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[Comrade_Bobinski]

Ok here me out. I have something of an extreme view on this but it might be pretty good. The mod is called Safety Override. There is no safety, you are flying a litteral fusion reactor full of fuel and weapons in the void of space withouth any sense of security. The answer to change SO for me is obvious:

If your ship overflux, it explodes.

I know it sound terrible but, overfluxing by itself does not happen that regularly, and it is a common mistake both the player or the AI is prone to make in certain situation. Because you cant vent, it also implies a different way to fight (a little bit like managing a rage meter for a berserker or something). It also completly cover the reason and the lore beind SO: you have unlocked the full power of your ship system at the cost of stability and security. Overcloaking until you melt your hardware. Once it goes past the limit, it's gone.

It sounds desperate, like a Pather fighting for Ludd, or a really reckless spacefarer going against all odds.

It would also boost industry skills indirectly by providing ways to more easily scrap and salavage your exploding fleet after combat.

[Serenitis]

I like Safety Overrides. Especially when applied to cruisers.
It's a fun way to lower the bar for player skill/ability, insomuch as it allows the use of high-risk plays without requiring the player to play "perfectly".
The cost is suitably annoying, and while not debilitating is an encumberance you're not allowed to forget.

... cruisers, the PPT simply stops mattering alltogether because the base values are so large. You just slap Hardened Subsystems on top of SO and the battle is over before your ships even start losing CR.

I disagree.
Having used SO cruisers very extensively, it is not difficult at all to fight battles large enough to run down the PPT, and a significant portion of its CR before the battle ends.

As an average / below average player, SO since its introduction has been a useful (and entertaining) boon. I don't use it all the time, but I'll be sorry to see it go.
I get that things need to be balanced etc. But I can't help but feel a lot of balance dicussions always seem to converge around the most skilled players, which has its own balance implications.

[Grievous69]

Ooooh a nice little topic for me. OP also forgot one important bonus which SO too gives, and that is permanent zero flux speed boost. Which is why I also think it breaks some cruisers (to a less extent destroyers), since for them, 50 speed more on top of the base boost is a lot. For a frigate that already goes fast, it's just a cherry on top. It's hilarious that the only counter argument to this is "but I find it fun". Yes, usually players are sad to see broken toys go away, or get nerfed, no surprise there.

I like the active ability idea, I even like the Pather exclusive SO, many ways to go about it honestly. But we have to take a step back and take a long hard look at what do we want to achieve here. Most important thing is that
1. It remains a unique tool in the game that makes some ships play differently.
2. It leads to a high risk - high reward style of gameplay (it's right there in the name).
And 3. It shouldn't make for a boring cookie cutter path where each SO ship does the same exact thing and you just need critical mass to overcome its downsides.

Hopefully some ships will also be less dependant on SO to get the most out of their strengths.

@Serenitis
What are you on about? If the discussion and balance revolved around the best players there's no way we'd have Afflictor, Hyperion, Doom, Aurora, Odyssey and so on in the game, or they'd be massively nerfed. There's plenty of "easy game" modes you can do to make your campaign easier without abusing a single hullmod. I mean right there how you said that it shows that SO is a plague and should be changed.

[Vanshilar]

The thing is, I haven't really seen a convincing case laid out anywhere for why SO needs a fundamental overhaul, as opposed to putting in some tweaks to balance it out. Sure, the same people will complain very vocally about it every chance they get, but never really explain the reasons why.

SO is nice to speed up early fights when the enemies are easy. The reason is because the enemy isn't really all that threatening early on, so it's no problem to rush in, absorb their pitiful damage, and then do your damage and scoot out before you flux out.

But it really falters when you get to the more difficult fights, such as Ordos fleets for example. There's simply too much damage to absorb as you go in that you have too little flux left to deal enough damage before you have to back off. Also, SO works best against isolated targets. But since you go in so close, enemy ships tend to back off back into the rest of the enemy fleet. So every time an SO ship fails to finish off its target, the target backs off into the enemy fleet and effectively increases the enemy fleet's ship density, which makes it more difficult to attack another ship afterward. So it's very much a high-risk, high-reward strategy, and something to speed up the early game but not really effective later on, which seems fine to me.

