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Author Topic: Why is Restore Expensive?  (Read 7915 times)

Grievous69

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #30 on: December 08, 2020, 09:09:09 AM »

I think from an outfitting perspective, it's pretty clear that ships are balanced around their pristine stat values in terms of what weapon set ups you can use effectively, and how they perform in a fleet.
THIS. SO. MUCH.
I can't help but laugh when someone says "well actually a ship with d-mods is the norm". Yea sure, a frigate slower than a destroyer is normal, a cruiser with less range than a destroyer is fine, a cruiser that eats as much supplies as a dreadnaught is fine, a ship that can't even fire the cheapest possible guns without overfluxing is fine. One of the things that makes this game so bloody great for me is the build customization part. But when ships in your fleet can only fit certain weapons with specific hullmods to help alleviate the d-mods it gets pretty annoying.

Inb4 you don't need to build your ships around d-mods - Well I do unless I want to be caught by other fleets and watch AI suicide in half of my ships because they can't engage properly.
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IonDragonX

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #31 on: December 08, 2020, 09:34:45 AM »

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Do we finally commit to immersion? Does the lore matter? If it does, then repairs & Hullmods take time and money while zombie pirates just vanish with no feasible way to support their magical lifestyle. If it doesn't matter, then this is not a simulated sector, its just a really big arcade.
It is a game, and combat plays a bit like an arcade game (which is good), although it ought to be faster paced.  Starsector combat feels slow as molasses compared to other games. Reality can be bent for fun (or avoid boredom) or quality-of-life.
Uhhh... I'm saying "you can't have it both ways", you see? I don't get your point. Does money & time exist in the simulated sector? Why does it pick and choose when it applies? If we choose to build ships & industries it takes both money and time. If we choose to fix Dmods, it just takes money but no time? If we choose to greatly modify a chip with seven Modspecs, its free and instant? There's no consistency of price here.
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Gothars

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #32 on: December 08, 2020, 09:35:04 AM »

FWIW, I've been thinking of having an optional setting - during new game creation - that would make *endgame things* happen past a certain point in time, so that if you wanted a more challenging/pressured game, you could do that and be essentially on a timer to make things work. But it'd very much be optional; a lot of the appeal of sandbox games is in being able to putter around and do things at your own pace (and fine-tune your own difficulty by being more or less prepared), so I think that's important to keep.

But, yeah, if you have unlimited preparation time, that does take some of the challenge out. Which is not the worst thing in the world - you can still learn and improve (and then need less preparation), and so on - so the benefits of having a challenge are still there even if you can always get a soft landing by doing it later - but it might be nice to have a mode where it's amped up. Not sure exactly how (or even if) it'll be realized; just my current thoughts on the subject.

I think it would be cool if the start point and pacing of those *endgane things* were somewhat randomized, so you don't know exactly when something happens.
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Igncom1

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #33 on: December 08, 2020, 09:45:22 AM »

When it comes to the big question, why is restore more expensive then buying/building a new ship, I have some thoughts.

Gameplay wise I suppose it is to put a cost to using and risking rarer ship types that can't be as easily reacquired in the early to mid game. Losing a Shade should be kinda costly when compared to a Lasher, because Lashers are easier to acquire. It sucks sure, and promotes save scumming but honestly any penalty does that and I'm not sure the game should be built around preventing reloading.

If the game is more built for an ironman, no reloading, experience then high restore costs for rare ships seems fine.

Thematically, what of common ships? Or ships that a local faction can produce, even if others can't? Sure getting the replacements parts to rebuild a Shade at a hegemony ports should be expensive, as it's not a blueprint they have or can easily produce even if they do as it's not in their doctrine. A Tri port should, however, find it far easier and it does make sense for you to be able to rebuy or restore their kinds of ships at their ports. With the cost being if you made an enemy of a faction that uses ships that you don't have the blueprints/industry for, and so can't replace or restore at your own ports either.

And the same goes for commonly usable ship types. It should never be expensive to restore a buffalo transport because everyone has access to them.

