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[Grievous69]

Any time someone mentions it's a single player game, immediate counter to that is "why balance anything". Guys you're missing like a dozen steps between those extremes. Can we have a little nuance in discussions? Obviously it's not even in the same ballpark >giving up on all balance< and >balancing a mechanic that has an optimal path by introducing a new mechanic<.

I will once again bring up ships like Afflictor, Hyperion, Falcon(P) and so on, which are a clear optimal way of playing by maximizing your power as a pilot. If you don't see an issue there, then you shouldn't see an issue with s-mods now. I don't like the inconsistency. This single thing is not the end of the world, by I fear for the future of potential new needless complexities just to satisfy 5% of the player base.

[Alex]

... but now we need to twist the game around it.

(I think this is our fundamental disconnect here. To me this whole thing isn't a big deal, like, at all? It's a relatively minor tweak to the system; you get some fun bonuses, it's all smoothed out a little design-wise, hopefully making life easier for me going forward. A few hullmods get minor penalties, which - as one should expect, really, sigh - is what gets like 99% of the attention. But regardless - to me, at least - a lot of the reaction is out of proportion to the magnitude of the change. Which, fair enough, it's hard to gauge things without seeing them first hand. And I'll definitely keep an eye on this while playtesting to make sure it feels good.)

[SapphireSage]

I'm actually gonna say that as a concept, I've actually liked the mechanic of S-mods as a way to get OP via free hulmods. Hullmods range in effects on how they affect a ship and how you play it. You only really need to go so far as Megas's thread on experimenting with High-tech using Shield Shunt to modify their AI behavior to see that. Being able to add at least a couple of hullmods makes a big difference to ships that struggle with their OP count to even slot in one or two, tbh some of my Moras struggle with OP so much that the S-mods are their *only* hullmods and if I had just gotten an OP increase instead I would just be spending them on more vents or premium fighters and/or weapons instead still leaving them with little to no hullmods.

But naturally people are usually going to gravitate towards hullmods that play to a ship's best strengths. Some ships will have no issues with using a variety or being flexible enough that their viable choices can range between a few of them. Its just that for some other ship cases with clear roles, like Dominator for instance, its a no brainer to just slap Heavy Armor to get the most OP for your frontline buck. Here's the thing with that though, and its that less maneuverability as a penalty is both a limiter on Heavy Armor as a hullmod, due to limiting a ship's ability to rotate armor, and also not that big of a deal for the typical Low-tech ship who's already incredibly vulnerable if you manage to get around and behind their line as it only really accentuates what is already a big weakness for them.

Earlier, someone mentioned that they would be tempted to either build-in EMR to make it last even longer or leave it not-built-in for extended burst at the overall cost of lesser OP by building in something else (with its potential bonuses). It honestly seems like this might be an overall buff or non-effect for more variable ships with their more currently viable options, but will help somewhat expand the decision space for ships that have clear, singular roles like the aforementioned Dominator.

With regards to officers, I will say that typically I do build officers to match their ships and so am reticent to modify what ships I'm using in my fleet due to the higher cost of investment into a fleet. Between S-mods and Officers, if a planned fleet design doesn't work out as effectively as hoped, its very painful to start trying to swap out as I could be spending anywhere between 32 to 50/60 Story Points to completely design a new fleet from scratch. This feels like it goes at odds with the ability to quickly swap between skills and personal builds with a single SP and being able to retrain all officers instead of just found ones would help go a long way toward not requiring tons of time to retrain new officers for new ships again.

(As a suggestion, what if all ships had a permanent slot to begin with that could be used without any SPs. Some of the stronger factions would be able to use that slot as well to make them stronger, like the Hegemony and Tri-tach for instance. This could help players start with experimenting with permanent built-ins while not requiring investment beyond the ship itself and then we can get rid of the hidden mechanic that grants the leftover bonus XP for built-ins on scuttle as the freebie means spending an SP means they're invested in the ship anyway.)

[Hamakua]

A new negative attribute with either be inconsequential (then why bother) or will totally prohibit a mod ever being Smodded - in which case the story point gets used on the next most expensive (or lightweight best bonus) mod on the list.   This doesn't fix the meta issue.

Practically it's getting something like ~5-15 OP on a capital for a negative effect (cost difference compared to building in a no penalty 25 OP mod).
Absolutely no reason for the downsides to be 100% out of line with the cost (similar to the majority of the game's standard weapons and hullmods, those also offer various tradeoffs for OP).

Make all the ships the same.

A new mechanic is probably being added to increase variety if you do not want to handicap yourself.
It removes some obvious best cases and adds alternatives, that's the opposite of uniformisation.

It's a single player sandbox game.   
..
Silly and I roll my eyes at it - especially since it's a single player sandbox game.

If you genuinely do not understand why single player games need restrictions to make them fun just grab a pencil, some putty or a CAD program.
100% freedom with no rules to get in the way.

You are being obtuse.