I think the main issue with SO currently is that its benefit lasts too long before the drawbacks kick in. SO only affects PPT, but not CR degradation. Plus, CR degradation takes a long time to really make an impact. If the ship has Combat Endurance and Hardened Subsystems, it takes 356 seconds to go from 100% to 50% CR, which is longer than double Ordos fights. But that should be an easy fix; just make it so that if the ship has SO, then its CR also degrades 3 times as fast. Or, make it so that if the ship has SO, then its max CR is 50%. Basically so that once CR starts degrading, then the ship starts having malfunctions pretty soon. So that its drawback kicks in earlier.

What may be interesting is if SO only lasts for the duration of PPT. Then (perhaps with a 10-second overload or something to signify that the ship is adjusting back to normal), the ship returns to normal operation, i.e. non-SO speed, flux, weapon range, etc. So then it becomes an interesting decision of if the loadout is specialized for SO or normal operation (for example: do you bother to take ITU when it basically has no effect until the ship's PPT is gone?). Also, this makes it easier to wait out SO frigates if they're just kiting all over the map, since they'll slow down after PPT is out.

But as is it's also not all that interesting because - alright, it does add a playstyle, but that playstyle is very similar for everything and there's not too much to it.

Disagree with this. SO makes the game more arcade-like, which some people prefer. When I switched from SO Medusa to Onslaught XIV as flagship, I started running battles at 2x speed, simply because there isn't that much to *do* or think about tactically or strategically. But there was no way I could get away with that in a SO Medusa because I was constantly on the knife's edge of running in and trying to do as much damage as I could without overloading or taking (too much) damage before I ran out to safety. Some people like that sort of adrenaline-filled playing.

(If anything, because I can now run battles at 2x speed without using SO, I can get through fights much more quickly than before, so in that sense makes SO worse than non-SO -- it's less effective in a kills-per-playing-minute sort of way.)

But even within that playstyle, different SO ships play differently. A SO Medusa plays very differently than a SO Sunder for example. The SO Medusa relies on constantly dancing around the battlefield (especially with its exposed engines and having to get close to the enemy fleet) to survive and make its impact, whereas the SO Sunder, due to its bad shield efficiency, has to rely on opportunistically going in and using its overwhelming damage to take out its target quickly and retreating before it takes (too much) damage, then regenerating its flux safely behind friendly ships. That's a very different way to play, and in some ways mirrors their non-SO counterparts. SO doesn't change the ships to one-size-fits-all playing in the least. The player's tactics will still depend very much on the particular ship being used.

[Grievous69]

The thing is, I haven't really seen a convincing case laid out anywhere for why SO needs a fundamental overhaul, as opposed to putting in some tweaks to balance it out. Sure, the same people will complain very vocally about it every chance they get, but never really explain the reasons why.

Then you somehow forgot or chose to ignore so many posts over the last period, most probably from me since I whine about it the most, but others have also been pretty vocal and explained why do they think it's not in a good place.

So since I don't want to repeat my thoughts for the 10th time, I'll link the old post I made which was a tiny bit before the current patch, but my opinion is still pretty similar. https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22963.0

[Serenitis]

...how you said that it shows that SO is a plague and should be changed.

I disagree.
Enabling more ways to play, greater variety in which ships can be used for which role, and allowing more people to make use of that due to the lower "requirements" is intrinsically good.

"but I find it fun"

Yes. This is traditionally what games are for, right?

So it's very much a high-risk, high-reward strategy, and something to speed up the early game but not really effective later on, which seems fine to me.

I agree with this.
I've tried to use SO ships to fight "optional" stuff, and it does work to a point. But it absolutely will fail super-hard, very likely when its least convenient since the extra difficulty will drag things out.
It can get you through most of the stuff in the game, but it can't get you through everything.
And that's fine. Optional stuff is optional for a reason. As is situational tools not being useful all the time.

