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[Twilight Sentinel]

Considering the recent writing from quests, wouldn't it make sense to make Luddic Church and Luddic Path hostile? Or, at least, neutral.

Hmm, probably not hostile, but neutral, perhaps! I think the recent writing makes it clear that the Church is not a monolithic entity.

It would make a lot of sense for any major questline involving the LC to be about undermining and/or removing the elements of the LC that are supporting the Pathers.  Completing such a questline would end the alliance between the two and permanently weaken the Pathers in some way, like removing some ships from their lineup.  Thematically, this makes the LC a far better faction to have around the sector as some of its worst parts have been cleaned up.

[Bungee_man]

It would make a lot of sense for any major questline involving the LC to be about undermining and/or removing the elements of the LC that are supporting the Pathers.  Completing such a questline would end the alliance between the two and permanently weaken the Pathers in some way, like removing some ships from their lineup.  Thematically, this makes the LC a far better faction to have around the sector as some of its worst parts have been cleaned up.

On the opposite note, I'd always thought it'd be cool for the Path to occasionally draw ships from Luddic Church blueprints. Even the bounties for defectors to the path from Church contacts seem to have fleets headed by Prometheus IIs.

[SCC]

At the minimum, permitting the reduction to malfunctions in Systems Expertise to apply to this would be needed, as Ill-Advised Modifications is so *** that you're stupid if you don't restore it away.

That part of Systems Expertise is gone.

[Serenitis]

Thematically, making Ill-Advised part of Safety Overrides does make sense.

But if that ever happened I would likely never use SO again - having things malfunction and not come back is an "absolutely not".

[Alex]

Yeah, random malfunctions as part of SO both:
1) Makes *a lot* of sense thematically and
2) Would I think feel terrible to use as the player

Off the top of my head, a simple idea. Active ability that when used, halves all weapon ranges, increases base speed by x/y/z and doesn't enable always zero flux boost. But increases flux dissipation and maybe even fire rate. The downside would be that ship takes 2x damage EVERYWHERE while the ability is active. So shields, armor, hull, everything. Give it a cooldown so it can't be spammed and abused by skilled players.

Don't even have to bother with CR and DP shenanigans, these ships will be dangerous but also pop like flies. The true meaning of turning off all system limitations.

Details can obviously change a bit but I believe something in this spirit to be the key. The ship MUST have a clear downside when using this ability, not just logistical and PPT penalty for example.

Also a visual effect would be needed to make it clear which ship is going ham.

Yeah, I get the general idea and was thinking along vaguely similar lines (e.g. way faster for 5s, then slower for 10, something like that). Taking double damage in particular might be troublesome - you'd get "the stupid AI killed itself with it!" all the time, even when using it was objectively the right thing to do in a bad situation. It's just setting the AI up for a no-win situation in terms of player perception (while also being a legitimately hard decision to make correctly). But other downsides have similar problems; it's just tricky.

[Mishrak]

If the drawbacks are too strong and there’s no gameplay decisions to mitigate them, then the system is effectively non functional for the player.

There’s a similar result if it’s too clunky for the player to use in combat.

[Twilight Sentinel]

Could the glitches and severity of them be somehow keyed into PPT or CR?  In order to limit how frustrating it is for the player, there's a 0% chance of random malfunctions for the first ~30 seconds of combat, then the ship will start experiencing periodic malfunctions to weapons that can be fixed for 30 seconds, then more frequent malfunctions that can apply to the engines, and only once PPT runs out the malfunctions start becoming permanent?  Essentially making the malfunctions predictable so you can plan around them and don't have feel bad moments when you randomly lose stuff in some fights but not others?

[koprus]

SO makes piloting some larger ships enjoyable. i doubt anyone bothers with piloting ships that have 50 speed. Making SO flying a chore by introducing terrible mechanics to it just 'because',  will be a catastrophe of piloting enjoyment.

[Grievous69]

i doubt anyone bothers with piloting ships that have 50 speed

Not sure if this is satire or not.

But yeah introducing frustrating mechanics as a way to balance powerful things is damn annoying and should be avoided at all costs.

[Thaago]

Unfortunately, I think all of you are right. My plots within plots to nerf SO into the ground have been foiled; curse all of your keen senses of player preference! Curses I say!

I enjoy piloting large ships, but its a very different experience from piloting small ones. It's much more about managing strategic positioning and weapon group management than the twitch flying of smaller ships.

[freakingcynik]

Malfunctions would kill the mod for me, for sure.

There's a mechanic I saw in mechwarrior that I think could fit SO well, if it were to be turned into an active ability. In MW you can get a speed boost that builds up a heat counter. At a certaint treshold it starts damaging the mech. When turned off the heat slowly dissipate.
The heat counter builds up faster and faster as the system stays on, and same for damage, you take more and more if you keep it going after the treshold is crossed.

It's honestly quite fun to play with, it's used for short ranged/melee mech in MW, so yeah, it would fit with the SO playstyle as well. The player is always in command, no forced cooldown or things like that, it's all the player choice to balance the need for the boost and the risk for his ship. It can punish greed, make the player take more risk to secure an important kill, all aspects that could make the mod more interesting overall.

[Nettle]

Unless you were talking about scaling SO speed off flux bar a second heat bar will feel redundant.

[Thaago]

SO as an active ability that damages the using ship at high flux? Hmm, ties into "fast engagements" and isn't as annoying as shutdowns, but I feel like I would yell at the AI if it was just hanging out with high flux with its shield up taking damage hits.

[Twilight Sentinel]

Anything that ties into flux management is going to be a big problem with the AI.  It really likes to stay at high flux levels.  Steady AI is a slow wear down the enemy combat style that doesn't work well with SO and aggressive never really wants to go for opportunistic pulling back and venting unless the enemy has also done so or it's already fluxing out.

[Vanshilar]

Just wondering, is it looking like there will be another hotfix, or is the current 0.97a-RC11 sort of "it" for a while?