My point in it being a single player game was to point out that if something is a little more powerful than something else - it won't matter much.
No restrictions at all would of course make for a very boring game, actually, it wouldn't be a game it would be a tech demo or some sort of numbers simulation.

I was critiquing the logical conclusion, you decided to comment "to the man."

And it still doesn't refute my point that if the maluses are too great most players will just default to the next most expensive OP cost mod Or divert to the "new best" mods with the double buffs/bonuses.   And if they are not then they will be inconsequential anyway.

"Meta" will re-establish itself and it will end up with the same end state where we are now. - except a slightly different.

It's a marketing thing -  Making all the enemies stronger would be the same as making all the weapons weaker - however the former is perceived by humans as less of a bad thing.  You aren't "taking away" something.

The maluses are similar - they are "taking away" something when the opposite could have been performed.  It's busy work.

That said, while I don't like the change it's not so great a change that it will make me not play the game or anything - it will just be yet another "game knowledge wipe" and we all start the "meta chasing" again from scratch.   

The "Same state" will be achieved in the end.  - and that's what I roll my eyes at.

[Buggie]

This single thing is not the end of the world, by I fear for the future of potential new needless complexities just to satisfy 5% of the player base.

From what ive seen in every other game the real 5%(well, its actually 1-2% usually) of the playerbase are the ones who spend their time in discussion forums getting passionately worried and complaining about any almost meaningless change that happens to their game and the actual 95% don't even know places like this exist and are just gonna see this as a cool update to the game they play.

[Grievous69]

This single thing is not the end of the world, by I fear for the future of potential new needless complexities just to satisfy 5% of the player base.

From what ive seen in every other game the real 5%(well, its actually 1-2% usually) of the playerbase are the ones who spend their time in discussion forums getting passionately worried and complaining about any almost meaningless change that happens to their game and the actual 95% don't even know places like this exist and are just gonna see this as a cool update to the game they play.

Fair points, although it's funny I'm being perceived as a complainer. I react with hype and happiness to almost every blog post and twitter tease. But when something bothers me, I want to get my opinions across as clear as possible. Hell if I never complained, feedback from me would be useless.

This might seem goofy but I believe with the few of us generally concerned and cynical folks, we keep the devs from going berserk and doing something "too experimental". I actually don't know how to explain this phenomenon with words but I know it happens in a lot of games with continued development.

Of course the average Joe just playing the game and waiting for the next update doesn't see or interact with any of this. Those people "vote" exclusively with their wallets and game time.

[Draba]

From what ive seen in every other game the real 5%(well, its actually 1-2% usually) of the playerbase are the ones who spend their time in discussion forums getting passionately worried and complaining about any almost meaningless change that happens to their game and the actual 95% don't even know places like this exist and are just gonna see this as a cool update to the game they play.

Sometimes it feels like every ~1000 hours people flip a coin, on heads the game instantly becomes the worst thing ever
Starsector isn't a hard exception, but the crowd here is pretty tame.

This might seem goofy but I believe with the few of us generally concerned and cynical folks, we keep the devs from going berserk and doing something "too experimental". I actually don't know how to explain this phenomenon with words but I know it happens in a lot of games with continued development.

100% my impression but I've pinned Alex as mostly being a "smile and nod" type, player feedback is obviously important but wouldn't give it too much credit for the big picture

And it still doesn't refute my point that if the maluses are too great most players will just default to the next most expensive OP cost mod Or divert to the "new best" mods with the double buffs/bonuses.   And if they are not then they will be inconsequential anyway.
"Meta" will re-establish itself and it will end up with the same end state where we are now. - except a slightly different.

The part on how it's a ~5-15 OP tradeoff does exactly that, don't have a simpler explanation.
Arguing with gems like "same, but different" seems as fun as mudwrestling Deepak Chopra so I'm out.

[Alex]

You are being obtuse

Please stay away from personal attacks and take a look at the forum rules.

My point in it being a single player game was to point out that if something is a little more powerful than something else - it won't matter much.
No restrictions at all would of course make for a very boring game, actually, it wouldn't be a game it would be a tech demo or some sort of numbers simulation.

I mean, I get what you're saying here, but I don't think it's a very useful argument on its own, which is probably what Draba was getting at. It's true as a generality, but - as you say! - clearly *some* amount of rules/balance is necessary, so it's all down to the specifics of a particular case, deciding what is and isn't needed. You could certainly make an argument against this idea, but "it's single-player etc" is more useful as a supporting justification for a more specific point.

The "Same state" will be achieved in the end.

In this case, the changes *should* make it so that a broader range of options is viable. Not all of these options will be optimal - almost by definition, there's only going to be one of those (unless somehow perfect balance is achieved, which, not very likely) - but still, viable. I think what you might be getting at with the "same state" point is that there'd still be an optimal path, which, fair enough. But - to your other point! - it's a single-player game, balance isn't *that* important, and there should be more viable paths, which is what really matters.