I've also used SO ships to fight the massive pirate stacks that frequently appear. They do better at that since the opposition isn't as tough, but they absolutely will run down thier clocks and CR, then falter and leave you with an "interesting" problem to solve.
There are some things it is suited for, and some things it is not. And believe me, I have tried to jam SO ships into battles they had no place being, and it has given me a very keen awareness of both what SO is capable of. And perhaps even more importantly, what I am capable of.

If you absolutely must change SO then...

I think the main issue with SO currently is that its benefit lasts too long before the drawbacks kick in.

Change the PPT reduction based on hull size, instead of just a flat -66% for everything.
Something like:

• Frigates get -25%
• Destroyers get -50%
• Cruisers get -75%

However I don't think changing the fundamental behaviour of SO will achieve anything beyond diminishing player options.

[BaBosa]

What possible ideas have you come up for the active ability? Flux dump? RoF increase? Speed increase? Or something more complicated?

Some kind of +speed and +firepower thing! Like I said, half-baked

No idea starts fully baked so it’ll be like manoeuvring jets mixed with accelerated ammo feeders? I’m really liking the idea of making it an active ability because then you’re not wasting PPT or CR before and between engagements.

The term "Safety Overrides" has always implied to me a bypass of critical systems that really shouldn't be messed with. Within the vein of an "active ability", I think weapons could be overcharged, RoF could be increased, engine output could go up, etc. but at the risk of flame out, weapon malfunctions or even disabling shields.

Have something catastrophic happen if you plan poorly enough to overload while SO is on. Because really, that's got to be one of the events the safeties are there for.

I like this, increase overload time and have it cause hull damage. Could also do the same with weapons and engines when they are damaged with longer repair times and bonus hull/armour damage.

I like Safety Overrides. Especially when applied to cruisers.
It's a fun way to lower the bar for player skill/ability, insomuch as it allows the use of high-risk plays without requiring the player to play "perfectly".
The cost is suitably annoying, and while not debilitating is an encumberance you're not allowed to forget.

That’s what easy mode setting is for. That you use safety overrides as easy mode is kinda proving our point.

Ooooh a nice little topic for me. OP also forgot one important bonus which SO too gives, and that is permanent zero flux speed boost. Which is why I also think it breaks some cruisers (to a less extent destroyers), since for them, 50 speed more on top of the base boost is a lot. For a frigate that already goes fast, it's just a cherry on top. It's hilarious that the only counter argument to this is "but I find it fun". Yes, usually players are sad to see broken toys go away, or get nerfed, no surprise there.

I like the active ability idea, I even like the Pather exclusive SO, many ways to go about it honestly. But we have to take a step back and take a long hard look at what do we want to achieve here. Most important thing is that
1. It remains a unique tool in the game that makes some ships play differently.
2. It leads to a high risk - high reward style of gameplay (it's right there in the name).
And 3. It shouldn't make for a boring cookie cutter path where each SO ship does the same exact thing and you just need critical mass to overcome its downsides.

Permanent 0-flux bonus speed is just part of the speed buff SO gives. I think that how it proportionally benefits bigger ships more is balanced by how bigger ships have bigger weapons which have longer ranges generally and so the range penalty is proportionally greater especially when ITU was an alternative.
To add actual detail about how it should affect ships, it should make them play faster, both in speed and damage and feel like you’re on the edge of a knife and be up close to enemies.

The thing is, I haven't really seen a convincing case laid out anywhere for why SO needs a fundamental overhaul, as opposed to putting in some tweaks to balance it out. Sure, the same people will complain very vocally about it every chance they get, but never really explain the reasons why.

SO is nice to speed up early fights when the enemies are easy. The reason is because the enemy isn't really all that threatening early on, so it's no problem to rush in, absorb their pitiful damage, and then do your damage and scoot out before you flux out.

