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[Lawrence Master-blaster]

(I could also call it "Ludo-narrative dissonance" but I do in fact shave my neck regularly)

All Lion's Guard ships come with the Special Modifications D-mod which decreases flux dissipation by 5% and increases repair time for weapons and engines by 25%. This is because Phillip Andrada, in his dictatorship wisdom, wanted to protect the crew from "exposed conduits running along the passageways" even though he doesn't know much about spaceship design. Which is fine, but somehow the D-mod also increases crew casualties by 10%.

I'm confused. How did something that was supposed to help save crew lives ended up creating more casualties? I get that the whole idea was to show dictatorship incompetence but that is already covered by the - much more gameplay-significant - flux dissipation and repair speed penalties. Trying to achieve something but ruining few other things in the process AND the result is the exact opposite of what you wanted to achieve... that's not even incompetence anymore, that's a cartoon.

(This is also a missed opportunity to poke some fun at the player: since anyone who wants to use LG ships will remove the D-mod regardless, if it actually decreased casualties as it logically should, Restoring it away would be a tacit admission that you care less about human lives than a guy calling himself "Supreme Executor")

Then, we have the Energy Bolt Coherer. This is even more bizarre because on LG ships it increases casualties in combat by a whooping 50%. At this point I don't understand Mr. Andrada at all - apparently he cares so much about his "brave and loyal crew" that he directly meddles in spaceship design, but also apparently has no qualms about putting said crew at massive risk by using dangerous piece of technology on ALL his ships. Which one is it?

Well, maybe Special Modifications were made to counteract the effects of the Energy Bolt Coherer in the first place. But there's still no reason for them to increase casualties instead.

[CapnHector]

The D-mod does make it canon that the guy who calls himself Supreme Executor is actually willing to sacrifice effectiveness and make extra efforts in an attempt to save crew lives, even though ultimately misguided and futile due to a lack of technical expertise. Which is a little weird.

[Megas]

With massive casualty malus and puny range bonus, Energy Bolt Coherer itself should be considered a d-mod on human ships (more so than Special Modifications).  It should either offer the full +200 range regardless if the ship is automated or human, or simply remove the casualty penalty (or reduce it to something much less punishing like 10%).

The D-mod does make it canon that the guy who calls himself Supreme Executor is actually willing to sacrifice effectiveness and make extra efforts in an attempt to save crew lives, even though ultimately misguided and futile due to a lack of technical expertise. Which is a little weird.

The builtin hullmods make Andrada look like the stereotypical evil overlord and/or the incompetent and Evil Is Hammy cartoon villain.

Suggestion:  Let the player s-mod the builtins to fix the defects.

[Amoebka]

It should either offer the full +200 range regardless if the ship is automated or human,

This would open a very large can of worms regarding its interaction with ballistic rangefinder. Right now it's set up just right so that the order of base range increases never matters. With +200 this will no longer be the case.

[Gabloc]

Well indeed it's a superficial narrative to depict a dictator who gradually become more and more incapable when he gets old, but it actually makes sense as some 'kind but irrelevant' suggestions from the supreme leader are interpreted badly by his subordinates because of bureaucracy. 

[SCC]

Maybe Andrada is simply lying.
Maybe Andrada has a government style which encourages other quality than conscientiousness and honesty, while also not really caring that those modifications do what they are supposed to. If the unintended effects of those hullmods never become a big enough problem to put pressure on the government, then people who engaged in corruption surrounding the design and the procurement will never take any responsibility for it, and it probably isn't the first time it happened. And on top of that, maybe LG designs were contained to only LG units, decreasing the chance they will see serious combat.

[Rain]

Sindria quest spoiler

Spoiler

The whole Macario quest made it sound like Andrada isn't really in any position to revise the state of things, anyway, no matter what he might have intended to start with... Could be he's a now a vegetable, if not dead, that might've been suffering Alzheimer's along with dictator's pride/yes-men-advisors and the likes for who-knows-how-long before that.

[close]

[Amoebka]

The description makes it clear Andrada simply never knew about the downsides. He made a remark about what seemed like a possible improvement, and engineers jumped on the opportunity to implement it. When it turned out the change was negative, they lied in reports to shield themselves.

[CapnHector]

A dictator being incredibly incompetent and still in power in the modern world is entirely realistic, anybody thinking differently can read eg. Dear Leader by Jang Jin-Sung, one notable scene has Kim Jong-Il telling his top administrators every propaganda sign in the country must be renewed and painted by hand because he prefers how it looks. Also, in such a system, it is likely the leader does not receive truthful reporting and the goods produced end up being of poor quality due to corruption, lack of transparency, etc.