Ships like the Legion 14th should be expensive to restore as spare parts for a model of ship not produced, anywhere, have got to be expensive or risk having luddite artisans make them from scratch for a luddicrous amount.

Restore costs should be dependant on those factors I believe. Possibly even giving factions like the pirates to trade, say, a bulk of fleets (from time to time) to a single fully restored fleet for an elite pirate threat! Giving variance where it makes sense to do so. At that point a restore is more of a choice, as restoring is cheaper yes, but restoring some usless d-mod for hull integrity for a ship that never sees combat might still be more useful to the player for the savings.

The current fixed restore cost just encourages reloading early game, replacement mid game which is just wasteful considering the supposed thematic desperation of the times (throwing away Sunders, when you can 3d print them for cheaper, or thematically make 'creative' repairs seems absurd), and late game you have infinite money so the cost doesn't matter any more.
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SCC

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #34 on: December 08, 2020, 10:05:39 AM »

Travelling between different colonies is far too easy to be a factor for restoring.
If the game is more built for an ironman, no reloading, experience then high restore costs for rare ships seems fine.
I do recall Alex saying that ironman is going to be the intended experience, or something like that.

And the same goes for commonly usable ship types. It should never be expensive to restore a buffalo transport because everyone has access to them.
[...]
At that point a restore is more of a choice, as restoring is cheaper yes, but restoring some usless d-mod for hull integrity for a ship that never sees combat might still be more useful to the player for the savings.
I don't think it's worth to bring logistic ships to the discussion, because I don't think anyone uses restoration for them. They're too common and various ships do exactly the same job as other ships of their type, just at various efficiencies, meaning there's very little downside to replacing one ship with another.
replacement mid game which is just wasteful considering the supposed thematic desperation of the times (throwing away Sunders, when you can 3d print them for cheaper, or thematically make 'creative' repairs seems absurd)
On the other hand, this absurdity highlights how different Starsector world is different from ours and what factors contributed to downward spiral after the collapse.

Igncom1

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #35 on: December 08, 2020, 10:13:05 AM »

Travelling between different colonies is far too easy to be a factor for restoring.

Really? I think it's fine.

If you have good relations, then sure it might seem a little easy but it would also be easy to buy most ships anyway.

Having to sneak into a port to fix up your faction specific ship seems like challenge enough to me. And as a cost to mangling your relations in the first place.
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Megas

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #36 on: December 08, 2020, 10:35:31 AM »

The current fixed restore cost just encourages reloading early game, replacement mid game which is just wasteful considering the supposed thematic desperation of the times (throwing away Sunders, when you can 3d print them for cheaper, or thematically make 'creative' repairs seems absurd), and late game you have infinite money so the cost doesn't matter any more.
True at the moment.  My concern is once story points get sunk into ships to optimize them (and offset removal of Loadout Design 3).  Then, reloading gets extended to the entire game, not just early game, if restoration costs remain exorbitant (and leveling up post-max is not very fast).

It is a reason why I use clunkers early.  I do not care if my clunkers die, I just patch it up or loot another.  I do reload immediately if my pristine Apogee starter (or other Black Market purchase) dies, though.  By endgame, I want the best and will get the best.

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Having to sneak into a port to fix up your faction specific ship seems like challenge enough to me. And as a cost to mangling your relations in the first place.
If I am sneaking into a port, it is to stealth raid and steal their blueprints so I can do the job myself at my colonies later.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2020, 10:37:54 AM by Megas »
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ubuntufreakdragon

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #37 on: December 08, 2020, 10:39:10 AM »

What is the average amount of dmods a recovered ship (that did belong to you before) has, lets call it x. (my guess of x is around 3)
restoring of a ship with x dmods should be similar ~90% expensive to buy a new pristine ship from the open market. (There should be a small benefit(10%) in already owning the ship)
this results in 90%/x recovery cost per dmod I see it at 30% of the open market price of a pristine ship.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2020, 10:41:05 AM by ubuntufreakdragon »
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Igncom1