But it really falters when you get to the more difficult fights, such as Ordos fleets for example. There's simply too much damage to absorb as you go in that you have too little flux left to deal enough damage before you have to back off. Also, SO works best against isolated targets. But since you go in so close, enemy ships tend to back off back into the rest of the enemy fleet. So every time an SO ship fails to finish off its target, the target backs off into the enemy fleet and effectively increases the enemy fleet's ship density, which makes it more difficult to attack another ship afterward. So it's very much a high-risk, high-reward strategy, and something to speed up the early game but not really effective later on, which seems fine to me.

Spoiler

I think the main issue with SO currently is that its benefit lasts too long before the drawbacks kick in. SO only affects PPT, but not CR degradation. Plus, CR degradation takes a long time to really make an impact. If the ship has Combat Endurance and Hardened Subsystems, it takes 356 seconds to go from 100% to 50% CR, which is longer than double Ordos fights. But that should be an easy fix; just make it so that if the ship has SO, then its CR also degrades 3 times as fast. Or, make it so that if the ship has SO, then its max CR is 50%. Basically so that once CR starts degrading, then the ship starts having malfunctions pretty soon. So that its drawback kicks in earlier.

What may be interesting is if SO only lasts for the duration of PPT. Then (perhaps with a 10-second overload or something to signify that the ship is adjusting back to normal), the ship returns to normal operation, i.e. non-SO speed, flux, weapon range, etc. So then it becomes an interesting decision of if the loadout is specialized for SO or normal operation (for example: do you bother to take ITU when it basically has no effect until the ship's PPT is gone?). Also, this makes it easier to wait out SO frigates if they're just kiting all over the map, since they'll slow down after PPT is out.

But as is it's also not all that interesting because - alright, it does add a playstyle, but that playstyle is very similar for everything and there's not too much to it.

Disagree with this. SO makes the game more arcade-like, which some people prefer. When I switched from SO Medusa to Onslaught XIV as flagship, I started running battles at 2x speed, simply because there isn't that much to *do* or think about tactically or strategically. But there was no way I could get away with that in a SO Medusa because I was constantly on the knife's edge of running in and trying to do as much damage as I could without overloading or taking (too much) damage before I ran out to safety. Some people like that sort of adrenaline-filled playing.

(If anything, because I can now run battles at 2x speed without using SO, I can get through fights much more quickly than before, so in that sense makes SO worse than non-SO -- it's less effective in a kills-per-playing-minute sort of way.)

But even within that playstyle, different SO ships play differently. A SO Medusa plays very differently than a SO Sunder for example. The SO Medusa relies on constantly dancing around the battlefield (especially with its exposed engines and having to get close to the enemy fleet) to survive and make its impact, whereas the SO Sunder, due to its bad shield efficiency, has to rely on opportunistically going in and using its overwhelming damage to take out its target quickly and retreating before it takes (too much) damage, then regenerating its flux safely behind friendly ships. That's a very different way to play, and in some ways mirrors their non-SO counterparts. SO doesn't change the ships to one-size-fits-all playing in the least. The player's tactics will still depend very much on the particular ship being used.

[close]

It needs balancing mostly because the dissipation bonus makes just about everything good or even better which is not an interesting effect and it makes players optimise the fun out of making builds.
As for why it needs to be completely changed? It doesn’t, Alex just came up with the idea and it sounded really cool.

Using it to make easy fights faster isn’t really something that SO should be focused on. Either the fight should be an autobattler, the fights should be made harder so it’s actually a challenge or you pick a fast start to skip all that.

SO struggles with Ordos because you can’t put it on capital ships. Try the capital ship SO mod and see how it makes things much easier. That it makes cruiser fleets work so well is really another sign that it’s a bit too strong.

Personally I’d prefer to reduce the dissipation buff rather than reduce the time it’s effective.
Also reducing max CR means the ship has all the rebuffs associated with that like the debuff to damage taken and dealt, reduced speed and a few others.

Those two play styles, Medusa and sunder, are still quite similar. The only difference that you mentioned and I can think of is just the Sunder has to retreat behind other ships while Medusa can just run away. One of the big problems with it limiting play styles is that the range penalty doesn’t affect short ranged weapons so you dont want to use more than like half of the weapons.

