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[braciszek]

Hello all,

Regarding Neural Integrator, the OP cost of the capital version of this hullmod is a steep 50 OP. This was a fair concession for the Radiant, at the time the only capital droneship that could be equipped with the hullmod (by the player through legitimate means).

However, we now have a new capital droneship, the Nova, which is priced at 40 DP and nowhere near as dangerous as the infamous Radiant. Whether it's a friendly ship or an enemy ship, it has a habit of getting in situations where it is easily killed. Its effectiveness is greatly improved with player piloting, but it has less OP than a radiant and is nowhere near as invincible or overpowering as it. Also ignoring how much of a skill point sink double dipping in tech is just to pilot one...

That leads into the title of this suggestion. Have a cost for the capital version of this hullmod be based on DP to allow for its expense to remain the same for the Radiant and be less punishing for the Nova.

A simple formula that is a base 30 OP cost + the ship DP cost over 40. Such that the Nova's cost would be 30 OP, not cheap by any means, but the radiant's cost would remain 30 + 20 = 50 OP. Admittedly, this is not my own suggestion, but it's an annoyance many players share.

Conceptually, I think it's solid, assuming it does not open a can of worms. This is merely to remove the punishing costs of the hullmod for capital hulls as a result of its balancing around the Radiant - hullmods are usually not balanced around a particular ship in mind. There would just need to be a UI explanation as to why the cost is different to explain the formula. Then we would be free of the "Radiant tax" associated with the capital version of the hullmod.

I have no clue how difficult it would be to make this in the game, but it is a change out of reach for modders, and it would benefit the several other mod capital droneships that exist. Most of them are balanced under the Radiant, and the hullmod's OP cost becomes noticeably prohibitive...

[Grievous69]

I hope we can finally move away completely from this convoluted and overly expensive method just to pilot a single ship. Considering you have to invest in TWO capstone skills, the hullmod having any OP cost is silly. Yes you can pilot strong ships, but guess what you can also do that without ridiculous skill point usage. Ziggurat is beyond broken and it doesn't require nowhere near much investment. Player Afflictor same thing. Not sure how far you can get with a Hyperion (haven't used it much) but it's probably another strong contender for a super flagship.

[Megas]

Neural Link needs to ditch either the OP tax if it stays as a skill, or being a skill in the first place if the OP tax stays.  Even Neural Interface on human ships hurts.  Capitals take a big hit to OP, and smaller ships have small enough OP budgets that any OP cost hurts.

Radiant (piloted by player) is not very overpowered without Systems Expertise.  It needs Systems Expertise to recharge the skimmer fast enough to hit-and-run effectively.  Without it, enemies will catch up and swarm Radiant that tries to skim away from enemies.  So, player really needs three capstones (Tech 8 plus Systems Expertise) for a Radiant to even approach (but not match) the power of Ziggurat.  Even then, the heavy OP tax of Neural Integration (plus no BotB for third s-mod) puts a huge strain of OP budget.

Hyperion is not good anymore, maybe about as bad as 20 OP Harbinger last release.  Without Safety Overrides, Hyperion has too low dissipation to support more than two Pulse Lasers, and AI will waste too much time backpedaling with shields up instead of teleporting when it can.  With Safety Override, Hyperion does not have enough PPT, and Delicate Machinery causes its CR to decay too fast.  Even so, Hyperion probably needs Safety Override for sufficient dissipation to support a loadout better than two Pulse Lasers and be fast enough for AI to not be stuck backpedaling as much.  Hyperion needs more PPT if Delicate Machinery stays.  Maybe High Maintenance removed too.  For super frigate, stick with Afflictor.

Nova is a joke for a Remnant ship; it dies too easily.  Mobs kill it fast.  EMP to paralyze it followed by alpha strike where it cannot defend, and it is dead.  Fixed narrow front shield does it no favors.

[SCC]

This was a fair concession for the Radiant, at the time the only capital droneship that could be equipped with the hullmod (by the player through legitimate means).

It wasn't. AI core Radiant performs well enough and to catch up in skill number, the player has to forgo almost all non-combat skills. A build that dropped Neural Link in favour of AI-piloted Radiant and a player flagship wouldn't be significantly worse off, but if you got some fleetwide skills in addition to that, it would be simply better.

I don't think your premise (NL is bad) is flawed, but I want more than a band-aid solution.

[Alex]

Ziggurat is beyond broken and it doesn't require nowhere near much investment.

(I just want to say, I feel even more strongly about the Ziggurat's role in balance discussions than you do about SO It's a blatantly overpowered shiny toy. Could it use some kind of balance pass? Perhaps. Does it belong anywhere near a different balance conversation? Absolutely not!)


I think the OP's suggestion is interesting and I'll make a note! It may be non-trivial to have variable OP costs for hullmods like that, but then again, it might be easily doable, I'll just have to take a look!

I remember playtesting the Radiant with NI and it felt incredibly strong; the build probably did have Systems Expertise, and the test was... vs some kind of high-end Ordo, IIRC; might've been a two-Radiant one - and that build was the easiest time I'd had fighting it, by a long shot. So I don't really buy the argument that NI is overpriced here or unnecessary, but it certainly hits the Nova harder than it should.

