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General Discussion / Re: Does anything genuinely benefit from the existence of story points and s-mods?
« on: April 11, 2024, 11:06:46 AM »What are you suggesting exactly? How am I avoiding the issue entirely?
I am not sure you are reading all the previous posts. Mattk50 and others have made clear suggestions. Below are what I have found as actual suggestions relevant to the topic. Please note that I have omitted suggestions not specifically aimed at SPs or S-mods to stay on topic, so e.g. retreat mechanics are not included as a separate suggestion.
What are we suggesting exactly?
1) Have a different mechanic for building in s-mods
A system for producing legitimate built-ins in the style of pirate and pather artifice, sacrificing OP and/or gaining assorted defects in the process, would have been a fantastic addition to the game. What we have at present took that idea and fused it irreparably with a pointless, limited meta-resource, the result of which is a travesty which fails in all aspects where an uncorrupted modification system would have succeeded.
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2) Rename SPs to something more accurately describing their function
But, "story points" is a downright terrible naming convention. It's a name that only makes sense from a developer's perspective and is indeed completely disconnected from the rest of the game's setting, it feel so arbitrary.
It could be renamed to something like "Captain's insights", "Crew Knowledge", anything else that fits other than something "story points" both story and points are out-of-setting terms that make no sense to someone from the perspective of playing the game.
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3) Rework game mechanics and ships if they just don't cut it without spending SPs
If retreat battles are dull and unfair, the solution is to rework them, not handwave the issue away with green points.
If certain ships can't function without s-mods, the solution is to buff them, not handwave the issue away with green points.
If leveling up officers and getting the skillsets you want takes too long and is too RNG dependent, the solution is to rebalance it, not handwave the issue away with green points.
That's the main meta-issue with story points. They are band-aids masking design and balance flaws within the game.
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4) Have a different mechanic for building in s-mods/ship customization which is not dependent on SPs
To address points regarding immersion: I fail to see any appreciable way in which an abstracted meta-currency that is spent to act in complete contravention to the rules of the game’s setting could possibly be construed as immersive. The ability to customise your ships is already central to the game and included in a far more rewarding and engaging fashion, but as I have indeed suggested in my original post, there are certainly interesting ways in which to expand on that. Ones that don’t involve BS meta-points.
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5) Make a system where built-in mods would also have disadvantages
I can think of a few ways to go about a different system, though nothing too concrete just yet.
One way is to approach extra OP from the other wise of the spectrum — instead of using s-mods to gain effects without using OP, allow the player to generate additional OP by building in powerful d-mods. This additionally serves to eliminate the immutability issue not only in that said d-mods can be restored off the hull, but additionally in that a lot of flexibility is given in what the freed OP benefits.
Thematically this entails messy and destructive rearrangement of internals to free up capacity for a feature, so it makes a lot of sense for a refurbishment to blueprint factory settings to clear the mod out with the rest. This also obliquely disadvantages s-modded vessels since the mod, in addition to its customary debuffs, is eligible for removal alongside other d-mods and increases the cost of refurbishment; it checks out that additional damage to an already unsafely-modified hull would be more of an issue than were the hull firmly within tolerances and the benefactor of well-established maintenance tradition.
This is a decent array of disadvantages, but the end result should still be fairly advantageous: the process fundamentally allows the player to sacrifice qualities of a given hull that they find unnecessary for a certain role, to make the hull more performative in said role. This could certainly reenforce the primacy of a hull's already optimal roles, but in best cases it would also open up radical modification into roles a given hull would not typically fulfill, at a capacity at least viable for play (and possibly even competitive in certain circumstances); that is not particularly divergent from what s-mods should already accomplish in their current incarnation.
The balancing doesn't necessarily need to flatline said advantages, but careful treatment of the debuffs should ideally keep away truly ridiculous exploitation. Arguably more importantly, the debuffs need to be substantial enough to be genuinely felt in play; this significantly determines how different the experience of piloting a given s-modded hull would be from its modified baseline, and that difference is what we're really after.