Sorry for the long message

[Grievous69]

How can anyone argue that SO increases variety is beyond me. Low tech ship > Machine Guns and Chainguns, High tech ship > Heavy Blaster and Ion Pulser, Midline > somewhere between. Muh variety. Also hope you get some self awareness since as an example for when the SO doesn't work you picked out the hardest fights in the game where they last a bit longer than usual. So the "high risk" part only comes after the campaign is practically over... Come on, no one can actually say this seriously.

Yes. This is traditionally what games are for, right?

I'm sorry but with that mindset why do we even bother balancing the game? Should we have left the part of the game where skills were so strong a player could solo the whole game in a single ship, just because someone found that fun? Granted you can kinda do this now as well, it's just harder. You could use that out as a response on literally every single nerf that happens: "oh don't nerf it pls, I won't have fun anymore". I'm shocked I even have to explain this to someone who spent a lot of time here.

Vanshillar said he didn't see a convincing argument for changing SO yet here I read sentences like "well it's not useful in every single fight in the game so it's ok". If you want to have an easy and boring experience you can mod it yourself, I'm sure someone will do it after Alex makes the change, whatever it be.

Last point I want to argue is running out of CR is not an "interesting" problem to solve. You're either destroying everything, or your ship(s) needs to retreat. How is that interesting? There is zero risk until the fight is over for either side. Or just reengage which most folks do.

However I don't think changing the fundamental behaviour of SO will achieve anything beyond diminishing player options.

Oh no, how will the players ever get out of early game without the ez mode option.

Unrelated to above posts, just in general. Why is Hardened Subsystems even available on SO ships? That goes against any common sense. You supercharge your ship, let go of any safety precautions, but you can easily build a cheap hullmod that will remove a part of the penalty. And yet again this wouldn't do almost anything to the early game problem when fights lasts 2 minutes tops with SO ships.

EDIT: Yeah also forgot to mock the Medusa and Sunder example. One ship can teleport, the other can't, ok, but how does that actually affect the refitting part of the game?

[Serenitis]

If you want to have an easy and boring experience you can mod it yourself.

Not everyone gets the exact same experience as you from any given <thing>. Maybe chill a little.

[Grievous69]

My man, look at your posts and then see the response you gave now. Hypocritical innit?

[Vanshilar]

Then you somehow forgot or chose to ignore so many posts over the last period, most probably from me since I whine about it the most, but others have also been pretty vocal and explained why do they think it's not in a good place.

So since I don't want to repeat my thoughts for the 10th time, I'll link the old post I made which was a tiny bit before the current patch, but my opinion is still pretty similar. https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22963.0

I didn't say there weren't complaints about SO, I said I haven't seen any convincing case (i.e., reasons clearly laid out) for why SO needs a fundamental overhaul, as opposed to keeping the basic principles, but making some tweaks here and there (such as adjusting how it interacts with CR decay).

For example, taking the post you linked:

In a way that it transforms a crap ship into a scary piece of metal that can now cut through your fleet. Fighting a horde of SO ships is cancer, even more so than phase ships imo. The whole thing is supercharging ships to bring them multiple power levels up, at the expense of PPT. Which means in the end, it's just a win harder/faster hull mod.

That statement could be said about anything. There is nothing in that which is specific to SO (other than the mention of PPT), or describes what it is about SO that makes things that way, or establishes the validity of that position. Anybody could write "Fighting a horde of ITU ships is cancer" or "Fighting a horde of HSA ships is cancer" or whatever. That is a position, not a reason which justifies or supports a given position. People are free to state whatever opinions they want on a discussion forum, but without giving reasons behind it, it's not particularly convincing.

Moving on:

I don't mind that per se, but the fact that it makes some thing truly broken that many discussion about ship builds go like this:
- "Hey I'm struggling with X ship, don't know what's a good loadout for it."
- "Have you tried putting SO and the only weapons that actually have sense to go along with it?"