The major "weird" points are Andrada being a military man, yet still being incompetent about military matters and the apparently benevolent intention of his remarks. But then, dictators may not be pure evil and the Sindrian storyline Rain mentioned explains the former.

It's still explicit and canon now that Phillip at least has expressed some care, though. I don't think we should expect tooltips to lie.

[Megas]

I have not done any of the new quests.  My priority is to build up an endgame fleet, get Ziggurat and gate travel, and find better places to colonize before doing anything with quests that have nothing to do with getting gate travel, mainly because I do not want to waste lots of time traveling while I have only one or two temporary colonies.  I tried Sentinel when I blundered on it thinking it was another Red Planet but reloaded after looting a sticky cursed item called planetkiller when I discovered I could not store it.

[Demoncard]

It may be helpful to have the text here, so I have dumped it.

During an inspection of an early prototype, the Supreme Executor was heard to comment unfavorably on exposed conduits running along the passageways, and the danger these must pose to the brave and loyal crew under combat conditions.

The new chief designer, a bootlicker appointed by the Supreme Executor himself, instructed the forge-programmers make accommodations for the installation of special blast-proof insulated paneling produced by Sindria itself.

If the passages are a bit narrower, conduits prone to overheating, and flush-set panels somewhat unwieldy to access, the official readiness reports include no criticism of the changes. Everyone agrees in both public and - as the Internal Security Ministry can attest - in private, that the stark grandeur of the Lion's Guard fleet is breathtaking.

Crew casualties in combat are increased by 10%. The base flux dissipation rate is reduced by 5%, and the repair rate for disabled weapons and engines is reduced by 25%.

Buried in the propaganda is an important piece of information. When things are burning/exploding/being exposed to space, you need to evacuate as soon as possible, and this narrowing of passages only makes crew movement more difficult. It's hot and cramped, and you're surrounded by people brainwashed to believe it's fantastic. I think correcting Andrada's faux pas by restoring the ships doesn't make you a bad person - it's the smart thing to do if you don't want your crew to go down with the ship. But then, the Lion's Guard probably claim to take no issue with that.

As for the bolt coherers from TT, I imagine anyone who dies from radiation isn't patriotic enough, and TT has their money so they don't really care about the complications of people using it. Presumably whoever made the solar shielding isn't around, or unwilling, or maybe isn't in a position to speak up, and with Sindria suffering brain drain it seems to me to be increasingly unlikely that it'll get fixed unless you sidestep Andrada and petition Alex directly.

[Embolism]

Given that the Lion's Guard has never come into any major conflicts (before the player came along that is), it could simply be the Sindrians didn't know about Coherer's downside. Likely Tri-Tachyon "forgot" to mention why they didn't install Coherers on non-automated ships when they were selling it to Andrada.

[Great Wound]

I don't mind this level of cartoonish incompetence as long as we apply it across all factions instead of trying to vilify a single ideology.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

I don't mind this level of cartoonish incompetence as long as we apply it across all factions instead of trying to vilify a single ideology.

On one hand based. On the other, I do mind this cartoonish incompetence as it doesn't fit into Starsector. The game is fairly serious (except pirates), and I would expect a multi planet military dictatorship to behave in a competent manner, as most large open dictatorships IRL do. You can't tell everyone you're in absolute control and do a *** job if you intend to live for more than a couple days.
That's why most not open dictatorships hide themselves behind a political front such as democracy, republics, kingships, etc. etc. etc. The people don't know who to kill when something goes wrong.
 
What I expected after reading the description was for it to fully or partially counteract the crew losses from energy bolt coherer.

If any faction is ripe for cartoonish incompetence, it's the Persean League. The combination of worlds governing themselves (which I like) but fighting against one another, alongside interplanetary corporations from powerful worlds like Kazeron adding to the chaos is a ripe environment for reasonable cartoonish incompetence.

[smithney]

Can't agree that this level of incompetence is cartoonish. I have seen enough straight absurdities over the fraction of century I've spent on this very rock to conclude that reality is unrealistic enough to make stuff like "Special Modifications" happen in real life. If OP sees dissonance between the D-mod and its narrative explanation, either they haven't read deep enough into it, don't want to read deep enough, or it's not explained well enough. Since OP is also Slav enough to know Pat & Mat, I'm surprised they aren't familiar with the level of absurdity that came with living under the commie regime.

I don't mind this level of cartoonish incompetence as long as we apply it across all factions instead of trying to vilify a single ideology

I support this wholeheartedly. Though I wouldn't mind the dictatorship continuing to get special treatment.