I would also favor locking the feature behind a skill (tech or ind obviously; ord. ex., makeshift eq., and derelict ops are obvious candidates for a smooth integration at 2nd, 3rd, or 4rth tier without much skill-rejiggering). While this doesn't necessarily contribute to the balancing of the feature in the longue durée, it makes performance advantages a bit more earned; more importantly, it reenforces the exceptional and unique quality of s-mods by increasing their averaged rarity and demonstrating that their use requires particular proficiencies in in-depth ship-design, rather than being an unexplained default advantage over NPCs.
Finally, the system provides fantastic opportunities for enhancing AI-used ship variants. Some factions might enjoy the occasional use of one or two relatively standardized modifications on domain spec in accordance with their doctrines; others, particularly the pirates and pathers, could add a menagerie of quirks and informal retrofits to their arsenal, reenforcing their DIY design thematics and providing more interesting opponents to some of the most commonly-fought fleets in the game.
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6) Have a built-in hullmod system separate from SPs
I would LOVE having built-in hullmods outside of the damn story points system.
I love experimenting with my ships and having to spend story points to upgrade ships sucks for that.
It also makes roguelite theme of the game feel like crap, since you can lose your whole fleet of smodded ships and just lose the desire to play, since it would take days to get those smods back.
There is a good reason i can't play the game without progressive smods anymore.
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6) Make SPs more thematic usable for dialogues, merge Elite Skill effects with the standard Skills, give Officers 1 Elite Skill without spending an SP
There are a lot of good points to this...
But I do like them.
The problem is that they do so much, that I'm only using them for certain things, like S mods, Elite skills, and officer elite skills, sometimes mentoring.
But I never actually use them as story points for the dialogue stuff. Because I'd rather have my ships be good.
I like the S mods, but with the permanency, and loosing story points. I see a lot of the issue people are having.
Maybe just give us less story points per level. and make them only for dialogue stuff.
Every player makes all their skills elite, (except for that one guy that commented earlier)
So just make all the players skills elite, no brainer there.
And as far as officers, just let them pick one skill to make elite, instead of it requiring a story point, just kind of let the officer switch it's elite around. (maybe put a timer on it if you don't want it abused)
As for how to implement S mods maybe just make them expensive like really expensive, like the cost of removing a D mod or even double that.
That also helps with the issue Sandor057 was talking about, with why would a lvl 2 pilot be able to have a an s modded ship jsut because their special. They couldn't, make that an expensive money gate, and then it will be only mid and late game players having them. If they are really expensive, I'm not just going to throw them on every ship. Colonies are set up to kind of be a money sink, just let this be another moeny sink for late game.
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7) Alternative resources for just about every SP usage
I don't feel strongly about story points one way or another. I wish borderline every SP use had an alternative resource that could be used in lieu of a story point. Portable minefields for escaping unwanted fights. Salvaged Domain-era components for s-modding ships and industries. Commissioner-provided tutorships for officers. Something like that.
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With that, to prevent another question asking for what is being suggested, let me reiterate and expand my previous post on this.
I do believe that the functions added by SPs are great additions to the game. I just wish Story Points in particular were not used for everything. Currently they feel like this video, and the square hole/Story Points are used for every aspect instead of s-modding being dependent on a high relationship commissioned contact, or your own Orbital Works. Extra dialogue choices could depend on knowing the right people and having high relationship with them. (Combat) Skills could just have their full effects for the Skill Point and not be split in two just for the sake of getting more milage out of SPs. Bypassing Combat Extraction should require a smuggler/agent contact on the market instead of an instant green-button bar visit. Etc.
Hope this sheds sufficient light on what is actually suggested here.
TL;DR
The new mechanics and functions provided by Story Points are good, however their reliance on a common resource (that being SPs themselves) and no other already established in-universe sources is less than optimal and would benefit from a rework.
