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[Jackundor]

i find it rather bad, like incentives to build in lower cost hullmods for extra buffs? probably ok, but debuffs? yeah no thanks.... Though overall this "fixes" a problem that i just don't think is a problem... "oh but you only build in the most expensive hullmods" which is a problem why exactly?

[Schwartz]

Also, no we don't just S-Mod the most expensive hullmods. Adding Heavy Armor to a high-tech ship just because it's an expensive hullmod is a total waste, just as adding Missile Racks to a Paragon is bordering on silly. Even for a Dominator the choice is not so clear-cut, because the Armor hullmods come in a bunch (Armor, EMP resist, Armored Mounts.. possibly Thrusters). It depends on the role. For a brawling Domi I'd just slap Annihilators on there and possibly make the S-Mods more about mobility and survivability. A RoF nerf would certainly not make me want to use Missile Racks at all.

That buff to frigate damage sounds pretty big too; if I'd heard about it I'd have an opinion, but I don't follow Twitter stuff. 

[Grievous69]

"oh but you only build in the most expensive hullmods" which is a problem why exactly?

I'm trying to understand that as well. Sure it was discussed a couple of times but never did it appear as an issue for the game. Think even Alex defended that system (obviously) when it was first introduced, since you're committing to a hullmod. But now it seems the Missile Autoloader hullmod made him introduce a new mechanic, which is ughhh, problem with the hullmod clearly then.

Man, waiting for more than a year on an update only to see dev time spent on fixing what ain't broken.

Someone on Twitter said how Alex became his own modder. Didn't see that then, definitely see it now.

[prav]

Why not just soup up some cheap mods to have the same cost and potency as HA/EMR? There's just not that much actually competing for the S-mod slots - since they're fixed cost you just look at the total strength of the mod, and the list of high-powered, high OP mods is short. But give me 50% more Unstable Injector or Hardened Shields for 50% more OP and I certainly start considering alternatives.

In several ways that's what this is already doing, but in a very roundabout manner.

[Alex]

I'm worried about Hardened Shield - it got nerfed last patch, with no matching reduction in OP cost, making it only worth using with s-modding (or on ships that just have oodles of OP, like the Paragon)... but I'll bet it's getting an extra nerf to being s-modded, because it's still one of the highest OP-cost hullmods...

It's 20%, 5/10/15/25 OP cost, and no bonus or penalty.

Now the power ceiling is way, way lower and still we're getting nerfs to the S-Mod system, even though it is itself a lower-power replacement of the previous bonus system. I don't see why it needs this nerf and I'll probably try to mod it out of my game if it happens. I don't need my Annihilator racks to fire at half RoF and make it impossible to actually empty themselves over the course of an engagement.

There's like 3 hullmods with a penalty and around 30 with a bonus. (That said, 50% might be a bit steep.)

... "oh but you only build in the most expensive hullmods" which is a problem why exactly?

It makes it difficult to add expensive hullmods and balance them with the OP cost without making them non-build-in. Which, to some degree is alright; there are other considerations. Still, adding this piece to the system cleans it up and - initial numbers aside - makes it possible to balance properly, which opens some doors design-wise.

... only to see dev time spent ...

(It was, like, 3 days. Only reason I decided to just do it now, it looked to be way less effort than I'd have expected.)

[bob888w]

Food for thought. The discord theorized the 3 mods likely hit with the smod penalty are EMR, Missile Autoloader and heavy armor

[SapphireSage]

I think, with regards to S-mods, Alex is on the right track to find some way to give choice as to what to S-mod into ships because it does tend to turn into your top 3 OP-cost mods that you'll always keep on because the benefits are so strong you'd be crazy not to. Everyone already know that Heavy Armor is almost a freebie for Low-techs like Dominator, Onslaught, Legion, or Mora, and then you slap on EMR if it has so much as has a couple Medium missiles or greater because you're getting the most OP to firepower bonus in the game with that. If you're high-tech, you'll hardly ever go wrong with stacking Hardened Shields on them and ITU was almost always guaranteed because range is so key despite actually being on the higher end of OP cost. The only thing holding those back *were* those expensive OP costs and the sacrifices you'd need to make for them, but now the sacrifice has just become an SP or two, and the slots you get to put them in so its more of a competition of which of the most-expensives do you want to permanently benefit from.