But when something bothers me, I want to get my opinions across as clear as possible. Hell if I never complained, feedback from me would be useless.

And I appreciate it! I'm not even going to say you're necessarily wrong here. I *think*, obviously, that this will be a positive (and also relatively minor) change, but we'll see. There's definitely a player-facing complexity component and it's something I've thought about for a while before moving ahead with this.

This might seem goofy but I believe with the few of us generally concerned and cynical folks, we keep the devs from going berserk and doing something "too experimental". I actually don't know how to explain this phenomenon with words but I know it happens in a lot of games with continued development.

(Not too sure about this aspect of it, to be honest. I know where I want the game to go, generally speaking! So randomly going totally off the rails isn't really a... thing? But at the same time, mistakes happen and a reality check is not a bad thing, either.)

100% my impression but I've pinned Alex as mostly being a "smile and nod" type, player feedback is obviously important but wouldn't give it too much credit for the big picture

Haha! Real talk, feedback is super important and I appreciate it. I'm also not going to just do something purely because of it, but the number of times it's made me look at something in a new way and ultimately make changes is too large to count. It's fair to say that player feedback has helped improve the game *a lot*. (That said, looking at the "why" of the feedback is often the important part.)

[Doctorhealsgood]

So uh... About that point of ships with already built in mods. Will they get the bonuses and stuff too or not? Because as someone said before it kinda feels weird for the specialized ships to be somewhat inferior on their niche to S-Modded ships.

[Alex]

They get neither bonuses nor penalties. And, yeah, I hear you about it feeling a little weird, but I don't think it works well otherwise, and, it fits with the theme of hardscrabble spacers improvising stuff that's better than the factory-made thing which is what s-mods already *are*.

[Vanshilar]

(In all honesty, I think the current gyros effect is a bit too much! I think - and this applies across the board - that it mostly shouldn't be the main thing you get the mod for. I mean, some amount of that is unavoidable if you have interesting effects, but still...)

I actually think the opposite, that it'd be interesting if some of the s-mod bonuses are stuff that is difficult or impossible to get in other ways. The reason is that regular hullmods can be stacked on ships as much as desired up to the limit of available OP, but s-mods have a hard limit of 2, or 3 with BotB. So the player has to make that hard, interesting decision about which 2 (or 3) bonus effects the ship should have. It's not unlike how the player can only choose up to 3 top-tier skills out of the 8 possible top-tier officer skills.

For example, maybe one of the s-mod bonuses is an additional +5% weapon range (I would've said Advanced Turret Gyros but guess that's already used), another gives +5 su of speed (maybe Auxiliary Thrusters), another gives +100 armor (maybe Reinforced Bulkheads), another gives -5% weapon flux (maybe Resistant Flux Conduits), and another gives -10% missile damage received (perhaps IPDAI). All of these could be useful to an Onslaught driver, on hullmods that the ship may not take otherwise, so the decision space is made much more interesting about just which unique bonuses the player wants for the ship since the player can choose only 2 (or 3) of them for a given Onslaught.

The hard limit of 2 (or 3) s-mod bonuses implies that these bonuses can actually be made somewhat stronger, since the player can't just stack a bunch of them the way the player could with regular hullmods.

[Grievous69]

I actually think the opposite, that it'd be interesting if some of the s-mod bonuses are stuff that is difficult or impossible to get in other ways.

Oh god no. Think it's pretty self explanatory how this would be a bad idea.

[Hamakua]

You are being obtuse

Please stay away from personal attacks and take a look at the forum rules.

I called him out for purposely misinterpreting the critique I laid at the system, which had nothing to do with him, that he then used (the misinterpretation) to suggest I go play with putty since I didn't know why rules exist in games.   

Purposely misunderstanding something can be described as being "obtuse" -it's not a personal attack it's a call out for what happened.   "Go play with putty" is a personal attack as it insinuates a lack of cognition. - To which I was responding and clarifying that I understood why rules in games exist.

You warned the wrong comment.

Get called stupid then get warned for telling the person who called you stupid to not call you stupid.

[Vanshilar]

Oh god no. Think it's pretty self explanatory how this would be a bad idea.

That's another one of your posts where you just pronounce something as "bad" but give exactly zero support or reasoning or argument or discussion behind it, nor counter anything that was said.

[Grievous69]

Like Hamakus said, can we stop being rude in a nice way please, there's like 10 previous posts from me that were far more useful than calling out a single post for not stating the obvious.

So here's the obvious part. You want more minmaxing, because this is how you get it. Having unique buffs makes certain hullmods appear strong purely from the bonus part, not the hullmod itself which is backwards game design. Not to mention this would make the 3 s-mod leadership skill much more important than it is right now. Every single specialised ship will gravitate towards the hullmods which bonus benefits them the best. Thus creating the dumbest possible meta we ever had.

In a case where the bonuses are so small it doesn't matter, then there was no point to it in the first place.