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[Farlarzia]

I think a easy solution would just to be letting the change in cargo space from removing them take place until you next dock at a station.

[Megas]

It's annoying to do so I've never bothered with it. I assume most other typical players won't bother much either.

Of course it is annoying to do.  That is a motivation for posting this topic.  Unlike you, I suffer this annoyance because I like to play optimally (and I like zipping around the screen in a fast ship).  I use Augmented Engines until I need cargo space, remove it, then put it back on when do not need maximum cargo space.

[Histidine]

Maybe remove the cargo penalty and just disallow Augmented Engines for non-combat vessels (trollface.jpg)

(though Atlas will become super annoying to use)

[Embolism]

Maybe refitting could require time, more so if you try to do this outside a dock + a speed debuff while refits are in progress. The amount of time required for each ship could be proportional to the amount of OP that was modified. It doesn't make much sense for large-scale modifications like reinforced hulls to be instant anyway.

[Megas]

Back when the game was named Starfarer, changing hullmods took days to take effect, if done in space.  Now, it drains CR.

[Embolism]

I don't see why it couldn't do both. Major modification to your ships should carry heavy penalties to discourage frequent changes, and will also solve issues like this one.

[Lucian Greymark]

Honestly at the end of the day I think you're just being fussy, if you want to have 6+ burn speed with larger ships nad you don't want nav 10, AND you still want all your cargo room, you're just going to have to put up with this.

[Megas]

Yes, I will.  Despite constant swapping, it works.

Recently, after leveling more, I maxed Navigation and put points into Leadership to get 50+ Logistics (to exploit food shortages), and I still swap hullmods when advantageous even when I have thousands of cargo space.

[Thaago]

As much as it weird me out ( ), I agree with Megas on this one. It doesn't matter that most of us wouldn't do this - its been a constant theme in Starsector's game design that the best way to stop players from doing boring/annoying/unfun things to get a mechanical advantage is to remove said mechanical advantage. In this case, there is a very real benefit to a tedious bit of micro. I'm sure we can think of some other penalty for augmented engines. Or, just up the OP cost more if we're being lazy.

[Alex]

Yeah, I very much agree that this sort of micro is indicative of a design problem. Nothing comes to mind, though - what I'd like is for AE to not be a no-brainer hullmod on freighters, where the OP cost basically doesn't matter, and neither do combat penalties. So, open to suggestions!

[Thaago]

Well, what about a large increase in fuel usage? Increased costs for shipping can put a major dent in profits, not to mention reduced range and maybe needing to buy fuel somewhere expensive. Of course this introduces the micro of removing the mods before going into hyperspace and putting them back in in-system (which costs CR and thus supplies, so its not nothing, but still possible). Also, thematically fitting with tugs.

On the vein of fuel, what if it reduced fuel capacity? Usually we don't get much fuel from fights, so loot wouldn't push it over and require micro. Unless attacking fuel convoys?

A crude solution is to put a hullmod on freighters that blocks it ("civilian drive couplers"), but thats kinda lame and puts the hybrid civilian/combat ships in a weird place.

[Histidine]

Yeah, I'm of the opinion that tedious things to provide advantages are bad as well, so I'd like to see a fix of some sort.

(But first: Is the CR cost from refit worth the value of the extra loot you pick up? If not, then there isn't actually any advantage to doing this and we don't need to worry about it.)

On the vein of fuel, what if it reduced fuel capacity? Usually we don't get much fuel from fights, so loot wouldn't push it over and require micro. Unless attacking fuel convoys?

Fairly side-effect free, but I suspect it also wouldn't actually have any noticeable gameplay effect. Does anyone ever actually wish they had more fuel capacity unless they're trading in it?

[Thaago]

Reading through the thread again, I like the idea of only being able to change hullmods at stations. It fits nicely from a suggestion from long ago about being able to buy special hullmods at stations thats always struck a chord with me. Whenever I used to play OOlite I would always hunt around for shipyards with high technology ratings so that they could install the really cool stuff - it was an aspect that made exploration fun. Combined with faction relations to be able to purchase them and its really something. Eh, getting off topic.

Yeah, I'm of the opinion that tedious things to provide advantages are bad as well, so I'd like to see a fix of some sort.

(But first: Is the CR cost from refit worth the value of the extra loot you pick up? If not, then there isn't actually any advantage to doing this and we don't need to worry about it.)

On the vein of fuel, what if it reduced fuel capacity? Usually we don't get much fuel from fights, so loot wouldn't push it over and require micro. Unless attacking fuel convoys?

Fairly side-effect free, but I suspect it also wouldn't actually have any noticeable gameplay effect. Does anyone ever actually wish they had more fuel capacity unless they're trading in it?

True . I like to have enough to do a full round trip so I can buy fuel somewhat cheaply, but its not a problem.

Well, non combat ships care about: hauling capacity (micro problems, so out), hauling efficiency (cargo/logistics), fuel efficiency, range (not at the moment, so out), and speed (increases, so out). I must be missing something?

Having AE increase logistics would be... tricky... to balance. I think it would be brutal for combat ships rather than non-combat ships.

I'm still leading towards a (large) fuel efficiency penalty.

[Sundog]

My take:
 - Increase the CR hit (a lot) for adding or removing hullmods that affect logistics.
 - Decrease supply upkeep for ships with high CR, and increase upkeep for low CR (similarly to the current combat related CR bonuses)

Rationale:

Spoiler

I think Megas' AE micromanagement issue is an example of a deeper (although largely benign, for now) problem; no serious penalties for toggling logistics related hullmods. AE is currently the only example of this being an issue in the current version because it's the only logistics hullmod. I assume there will be others. Any other hullmod that lets you trade one logistical resource for another will encourage toggling whenever you need one resource more than the other. To prevent such toggling from happening too often, there needs to be a more significant penalty for it. Unfortunately, CR reduction can't quite provide that penalty in this case, because logistics ships hardly need CR anyway. Just suspend repairs and you've got completely free hullmod toggling. Hence the second part of my suggestion, which I think would be a good change in it's own right anyway.

[close]

[Embolism]

As I said before, I think hull mods in general should not be something you want to change often, due to restrictions on when and where you can change them and/or heavy penalties for doing so. IMO All modifications should take time proportional to the amount of OP being added/changed, and modifications outside of a dock should take longer, during which the modified ship's burn speed is reduced; and the CR hit should be harsher.

Related to this, currently all actions in station are pretty much instant. Given that NPC fleets now spend some time doing their thing (trade fleets offloading cargo), perhaps the player should too. Making hull refits take time would be a good start.