With the ability to produce hulls in the upcoming 0.9 patch, the thought occurred to me that hull mods could be a kind of commodity unto themselves. Currently, if you find the blueprints to a hull mod, you right-click to learn it and then permanently have access to it on all your ships. Some are rarer than others (and some are known from the start) but the system is binary in that you either have it or you don't.
The current system works fine, but I wondered if there was a middle-ground somewhere between knowing and not knowing a particular hull mod.
Enter Hull Mod LPCs. (HMLPC)
The idea behind this is that like Fighter LPCs, you can buy/sell/find HMLPCs as loot and salvage. These LPC versions are single-use consumables that you can plug into a ship via a new "hull mod slot" (working identically to the current carrier fighter slot) and gives the ship the benefits of the hull mod. The caveat here is that LPC hull mods
cost no OP to mount. HMLPCs would be regulated much like fighters and weapons currently: there would be rarity levels, credit costs associated, some would be locked behind reputation levels/commissions, etc. Think of hull mod slots as a hull's natural ability to be modified whereas additional hull mods cost OP in order to fit them in.
The current system would remain as-is: you would still find blueprints and still be able to add hull mods at a cost of OP. The hull mod slots/HMLPCs would give you the opportunity to add hull mods that you don't currently know for a price. In addition, there would be "production blueprints" that would allow your colonies to produce given HMLPCs for your fleet to use or sell. Since some hull mods have an extensive OP cost, finding these rare (and valuable!) kind of LPCs or blueprints would be a boon indeed.
Let's get into some details, as I see it:
1.) Hulls would have a "natural" hull mod slot depending on size. As a general rule, it would go 1/2/3/5. You could expect bigger ships to have more hull mod slots and fine-tuning particular hulls may give more or less depending on what you wanted to do. For example, a "battlecruiser" (Legion, Odyssey, Conquest) might only have 4 hull mod slots but for balancing, the Odyssey has 5. Or perhaps a particular frigate has 2 instead of 1 (Brawler, for instance). Since HMLPCs would not cost OP when installed into hull mod slots, this would give ships more available OP to use for weapons, vents/capacitors, or even other (known) hull mods. Finally, elite variants of a hull (XIV, TT, etc.) may add a hull mod slot, further distinguishing themselves from the standard version.
2.) HMLPCs could only be installed when docked (already implemented in 0.9) and would be
permanent unless deleted. Removing HMLPCs destroys the LPC and has a nominal credit cost associated. Thus, if you find an ITU LPC (super rare), you better pick wisely which ship you want it on. I would hope this creates more meaningful decisions during ship loadout rather than just "Can I spare the OP?"
3.) D-Mods fill hull mod slots. I know Alex has been pretty clear that he doesn't want you picking/choosing which d-mods to take off because you could potentially game the d-mods to min/max. D-mods would fill available hull mod slots as a priority and then move beyond them into the current version of things if there were more D-mods than hull mod slots. You would normally not be able to remove d-mods from the hull mod slots via any way except "Restore." This gives pristine ships a little more allure or at least the potential to squeeze out a bit more performance vs. a d-mod ship of the same hull. Skills tied to reducing D-mod handicaps could restore hull mod slots even if D-mods are present.
4.) Safety Overrides is an exception: it can never fill a hull mod slot. It's OP cost is part of the balancing act of using SO. A few other very OP-costly hull mods might also get included here because that's what everyone would want to use the hull mod slots for if given the chance. Alternatively, certain very OP-expensive hull mods may take up two hull mod slots if that was the route necessary for balance.
5.) Potentially, you could move this into hull blueprints themselves. Cheaper, more ubiquitous substandard blueprints of a hull may give you access to a hull you want but it doesn't have the same number of hull mod slots as the standard version. Likewise, elite versions of the blueprint may be rarely found that tack on an additional hull mod slot.
6.) Generally speaking, in terms of rarity to commonality: HMLPC Production Blueprint > Hull Mod Blueprint > HMLPC for any given hull mod. Rarer hull mods (Tier 3) currently would still be found occasionally as an HMLPC on black markets, behind commissions, etc. They would be in limited numbers but they wouldn't be absent outside of finding a blueprint on an abandoned Research Station somewhere. Common HMLPCs would be cheap and could be found on open markets but as they fill a hull mod slot and have a slight cost to remove, it's not the cost of acquiring them that's the issue.
At this point in development, I wouldn't expect anything this major to happen but I like the idea of having access to certain hullmods without permanently knowing them as the current setup has it. It would also likely involve tweaking hull OPs across the board for all hulls because these slots would factor in. However, with the introduction of colonies and whatnot, HMLPCs would be another combat-oriented reason to invest heavily into colony development because having these items would boost your in-combat prowess.
Thoughts, ideas, suggestions welcome.
