I support this.
And one more idea on how to add more control to the extraction of exotic modules while complicating the process itself: make it so that after defeating an enemy fleet, if its ships had such modifications with a quality higher than usual, then exotic shards of the corresponding one would be added to the resulting list of extraction quality, and removing the installed modules would turn them into these unified shards in the same way, with the only difference being that if you remove these shards, more would be guaranteed, but you would have to spend a lot of money on “Orbital Works” with “Pristine Nanoforge” .
Exotic shards could then be exchanged for entire exotic modules in the appropriate markets, with a less favorable exchange rate the worse the relationship with the faction that owns this market.
In this way, it is possible to organize the emission of the value that exotic modules represent and supply them to enemy fleets without sparing the player. That is, make it so that even if the enemy fleet has the maximum number of different types of exotic modules of green quality installed on all ships, then when you defeat it, the final loot will not contain even a quarter of the required number of exotic shards to exchange for a whole module.
I don't know if that would be very easy to code but anything to increase the NPC's use of exotics while not making them really easy to acquire for the player would be awesome.
By the way, you mentioned that you switched back to the previous mod version and I was wondering if that's save breaking for any save files that already had the latest version or if you can downgrade without problems?
Any complication of the system requires some solutions. It seems to me that the last proposal could be a compromise between leaving everything as it is (which is no good) and coming up with new regulators focused solely on rarity and randomness.
In the state for 1.8.5, it turns out that the player will sooner or later get what he strives for, and the world around him will remain naked and incapable of any action against him. Given that, as you know, money is not a problem in this game, it turns out that regular quality modules are available without any conditions. You just need to take the time to search the planetary markets.
And with the proposal above, it seems that this is even closer to the lore of the very exclusivity of the term “exotic”, since in their pure form such modules should be very expensive to obtain.
Consider that each type of exotic adds/expands the capabilities of the ship, and each type also has gradations in quality, which are also strategically applicable to their situations. This gives rise to quite a large variety of combinations of how each ship in your fleet behaves in battle on its own, or under your leadership. This is very cool! But having this mechanism breaks the balance if the opposing side does not have something similar in the same equivalent as the player.
Since regular quality exotics are available for money, I think this is an excellent entry point into using new mechanics. At any stage of the game, there are many easy ways to make good money. But the use of exotic modules of a different quality should already be a matter of fine tuning. You can't just give the player such powerful modifiers via "cut/paste".
If you use only randomness/rarity as a regulator, you may encounter a situation where, after spending a significant amount of time, you end up obtaining modules of a different quality, but they will not be the ones you need for your playing style.
Then you need to have some kind of exchange mechanism so that the time spent is not simply wasted, and the enemy fleets encountered, due to this rarity, will be ordinary, while the player's fleet will grow in its capabilities.
For that last proposal allows you to supply enemy fleets with exotics to the fullest, without worrying that the exotic equipment installed on them will simply be “cut/pasted”. Plus, it looks pretty lore. Modules are produced on planets from rare components. When ships are damaged in battles, only a small part of them can be extracted from the clouds of debris, and in order to extract more, you need to take the surviving hull to where there are orbital workshops, where some part will still be lost during extraction, since the modules are not removable.
All this in itself turns into a whole set of restrictions, forcing you to face a dilemma: agree that you will only get crumbs for future opportunities, or drag the surviving ships across the entire space, spending resources on their delivery, only to then spend even more only for the guarantee that even in the best scenario you will have to make a dozen more such flights in order to accumulate the required number of exotic shards to exchange for an entire module on the planetary market...
I see the culmination of justice here.
If you want to be the most powerful daddy in the sector, go and work. In addition, you have clear instructions about what to do and how, and not just an ephemeral belief in a chain of chance, among which you may someday get lucky.
You can also give the player the opportunity to mine these rare elements, like other resources are mined from planets and asteroids. Then those who begin their journey not with headhunting, but with more peaceful initiatives, will also not be left at a loss.
Yes, I typed a lot of letters here, but I really liked the concept of exotic modifications and upgrades because it gives the game new shades and impressions.
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Everything works fine when returning to the previous version. Don't forget to make a new save just in case.
I've noticed that Equalizer Core behaves oddly on modules. It seems the core applies to the module during simulations, but will instead apply to the main ship in "real" battles for some reason.
Pay attention to the hint for the exotic module if you are playing with version 1.8.5. It is likely that at the time of the actual battle, your fleet no longer meets the conditions under which the effects of these exotics should begin to work.