[Grievous69]

Ziggurat is beyond broken and it doesn't require nowhere near much investment.

(I just want to say, I feel even more strongly about the Ziggurat's role in balance discussions than you do about SO It's a blatantly overpowered shiny toy. Could it use some kind of balance pass? Perhaps. Does it belong anywhere near a different balance conversation? Absolutely not!)

I absolutely agree with that, except this specific thread revolves around player piloted Automated ships. They fight for the same place, you can only pilot one ship at a time. If Zigg gets a "shiny toy" balance pass, I don't get why a tier 5 Tech skill can't be that as well. The skill as is, is already pretty lame compared to the rest of the skill tree. This just feels like a slap in the face for the end.

Radiant is pretty insane with Systems Expertise, as it should be. The question is why is the penalty associated with a tier 5 skill, I'd understand it it was something you get with Automated ships.

For the sake of having overpowered ways to play the game, it's good to have more flagship carry options. I keep seeing way too many "press autopilot and win with all fleet skills" posts and videos (not talking about CapnHector), it's time for flagship comeback. Also slightly off topic, I'd love another Zigg like ship that is not a phase ship. It's a cool thing but I know a bunch of people don't like phase mechanics and playing the game at 0.33x speed.

[Alex]

I can see your point, but to me a skill is fundamentally different. It's part of the skill tree, it ought to be balanced or at least try for it, or it'll have an outsized pull on the rest of it. The Zig on the other hand is a much easier thing for a player to self-exclude without it impacting the rest of the design, if that makes sense.

That said, the NI Radiant still *very* much felt like a "flagship carry", as you put it. Which it ought to be, for the investment.

Also slightly off topic, I'd love another Zigg like ship that is not a phase ship. It's a cool thing but I know a bunch of people don't like phase mechanics and playing the game at 0.33x speed.

(Let's just say there are some ideas on that topic.)

[Megas]

I do not mind Ziggurat being overpowered because of its campaign costs (-50% CR deployment and slow CR recovery) and it is one of the few ways a build without Leadership can take on multi-Ordos without too much difficulty.  Even then, I can only solo double Ordos with Z safely because of PPT.

Leadership is too important to drop, but I love Combat and all of the Tech and Industry capstones.  No Leadership is hard mode.

For the sake of having overpowered ways to play the game, it's good to have more flagship carry options. I keep seeing way too many "press autopilot and win with all fleet skills" posts and videos (not talking about CapnHector), it's time for flagship comeback. Also slightly off topic, I'd love another Zigg like ship that is not a phase ship. It's a cool thing but I know a bunch of people don't like phase mechanics and playing the game at 0.33x speed.

Agreed.  I do not even like modern releases because flagship is not very strong anymore (too much investment to be on par with AI cores and a little better than level 6 officers with Cybernetics), and the fleet is too important.

[Grievous69]

I can see your point, but to me a skill is fundamentally different. It's part of the skill tree, it ought to be balanced or at least try for it, or it'll have an outsized pull on the rest of it. The Zig on the other hand is a much easier thing for a player to self-exclude without it impacting the rest of the design, if that makes sense.

Yeah that's understandable.

I was just agreeing with OP that Nova got the short end of the stick so I tried one upping the suggestion by removing the cause completely. Nova seems like a perfect player ship, -50 OP just kills it.

[Alex]

Yeah, that's fair, hard to argue with that!

[SonnaBanana]

What about making NL hullmods cost no to minimal OP and making them increase DP like with CH instead?

[braciszek]

What about making NL hullmods cost no to minimal OP and making them increase DP like with CH instead?

I feel like that is counterintuitive as the purpose of the player piloting ships with their own skill is to provide greater DP value for their flagship than under AI control.
Increasing ship DP to accommodate player piloting basically nullifies that. It feels... wrong.

[SonnaBanana]

What about making NL hullmods cost no to minimal OP and making them increase DP like with CH instead?

I feel like that is counterintuitive as the purpose of the player piloting ships with their own skill is to provide greater DP value for their flagship than under AI control.
Increasing ship DP to accommodate player piloting basically nullifies that. It feels... wrong.

But NL allows to substitute for not having a real officer/AI Core.

[BaBosa]

What about NI not affecting DP or costing a lot of OP and instead that the ship is treated as having an alpha core for the automated ships skill?

[Alex]

What about making NL hullmods cost no to minimal OP and making them increase DP like with CH instead?

I feel like that is counterintuitive as the purpose of the player piloting ships with their own skill is to provide greater DP value for their flagship than under AI control.
Increasing ship DP to accommodate player piloting basically nullifies that. It feels... wrong.

Hmm, that's an interesting idea! It doesn't have to nullify it, right? Just bring it closer to a "balanced" value, whatever that exactly means in this case. I don't think that's fundamentally different from having a high OP cost, either way you're getting a bit less ship for the DP you pay for it.