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #38 on: December 08, 2020, 10:43:42 AM »

The current fixed restore cost just encourages reloading early game, replacement mid game which is just wasteful considering the supposed thematic desperation of the times (throwing away Sunders, when you can 3d print them for cheaper, or thematically make 'creative' repairs seems absurd), and late game you have infinite money so the cost doesn't matter any more.
True at the moment.  My concern is once story points get sunk into ships to optimize them (and offset removal of Loadout Design 3).  Then, reloading gets extended to the entire game, not just early game, if restoration costs remain exorbitant (and leveling up post-max is not very fast).

It is a reason why I use clunkers early.  I do not care if my clunkers die, I just patch it up or loot another.  I do reload immediately if my pristine Apogee starter (or other Black Market purchase) dies, though.  By endgame, I want the best and will get the best.

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Having to sneak into a port to fix up your faction specific ship seems like challenge enough to me. And as a cost to mangling your relations in the first place.
If I am sneaking into a port, it is to stealth raid and steal their blueprints so I can do the job myself at my colonies later.

Perhaps a ship can be story-point modded to be more easily restored? Like hiring a master engineer for the crew, making removing d-mods easier or happen over time as the bloke works on it?

Even still some older ships, the truly irreplaceable ones, could almost stand to be un-restorable, no? Restoring a ship for which there is no blueprint should be impossible. Not that I would think that might be as fun as it sounds to me.

And yeah if you are at the point of having colonies, stealing blueprints from your enemies would be the better call, so I wouldn't call that much of a problem, more of an expected progression of the game right? I wouldn't buy ships that I can build myself after all.

I dunno, it's all just an idea but it would be better then the current set up, even if not perfect.
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Megas

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #39 on: December 08, 2020, 10:52:40 AM »

I suppose cheap Restoration for a story point per ship would be more efficient than blowing two or three for every new ship built.  Still would bleed a lot of story points if half the fleet died, just not as much (but still maybe too much).  Hmmm.

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Even still some older ships, the truly irreplaceable ones, could almost stand to be un-restorable, no? Restoring a ship for which there is no blueprint should be impossible. Not that I would think that might be as fun as it sounds to me.
If a ship cannot be restored, then better for it to not be recoverable in the first place.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #40 on: December 08, 2020, 12:03:18 PM »

I kind of like the idea of common ships being significantly cheaper to restore as a balancing mechanism.

I do hesitate to go too far with the 'make rare ships expensive to restore' thing. It just makes you less likely to want to use them which doesn't seem like a good thing to me. I want to use the cool toys I get without worrying about losing them. Maybe rare ships being 20%-40% more expensive to restore that market price, but not 100%+.

TBH, I feel the like the idea of capturing ships and selling them for profit isn't even bad gameplay. As long as the profits aren't huge, there will probably be easier ways to make money with less risk, so I can't see it being a real issue. If the player wants to go out and fight everything, why not? That doesn't seem like a gameplay problem to me, and a reputation system can be used to keep it in check.
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Megas

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #41 on: December 08, 2020, 12:45:16 PM »

If the player wants to go out and fight everything, why not?
Alex wanted to have events that feed into combat.  Better if player has incentive to seek out and fight instead of forcing it with whack-a-mole zombies or other frequent babysitting annoyances.
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Aeson

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #42 on: December 08, 2020, 12:55:43 PM »

Regarding cost of repair: Sure, relatively minor repairs are generally more economical than replacing a vehicle in reality, but D-mods are meant to represent particularly severe damage - significant weakening of major structural elements, major faults in the electrical system throughout the ship that can't really be fixed without more or less completely replacing the entire electrical system, engine damage of a sort that cannot be fixed except by completely replacing the engines, that sort of thing. This is the sort of damage that in the real world gets vehicles written off as not worth the cost of repair because the cost and effort required to do the repairs start to approach or even exceed that of a new vehicle, and if a vehicle with such damage does get repaired it's usually not fully repaired, just patched up enough to give adequate service until it can be replaced.

