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[Cyan Leader]

This post is in regards to the new hullmod coming in the next version (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1607515951469330432).

Going by the example of the Eagle of that tweet, it's carrying between 1-2 small missiles so the reload capacity is 15. The Reaper reload cost is 2 so that means we get 7.5 reloads, right? Or, if we consider the 2 Reapers and put the reload cost to 4, that would mean 3.75 full reloads. These numbers should be shown in the retrofit screen somehow, dynamically changing according to your loadout. Something like the attached picture.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Wyvern]

I don't think that makes sense outside of the niche situation of "every small missile on this ship is the same type of small missile." Like, consider the first screenshot. How many reloads does that ship have? Well, two, if it fires off the gorgons first. Or eight if it leads with every atropos it can fire.

[Cyan Leader]

Do you really think it's that niche? I don't often mix small missiles besides some edge cases, they are usually all harpoons, all sabots or all reapers. Either way, what I'm proposing is to not have the player need to calculate things every time they change their loadout and give just some sort of general idea. Maybe the full reload number should be the one emphasized?

[Grievous69]

Maybe not that niche but it seems like yet another number crammed in there. Which would become pointless as soon as you change a single missile.

If we're talking updating UI in refit screen, I think range is the most important one. It gets affected by so many things it's the only variable where it's a real hassle to keep track of. Not mentioning the importance of adjusting weapon ranges on a ship so AI doesn't derp out. Everything else is at least simpler to calculate.

[Megas]

I like to see the hullmod "red-out" if the ship does not have small missile mounts, like shield hullmods for a phase ship.

[Alex]

I like to see the hullmod "red-out" if the ship does not have small missile mounts, like shield hullmods for a phase ship.

It does!

Re: the number of reloads, yeah, I'm not sure it's important enough to show as a top-level value, for the specific case of "all of the missiles are the same" (which, ok, may be the case quite often, but not always, and this hullmod specifically encourages some degree mixing because you can then decide whether you need, like, more Sabots or more Reapers, based on the situation). It's something you'd get a feel for eventually, too, since it's fixed across all ships of the same hull size/mount count.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

I can't help but feel this hullmod is a bad idea. This is going to have knock-on effects way beyond the Eagle. Many ships are balanced around not having access to lots of missiles, like the Omen, Tempest, Hammerhead, and Paragon. Building-in this hullmod on those ships is going to be very powerful and is a buff these ships really don't need. If you want to buff the Eagle's effective missile payload up to mediums, just redo the sprite a bit to include two sideways facing medium missile mounts.

[Alex]

I think that's a fair concern, though it's very much not designed with just the Eagle in mind. I've gone back and forth on making it unable to be built in, but I think building it in has enough of an opportunity cost in not building in something else.

I mean, yeah, a Tempest would benefit from this - but it's just an extra 3 Sabots compared to building in EMR, for example. It sounds scarier when it's Atropos - there's 8 of those (2 from weapon, 6 from reload) but that might be an argument that the Atropos reload should be more expensive, perhaps.

But regardless, is something like an extra 6 Sabots (that you can't actually launch en masse) worth giving up hardened subsystems or hardened shields? Or 5 vents/caps? Ideally, the answer to that would be "sometimes".

... I also messed around with a cooldown mechanic for it at some point - where it would take an extra 5 seconds per reload.  That might be worth considering, honestly - maybe at a lower value, like 2-3 seconds. It'd also be a hit to the Atropos, which seems like it might be too good here.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

I think that's a fair concern, though it's very much not designed with just the Eagle in mind. I've gone back and forth on making it unable to be built in, but I think building it in has enough of an opportunity cost in not building in something else.

I mean, yeah, a Tempest would benefit from this - but it's just an extra 3 Sabots compared to building in EMR, for example. It sounds scarier when it's Atropos - there's 8 of those (2 from weapon, 6 from reload) but that might be an argument that the Atropos reload should be more expensive, perhaps.

But regardless, is something like an extra 6 Sabots (that you can't actually launch en masse) worth giving up hardened subsystems or hardened shields? Or 5 vents/caps? Ideally, the answer to that would be "sometimes".

... I also messed around with a cooldown mechanic for it at some point - where it would take an extra 5 seconds per reload.  That might be worth considering, honestly - maybe at a lower value, like 2-3 seconds. It'd also be a hit to the Atropos, which seems like it might be too good here.

In the high-tech wolfpack kind of fleet I like to run which has about 10 total omens and tempests, yes, it's very much going to be worth it to get an additional 60 sabots over the whole fleet, and high-tech wolfpack was already a very strong fleet composition. How many additional hammer torpedoes does this give a tempest, btw? I don't build-in EMR on tempests and omens because it's not worth it, but this absolutely is.

[Alex]

How many additional hammer torpedoes does this give a tempest, btw? I don't build-in EMR on tempests and omens because it's not worth it, but this absolutely is.

With the current values, 6 + whatever is on the rack.

