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Suggestions / hacking for blueprints
« on: January 30, 2020, 04:37:08 AM »
To summarize up the current version of the game we have several options to gain blueprints:
-tech mining
not useful due the industrial slot's opportunity cost
-buying on market/black market
I have no experience with that, it probably lacks the rarities
-exploration/surveys
mainly research stations which are about to be nerfed
-raids
go to an outer planet with orbital/heavy industries, small population (5), no station
raid everyday for a month walk away with their most secret blueprints en masse
Someone already mentioned before that basically cores and blueprints are the endgame currency and I agree with that. My problem is that with the current RNG based blueprint gaining options it basically leads to two, quite boring options. Go for research stations in fast ships or raid 15 times a month a colony without meaningful defenses. Even with the increasing strength of the defenders.
Let me outline my idea.
The goal is to give the player the ability to gain blueprints passively and act as a serious investment even in the late game.
It'd require a building, say "hacker coordinator center" with an industrial slot (opportunity cost vs. additional income or stronger patrols) maybe with commodity demands. It gives a resource "hacking strength" that could give diminishing returns with the other hacker coordinator centers to make the building spam challenging at least.
The mechanic requires two steps.
First is the search, the passive data gathering part.
One option is that the hackers search for a new faction not known to you yet (all but remnants), expensive, one time investment, it takes long base time that can be reduced with more building.
Other is to unlock categories for the blueprints, like high tech, battleships etc. The price, time requirement can be something like price = const * sum blueprint base price in the category, similarly with time to prevent the unlock too early the endgame toys.
The second is the active research. The more specific the blueprint search the more expensive the hacking gets. Do you want a Hegemon battleship blueprint? Sure but it'll cost you a premium, because it's a battleship, aka important asset, it's Hegemon, main faction. Same with time. The key idea is to give the player the ability to narrow down the number of the blueprints that can come as option. This time actively hacking systems it could also give reputation penalties time to time or delays. After this part is done the player could get a pop up with the results and accept or disregard the hack for the found blueprint, this part could have a higher, delayed penalty as it takes time to find the hackers, that also scales with the value of the stolen blueprints. It'd be nice to have a check box so a player can hack for everything in a given category and avoid pop up every second day when the category is filled with low value blueprints.
What do you think about it?
-tech mining
not useful due the industrial slot's opportunity cost
I have no experience with that, it probably lacks the rarities
-exploration/surveys
mainly research stations which are about to be nerfed
go to an outer planet with orbital/heavy industries, small population (5), no station
raid everyday for a month walk away with their most secret blueprints en masse
Someone already mentioned before that basically cores and blueprints are the endgame currency and I agree with that. My problem is that with the current RNG based blueprint gaining options it basically leads to two, quite boring options. Go for research stations in fast ships or raid 15 times a month a colony without meaningful defenses. Even with the increasing strength of the defenders.
Let me outline my idea.
The goal is to give the player the ability to gain blueprints passively and act as a serious investment even in the late game.
It'd require a building, say "hacker coordinator center" with an industrial slot (opportunity cost vs. additional income or stronger patrols) maybe with commodity demands. It gives a resource "hacking strength" that could give diminishing returns with the other hacker coordinator centers to make the building spam challenging at least.
The mechanic requires two steps.
First is the search, the passive data gathering part.
One option is that the hackers search for a new faction not known to you yet (all but remnants), expensive, one time investment, it takes long base time that can be reduced with more building.
Other is to unlock categories for the blueprints, like high tech, battleships etc. The price, time requirement can be something like price = const * sum blueprint base price in the category, similarly with time to prevent the unlock too early the endgame toys.
The second is the active research. The more specific the blueprint search the more expensive the hacking gets. Do you want a Hegemon battleship blueprint? Sure but it'll cost you a premium, because it's a battleship, aka important asset, it's Hegemon, main faction. Same with time. The key idea is to give the player the ability to narrow down the number of the blueprints that can come as option. This time actively hacking systems it could also give reputation penalties time to time or delays. After this part is done the player could get a pop up with the results and accept or disregard the hack for the found blueprint, this part could have a higher, delayed penalty as it takes time to find the hackers, that also scales with the value of the stolen blueprints. It'd be nice to have a check box so a player can hack for everything in a given category and avoid pop up every second day when the category is filled with low value blueprints.
What do you think about it?