That generally works against easier enemy fleets, but not harder ones, where SO effectiveness falls off rapidly. If someone is having trouble against pirate fleets or whatever, sure, throw SO on it. Against harder fleets, I'd say it's actually bad advice. But just because someone says "I have problem with X" and the common response is "You should try Y" doesn't mean that Y is overpowered or needs to change. For example, against endgame (i.e. Ordos) fleets, a very common advice is to use Solar Shielding. Does that mean Solar Shielding is boring or overpowered?

It makes some parts of the game bloody boring.

That's another generic criticism that could be levied about anything, and thus means nothing nor have any persuasive value. "There's a new ship in the next patch!" "That sounds boring." "The Orders tab will be functional next update!" "That sounds boring." There's nothing there which gives a specific issue to address or to discuss.

Now as I mentioned, it does tend to trivialize the early game (since early game fleets aren't as dangerous), but the early game is already fairly trivial anyway for an experienced player, so it basically just speeds up the early game to get to the richer, meaty stuff. I don't see that as a bad thing.

Thank god low tech is getting some love again because all they were good for before were SO builds. But that also makes previous SO optimal builds even more good. Enforcer is a good example of a dumb ship that "begs" for SO. And I hate that it will never get any more flux dissipation that it desperately needs because the SO builds will be 3 times as annoying. The new Eradicator is a prime candidate for SO, ship with already good base speed and AAF system, sign me up Jimmy. SO is a plague that makes the best part of the game (personally), ship customisation, a bit too easy and lazy. There's really no thought behind SO builds, you immediately know which weapons and hull mods go along with it. High tech ships are also victims of "ez SO ship" cookie cutter builds.

I haven't found the SO Eradicator to be more effective than a non-SO Eradicator, other than early fights. Its relatively low flux capacity and shield efficiency means that it absorbs too much damage when going in for it to deal enough damage to make it worthwhile, compared with non-SO builds that can deal damage from afar.

Weapon selection being limited when you use SO is just because only a few weapons are geared for that range. Only 2 of the 9 non-flak medium ballistics are short ranged, so if you're using SO then of course you'll be using only those weapons for medium ballistics. Just like if you take HSA then of course you'll likely be stocking up on beams. That doesn't mean "SO is bad and needs to be overhauled because there are few weapons to choose for it", for example a possible solution is "add more weapons in that range band".

Otherwise, SO builds still require much of the same thought that goes into non-SO builds. If anything, more care needs to be put into successful SO builds because with SO taking up a lot of OP, and with the need to put more points into flux capacity (since the ship will be absorbing more damage going in), there's less OP available for everything else. An interesting side issue that doesn't occur as much with non-SO builds is whether or not an SO officer should get elite Point Defense, which then makes LMG and LDMG match the range of other SO weapons.

I actually feel like high tech ships maintain more of their weapon variety with SO, because their weapons have shorter range anyway and they rely more on speed rather than weapon range. The main issue with SO and high tech ships is that high tech ships benefit so much more from it than low tech ships, since it also doubles base flux dissipation, which high tech ships have more of, for the same OP cost. The biggest offender of this is the frigate Hyperion, which only needs to spend 15 OP to gain 500 flux dissipation, since it's a frigate with light cruiser flux stats (and light cruiser OP cost). Since it only has 3 weapon mounts then the weapon selection is fairly limited, but even then I see a variety of proposed weapons for SO Hyperions. So by no means does SO mean that the weapon choice is obvious.

So overall, lots of disparaging comments about SO, but very few if any actual specifics about what's wrong with it. Just multiple statements about it being overpowering and boring, but nothing solid to back it up.

[snicka]

Please make the New-SO a separate hullmod.