As an idea, instead of giving the S-mods benefits or debuffs based on what it is (thereby adding more hidden effects on enemy ships even more so as there's already a problem with not knowing *exactly* what hullmods listed on ships in the pre-combat screen *do* which will only be exacerbated with this. It'll be a real fun surprise getting nuked in my wolfpack run by a ship that just so happened to have a built-in that gave it +damage to frigates when *no other bonuses in the game give +damage against frigates* and I didn't know this) what about adding or subtracting OP based on the mods cost? When I was trying to figure out what to put in as my third S-mods on my ships I was trying to balance out something I'd want permanently that was also higher in cost, but what if say building in something Expensive like the incredibly bulky HA permanently "reserved" some of your OP for it, but was still cheaper and something cheap and lightweight could add to your total OP instead and the difference was just based on the average cost of hullmod as, for capitals, a fair number of them hover around the 15, 20, 25 range? This way Heavy armor isn't necessarily a given because it'd still cost OP, just less, and be expensive relatively whereas if you always wanted say Accelerated Shields so that they always raise on time as you need it, then it can add some OP your way such that every S-mod guarantees a strict X amount of additional OP regardless of cost.

Edit: Also, as an aside a large thing I do enjoy about the refit screen is being able to build around a situation to counter an opponent and a lot of examples can be seen here with respect to builds centered around countering the doritos and Zig. Other examples include slapping on Solar Shielding against Tri-tach and the remnants, Piranhas when going to assault a base, Hellbores and HILs when dealing with the Hegemony or Church, or even ECM when dealing with the League. All options you can and might want to think about including for specific situations, but wouldn't want all the time like ECM against pirates/pathers that never use it, or Hellbores against Tri-tach's weak PD and armor. Built-ins run counter to that by making you want to slap in permanent bonuses and so focusing on something almost always generalized for any situation you might want to refit.

[BreenBB]

As for me its another unnecessary nerf, like Phase speed slowdown nerf, first of all, the decision cost means bad isn't best one, because some hullmods are already situational enough, like Heavy Armor which reduces maneuverability, or EMR which only benefit missile focused ships, so they aren't built in always already, its just nerf of ships which rely on armor or missiles, and make hullmod which supposed to just improve ship actually harm it looks strange, it is basically turning smods into dmods, and its quite logical what people will build most expensive hullmod from their loadout, if you have 1 sp which can apply any hullmod, its logical to built most costly one. Game have other more important problems, and smodding expensive hullmods is not one of them.

And if you don't like the fact what 10 Op and 40 Sp hullmods cost same 1 SP, I think there more ways to resolve that without complicating balance even more, like make expensive hullmods cost several SP points, or just give fixed OP count per spent SP on ship, or just leave as it is now. Story points have issue that you can gain much different benefit from spending 1 sp in term of usefulness, ranging from useless options, such as most quest options, like get little more reward in quest, or not raid objective in raiding quest, and receive twice less amount of money, considering that these quests don't give much reward, or use same point on built in hullmod, so reward ranging from gain insignificant reward to permanent benefit, but again, root of the problem is not that built in option is too good, is what that other options are too useless even to consider.

Also another issue I think, its also indirect nerfs ships with built-in mods, since they won't receive s-mod bonuses, like Apogee won't have bonus from Sensors hullmod, and non-science ship with built in will have it, to be honest this feature shift balance too much.

[Megas]

I am suspicious of extras on s-mods, especially if they have powers that cannot be gained any other way.  I am more concerned about unique buffs instead of debuffs, although debuffs may not feel good.

The extra range on High Resolution Sensors can be a debuff because it increases the radius when a ship starts to tick down on PPT.  It would be exploitive if there was a mod to reduce vision so that a ship does not tick down on PPT because it cannot see enemy ships.

Likewise, less fire rate on missiles can be used to enforce endurance on missiles left on autofire or on AI ships.

Unless implementation is too hard, just make story points give more OP, +5/10/15/25 per SP.

[Wyvern]

I'm worried about Hardened Shield - it got nerfed last patch, with no matching reduction in OP cost, making it only worth using with s-modding (or on ships that just have oodles of OP, like the Paragon)... but I'll bet it's getting an extra nerf to being s-modded, because it's still one of the highest OP-cost hullmods...

It's 20%, 5/10/15/25 OP cost, and no bonus or penalty.

Oh, nice! A slight buff from current patch, there. Huzzah.

[Grievous69]

I mean even if there was a penalty for a single hullmod in the whole game, I'd still ask the same question. Why add such a system to "promote variety" when meta players always find a way to min max something. So with these 30 hullmods that get bonuses, players will no doubt find a combination that makes each ship get the biggest benefit from it. I know this is oversimplified but I just want to show how in the end, not much will change, except people will need to read a whole lot more.