[Amazigh]

... I also messed around with a cooldown mechanic for it at some point - where it would take an extra 5 seconds per reload.  That might be worth considering, honestly - maybe at a lower value, like 2-3 seconds. It'd also be a hit to the Atropos, which seems like it might be too good here.

I think this would be enough to truly differentiate it from EMR (especially on mono-missile loadouts) and makes it a bit more interesting, it gives you more ammo but with a cooldown/timer to prevent say, an eagle from being able to just vomit out 21(?) sabots/harpoons in the space of ~10 seconds (and this is without EMR/ missile spec boosting things)

Tbh, I think that a longer cooldown (even up to 10 or so seconds) could possibly be fine, makes the hullmod purely a "sustained" ammo booster, and not usable to achieve massive burst damage.
10 second cooldown would also bring it in-line with the reload time of the medium pod missiles (sabot/harpoon/reaper)

It might be an idea (for the player) that it only triggers a reload when you try to "fire" an empty weapon, and then goes onto cooldown after that, so you don't "forcibly" get a weapon reloaded just by emptying it, but can empty your racks, and then choose what one you want to reload first.
This would be especially useful with the limited reloads and with mixed missile types, so for example:
- Ship with one sabot rack, one reaper and this hullmod, no EMR.
- you have 2 points of reload left, and your sabots and reaper are both loaded.
- Use up 3 sabots to overload your target, fire a reaper to break armour, then autoforge another reaper and use that to kill.
This would be nicer than having the autoforge go "oh you emptied your sabots, time to reload them" when you didn't want more sabots, but wanted to be able to use a second reaper.

----

I'm also curious as to how this hullmod would interact with a reloading missile (as per the pilum) I almost feel like such weapons could be excluded from interacting with this hullmod.
Assuming there is a "reload cost override" column being added to weapon-data.csv maybe putting a negative value (or a zero?) in there could prevent weapons from being able to reload with this hullmod?

[Alex]

I think this would be enough to truly differentiate it from EMR (especially on mono-missile loadouts) and makes it a bit more interesting, it gives you more ammo but with a cooldown/timer to prevent say, an eagle from being able to just vomit out 21(?) sabots/harpoons in the space of ~10 seconds (and this is without EMR/ missile spec boosting things)

Tbh, I think that a longer cooldown (even up to 10 or so seconds) would be fine, make the hullmod a "sustained" ammo booster, and not usable to achieve massive burst damage.
10 second cooldown would also bring it in-line with the reload time of the medium pod missiles (sabot/harpoon/reaper)

This really mirrors my thoughts, yeah - the initial cooldown was even 10 seconds, for the same reasons, differentiation and making it clearly-worse than a proper medium weapon, rather than sometimes better. It felt a little weak with the cooldown? But maybe I'm just, ah, getting carried away by how much fun it is to volley off a ton of stuff. I think I'll give it another try with 5 and see how that feels, now that I've got more of a hang of what a decent loadout with the MA might look like.

I'm also curious as to how this hullmod would interact with a reloading missile (as per the pilum) I almost feel like such weapons could be excluded from interacting with this hullmod.

They are excluded, yeah.

Assuming there is a "reload cost override" column being added to weapon-data.csv maybe putting a negative value (or a zero?) in there could prevent weapons from being able to reload with this hullmod?

Kind of - there are tags to force the reload cost to 1 through 6, and a no_reload tag to exclude the weapon.

[SonnaBanana]

Can the OP range be reduced to 5/10/15/20? The hullmod seems quite niche to be that costly.

[Megas]

This really mirrors my thoughts, yeah - the initial cooldown was even 10 seconds, for the same reasons, differentiation and making it clearly-worse than a proper medium weapon, rather than sometimes better. It felt a little weak with the cooldown? But maybe I'm just, ah, getting carried away by how much fun it is to volley off a ton of stuff. I think I'll give it another try with 5 and see how that feels, now that I've got more of a hang of what a decent loadout with the MA might look like.

Sometimes, I take the 2 OP double Harpoon instead of the Harpoon rack of three because I do not always want the AI to spew the whole clip in a single moment, especially on ships that have a lot of missile mounts.

I mean, yeah, a Tempest would benefit from this - but it's just an extra 3 Sabots compared to building in EMR, for example. It sounds scarier when it's Atropos - there's 8 of those (2 from weapon, 6 from reload) but that might be an argument that the Atropos reload should be more expensive, perhaps.

Maybe double capacity and reload costs of most missiles and put Atropos at 3 for effectively 1.5?

... I also messed around with a cooldown mechanic for it at some point - where it would take an extra 5 seconds per reload.  That might be worth considering, honestly - maybe at a lower value, like 2-3 seconds. It'd also be a hit to the Atropos, which seems like it might be too good here.

Reload would help tame the AI.  When I used EMR and/or Missile Spec on AI ships with double Atropos, they cannot help themselves from dumping the entire clip on an enemy.  Sometimes, I like them to save some missiles for the next guy, like 2 OP Harpoons force them to do.

Maybe do that for the single Atropos (and Hammer).