I like the current one. It goes zoom. It fells arcadey,  much distinct from everything else. It provides a fancy asymetric playstyle,  where you fell like on a different set of rules from the enemy

[BCS]

I just want to point out that balancing the game's ships, weapons, hullmods, etc. around what the PLAYER can do is largely pointless. Most ships in player's fleet are not controlled by the player and none of the enemy ships are controlled by the player. It is largely irrelevant if a ship is "overpowered" in player hands; the player can simply choose not to use it(and if they do choose to use it then they can't really complain it's OP since they knew exactly what they were getting into)

As an average / below average player, SO since its introduction has been a useful (and entertaining) boon. I don't use it all the time, but I'll be sorry to see it go.

Every single fight in Starsector can be won without a flagship. If you're bad at flying ships either git gud or don't fly one. Balancing the game around bad player skill is doubly nonsensical in this case.

But it really falters when you get to the more difficult fights, such as Ordos fleets for example.

Don't most of your hands free(no flagship) Ordo farming fleets have SO cruisers? And these fleets fight several Ordo at a time, padding the battle length? Not to mention Ordo aren't exactly the most normal of enemy fleets?

(If anything, because I can now run battles at 2x speed without using SO, I can get through fights much more quickly than before, so in that sense makes SO worse than non-SO -- it's less effective in a kills-per-playing-minute sort of way.)

Any argument based on modded content is worthless. Not that "Please balance the game around this one extremely niche self-imposed challenge that doesn't really have any practical purpose in the game" is a good argument in the first place.

Unrelated to above posts, just in general. Why is Hardened Subsystems even available on SO ships? That goes against any common sense. You supercharge your ship, let go of any safety precautions, but you can easily build a cheap hullmod that will remove a part of the penalty.

Making HS mutually exclusive with SO would certainly be a good start. It's not a large nerf but it should be noticeable enough, it hits larger ships harder than smaller ships(because of Wolfpack Tactics) and as you said it makes sense in context of the game world.

[prav]

I'm a little conservative here. Maybe no change is the best change. I do like the idea of getting an active (and standardized) button dedicated to hullmods though, from a modding perspective.

That said, some ideas for nerfing SO, some better than others:

The 0-flux boost could be scaled by the current flux level.
- Gives ships a much better chance of getting away from an SO attacker by fighting back. But you have to actually fight back.
- Would need some light AI adjustment to make SO ships understand that shield tanking slows them down.

Vent rate boost is reduced to +50%.
- A very straight-forward power reduction.

SO locks you out from mounting additional vents.
- Cuts down on some of the ultra-degenerate fits, but also means that some hulls don't get any extra flux at all.
- Aren't the ultra-degenerate fits the most fun ones?

Make it built-in only, add some skins that have it where it's the most interesting.
- Similar to the Pather-only model.
- No fun allowed.
- Sufficiently degenerate skins could be very fun indeed.
- Labor intensive.

And a couple of buffs to consider, carrots to go with the stick:

Can be S-modded again.
- Personally I'm not that fussed, but many people really miss it. Or maybe they miss being overpowered. Hey, as long as you're having fun, right?

OP cost reduced.
- SO fits get a lot of flux, but actually filling out all your weapon slots isn't something you do all that often. Throughput per OP reigns supreme. Problem? eh.

[Grievous69]

What's with the trend of deflecting single arguments and saying "that could be said about anything". Like where are you trying to go with such conversation even... And instead of asking multiple times where are the convincing arguments, you can look in this very thread where most people said getting 2x dissipation is dumb. Are players really that dependent on this hullmod where they can't see it getting changed? Hell you could still have an arcadey assassin fast playstyle, but maybe without braking the laws of the game. We're here trying to discuss a single hullmod that DOUBLES your firepower, and you can get every more crazy with skills and vents.

If you want the saddest example, look at Hyperion. A ship that's gimped without SO, and becomes a monster with it. For all you "uhm it's actually high risk" and "but but it doesn't work in harder fights", there are videos of a fleet of just SO Hyperions killing the hardest fight in vanilla game, where they player doesn't even pilot a ship, just gives commands. Now tell me again those same things from before and how it's healthy for the game.

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/KWTtOfSX8pw

[close]

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/1z6aSEce3aw

[close]

EDIT: Nvm they pilot a little bit, the point still stands.