaged... That then pretty much explodes and it is a pain. Wish there was a way to at the very least fudge the dice in some way so to speak.

Do mothballed ships get hit by solar storms?
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Wyvern on February 17, 2023, 01:53:06 PM
On a different note, Solar Shielding kind of sucks for its main purpose because unless you put it on all of your ships you always risk that one ship without it getting hit and then rest of the fleet has to wait until it gets the CR back. So how about making built-in Solar Shielding double as a "lightining rod", i.e. ships with built-in Solar Shielding are MORE likely to get hit in storms? Then if you have, say, 3/5/whatever Solar Shielded ships in fleet the probability of hitting a ship without it goes down to 0.

Interesting idea! Seems like it runs the risk of trivializing storms for a fairly low investment, though, hmm.
Having thought about this for a while longer, I like the idea, but think that implementing this as a lightning-rod effect is not ideal. I haven't been able to come up with a lightning-rod implementation that doesn't have at least one of the three following flaws: trivializing storms for a low investment, or it makes it 'optimal' to play around with what hullmods are installed on what ships every time your fleet composition changes in order to keep 100% protection with the lowest possible investment, or it still leaves a small chance of targeting non-solar-shielding ships and we're back to the original problem just with lower probabilities.

Instead, I'd suggest positing solar shielding as an active defensive field, where instead of shielding the specific ship it's installed on, it instead provides a portion of its effect to the fleet as a whole. Get the scaling right, and you'd get the same level of protection for a fleet with every ship having solar shielding installed, but you'd also get a fleet-wide half-effect protection if half the fleet (by DP, probably?) has solar shielding, and half the fleet doesn't.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Doctorhealsgood on February 17, 2023, 03:41:22 PM
Yeah solar shielding can feel a bit binary if you want to use it to shield against storms. It makes sense that viable storm surfing should be a fleet wide expenditure but sometimes there just is that one ship you just cannot manage to fit it in or you just salvaged... That then pretty much explodes and it is a pain. Wish there was a way to at the very least fudge the dice in some way so to speak.

Do mothballed ships get hit by solar storms?
I might be misremembering but i think it happened to me a couple of times.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 17, 2023, 08:01:48 PM
Instead, I'd suggest positing solar shielding as an active defensive field, where instead of shielding the specific ship it's installed on, it instead provides a portion of its effect to the fleet as a whole. Get the scaling right, and you'd get the same level of protection for a fleet with every ship having solar shielding installed, but you'd also get a fleet-wide half-effect protection if half the fleet (by DP, probably?) has solar shielding, and half the fleet doesn't.

Ah, so the same sort of thing Phase Field does! Hmm. Not sure if I want to do this (in significant part just due to taking the time for a mini-revamp like that right now seeming dubious), but it's a super interesting idea, and I'll keep it in mind!
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Alex on February 17, 2023, 08:39:31 PM
Do mothballed ships get hit by solar storms?

(I *think* it only happens if all of the ships have very low CR and even then it's extra unlikely; not 100% sure though.)
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Wyvern on February 17, 2023, 10:05:48 PM
Instead, I'd suggest positing solar shielding as an active defensive field, where instead of shielding the specific ship it's installed on, it instead provides a portion of its effect to the fleet as a whole. Get the scaling right, and you'd get the same level of protection for a fleet with every ship having solar shielding installed, but you'd also get a fleet-wide half-effect protection if half the fleet (by DP, probably?) has solar shielding, and half the fleet doesn't.

Ah, so the same sort of thing Phase Field does! Hmm. Not sure if I want to do this (in significant part just due to taking the time for a mini-revamp like that right now seeming dubious), but it's a super interesting idea, and I'll keep it in mind!
Makes sense! I like the idea, sure, but I'd rather not have it at the cost of delaying the next starsector version. It's something I could mod in if I decided I really needed it, anyway.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Serenitis on February 18, 2023, 05:27:38 AM
Having thought about this for a while longer, I like the idea, but think that implementing this as a lightning-rod effect is not ideal.
One of the big ship packs from years back had "Logistics" ships that ate up any CR hits from the rest of the fleet, and they were eventually dropped because they just didn't add anything but incentives for gamey behaviour.

If everyone is dead set on Solar Shielding being reworked, consider having it use a similar logic to tugs.
One equipped ship can give some protection to the entire fleet. More ships equals more protection.
It's a dock mod, so it's competing for p. limited space even on civilian ships.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Candesce on February 18, 2023, 06:12:16 AM
If everyone is dead set on Solar Shielding being reworked, consider having it use a similar logic to tugs.
One equipped ship can give some protection to the entire fleet. More ships equals more protection.
Given that storm strikes already scale based on the size of your fleet, the simplest option might just be for Solar Shielding ships to not count for strike scaling.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Doctorhealsgood on February 18, 2023, 02:13:39 PM
Why not make some sort of fancy sindrian ship that it is like the tug but instead of making you faster it gives fleet-wide shielding effects against the stuff solar shielding already does? They made the solar shielding tech out of necessity so it would be easy to assume they could go and find new ways to not get cooked to death by their sun. Something something drive field isolation... field. It doesn't have to have the same potency as solar shielding does but if you feel fancy you could let them stack together for it to work even better.
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on February 18, 2023, 03:57:09 PM
One of the big ship packs from years back had "Logistics" ships that ate up any CR hits from the rest of the fleet, and they were eventually dropped because they just didn't add anything but incentives for gamey behaviour.
SS+ logistic ships! Man I miss those days!

If everyone is dead set on Solar Shielding being reworked, consider having it use a similar logic to tugs.
One equipped ship can give some protection to the entire fleet. More ships equals more protection.
Given that storm strikes already scale based on the size of your fleet, the simplest option might just be for Solar Shielding ships to not count for strike scaling.
I feel like this would be a good design for it
Title: Re: Give the new s-mod bonuses/penalties to ships that come with built-in hullmods
Post by: Siffrin on February 28, 2023, 03:24:46 AM
It was subjectively frustrating when using Better Deserved S-Mods mod when the ships with built-in mods did not get s-mod bonuses.
You can toggle it in the settings.json to allow built-in hullmods to receive bonuses.