I am however somewhat inclined to agree with FooF that restoration costs should probably not scale linearly with the number of D-mods being removed.
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Morrokain

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #43 on: December 08, 2020, 03:04:28 PM »

Military markets and all of that stuff is early-game or mid-game drama.

*snip*

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Salvaging ships after a battle becomes the primary way to obtain ships
For me, it already is.  I make do with clunkers until I get a nanoforge and build Orbital Works to produce what I want.

P.S.  How much ships should cost?  Do we use Open/Military market as the baseline?  Or Black Market or colony production?  Me, I never use military market (no commission), Open Market only to buy a freighter or tanker in a pinch.  Most purchases are Black Market or colony production, which is significantly cheaper than Open Market plus tariff.

I think making do with clunkers until late game is supposed to be a valid playstyle that can be complemented with the industry skill line. At least this version pre-skill rework. But, either way that's fine. The thing is that you at least have to wait until late game with that strategy to get pristine ships.

What I was talking about was that if restoration costs are lowered to be in line with production/market costs, you wouldn't have to wait until late game. You could use this strategy to have pristine ships rather than make do with clunkers. I think that would likely invalidate ever using the market for ship purchase for most players rather than simply being a playstyle. You could skip a big portion of not only the game's progression if you get a capital derelict salvage, but a sizeable portion of the overall campaign system as well. However, if that's a design goal (Example: a player sets up a small unnoticed colony fairly early just for supplies and fuel and then salvages everything else they need and never even needs to be in the core other than raiding) then that certainly is one way to do it.

And that's before you get into the can of worms with new players and all these mechanics. If the game is being built around iron mode, new player traps will be present depending on the playstyle. If they're looking to salvage ships, they need to understand that higher costs are involved for each ship or they live with D-mods. Alternatively, if restoration is cheaper and a player wants to purchase ships off the market, they need to understand that higher costs are involved there unless they risk black market activity to avoid the tariff.

Neither scenario is bad design imo, but each has different considerations and potential traps and effects the natural flow of progression for the average player. Are you tied to the core or are you not? How much do you need markets? What is the value of a commission and military market? If military markets are a mid-game benefit of a commission, what is the early and late game benefits, if any? Similarly, what are the roadblocks to hullsize acquisition: Purely credits? Luck/RNG? Linked to progression in other features like rep or raiding? Story progression?

I look at these questions like an intricately linked web. Answering one definitely will effect what the answer needs to be for others. And if the needed answer differs from the actual answer, changes need to be made.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Why is Restore Expensive?
« Reply #44 on: December 08, 2020, 03:16:02 PM »

THIS. SO. MUCH.
I can't help but laugh when someone says "well actually a ship with d-mods is the norm". Yea sure, a frigate slower than a destroyer is normal, a cruiser with less range than a destroyer is fine, a cruiser that eats as much supplies as a dreadnaught is fine, a ship that can't even fire the cheapest possible guns without overfluxing is fine. One of the things that makes this game so bloody great for me is the build customization part. But when ships in your fleet can only fit certain weapons with specific hullmods to help alleviate the d-mods it gets pretty annoying.

Inb4 you don't need to build your ships around d-mods - Well I do unless I want to be caught by other fleets and watch AI suicide in half of my ships because they can't engage properly.

I think you are massively overestimating how much of a difference D-mods make in practice. Not to mention in a vanilla game, you're not going to run into everyone having massive fleets of pristine ships.

I actually think pristine ships aren't good enough, compared to D-mod ships, and suggested a skill line that is the opposite of Industry that specs into being better with perfect ships but that's a whole other topic, that's probably solved by the upcoming story point for free hullmod mechanic.

Speaking of that mechanic it already makes Restore stronger - now you're not only getting rid of D-mods, you're also preserving a story point investment. And yet, the price of restoring didn't go up. You're getting more value for the same money. And that story point investment is also not wasted if you don't restore (or don't restore immediately), because those free hullmods are still on the ship, D-mods or not.
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