Also fair point about bonuses that appear only on s-mods. That just makes everything even more gamey.

Going back to the penalties, it's such a weird way to nerf strong hullmods. If Autoloader is so broken, make it innately have a long delay between missiles (since small missile fire pretty fast). Make EMR lower missile damage by 10%. Heavy Armour is honestly fine and situational, and I still don't get why it has that maneuverability penalty (it's the skills making armour ships very strong).

For the billionth time, if the goal is to make the game less boring, removing SO will help a great lot. We're making a fuss out of a mod giving more ammo, when there's one literally ignoring game mechanics and creating one dimensional builds that serves as a crutch for players that aren't sure how to get more power out of their fleet.

EDIT: Alex said he'll look into SO next patch probably.

[Alex]

The discord theorized the 3 mods likely hit with the smod penalty are EMR, Missile Autoloader and heavy armor

The Discord is correct.

... what about adding or subtracting OP based on the mods cost? When I was trying to figure out what to put in as my third S-mods on my ships I was trying to balance out something I'd want permanently that was also higher in cost, but what if say building in something Expensive like the incredibly bulky HA permanently "reserved" some of your OP for it, but was still cheaper and something cheap and lightweight could add to your total OP instead and the difference was just based on the average cost of hullmod as, for capitals, a fair number of them hover around the 15, 20, 25 range? This way Heavy armor isn't necessarily a given because it'd still cost OP, just less, and be expensive relatively whereas if you always wanted say Accelerated Shields so that they always raise on time as you need it, then it can add some OP your way such that every S-mod guarantees a strict X amount of additional OP regardless of cost.

I've thought about this, but that's - well, it'd work, but I think it's a bit boring - it would make "what to build in" irrelevant provided you were certain about the set of hullmods you wanted on the ship. At that point, it'd be simpler to have the SP give you a flat amount of OP; it'd amount to the same thing. Which, I'm aware has been suggested, but I don't think it makes for any interesting decisions!

I mean even if there was a penalty for a single hullmod in the whole game, I'd still ask the same question. Why add such a system to "promote variety" when meta players always find a way to min max something. So with these 30 hullmods that get bonuses, players will no doubt find a combination that makes each ship get the biggest benefit from it. I know this is oversimplified but I just want to show how in the end, not much will change, except people will need to read a whole lot more.

Well - if you follow that argument all the way through, why try to balance anything at all ever?

The point, though, is that the absolute most powerful thing doesn't matter all that much in a single player game. E.G. SO or a mono-Mora fleet are powerful and easy, and, alright, neither is ideal to have in the game. But what really matters is the range of *viable* (not *optimal*, there's only going to be like one of those, no matter what) choices the player has. And this system should increase that.

Going back to the penalties, it's such a weird way to nerf strong hullmods. If Autoloader is so broken, make it innately have a long delay between missiles (since small missile fire pretty fast). Make EMR lower missile damage by 10%. Heavy Armour is honestly fine and situational, and I still don't get why it has that maneuverability penalty (it's the skills making armour ships very strong).

Right - and, I mean, this is workable, but overall it means that strong hullmods will all gravitate to the 5/10/15/25 cost band, or be somewhat overpowered when built in. Nothing disastrous, but just fundamentally what you're suggesting isn't a solution for what you're suggesting it as a solution for.

[FooF]

Heavy Armor already has a maneuverability malus baked-in. S-modding adds another debuff? May I ask what it is before overreacting?

In all honesty, if only those 3 hullmods have penalties, I’m good. EMR is extremely powerful so I get the change, Missile Autoloader is really only game-changing for a handful of hulls and Heavy Armor is likewise only super-applicable to a handful of Low Tech ships. For my play style, it’s not that big of a deal. Interestingly, the Onslaught can afford to not build in HA because it has a lot of OP (and build in something else). It’s the Legion and Dominator that will hurt more.

[Alex]

Heavy Armor already has a maneuverability malus baked-in. S-modding adds another debuff? May I ask what it is before overreacting? 

The penalty is a bit higher (25%) and moved entirely to the s-mod effect

[FooF]

Heavy Armor already has a maneuverability malus baked-in. S-modding adds another debuff? May I ask what it is before overreacting? 

The penalty is a bit higher (25%) and moved entirely to the s-mod effect

[overreact]Totally unacceptable! I’m leaving forever![/overreact]

That’s actually quite reasonable and I have no concerns.