Yeah, Fast Missile Racks seems to be ok. I tried it out on the Venture, with a full Salamander loadout (8 per volley, as the pod launches 2 each, not 4). It's murderously good vs non-omni-shield frigates, and it makes the Venture a good missile support ship (and a capable one in AI hands if you link the Salamander group instead of making it alternating). At the same time, if it uses the boost constantly, it'll max out on flux fairly quickly, so we're really talking about "missiles that cost flux" in this context. It's more interesting and different than overpowered, at least based on my impressions from messing with it just now.
Could you add ground battles for the next major update please!
You could use the top looking view and use all the current battle settings, would just need to tweak things to behave like ground vehicles but I am pretty sure a lot of people would really like it!
Btw, I really love this update, makes the game feel much more alive!
Thanks! Ah, I'm afraid explicit ground combat isn't in the plan at all. The game is already quite ambitious, adding in ground combat at the same level of detail as the space combat would be pretty much making a whole new game. I see what you're saying re: using the same engine, but I don't think that's actually very practical if you dig into it.
I'm going to miss the flux bonus. There were certainly situations where it was very relevant and central to my tactics. A few days ago I spent a long while seeing how far I could push a single Wolf, and I learned that my best option was to take advantage of the damage boost by riding the edge of flux overload. It was extremely rewarding and fun to be able to take such a risk and to pull it off successfuly. After this change, the risk-reward tradeoff is gone and there is no reason for me to do anything else than vent completely after every strike and tank with the shield instead of dodging. Boring.
I strongly dislike taking features out because they aren't applicable to most situations. Even if three out of four players never care, it's still there to provide more choice and enhance the experience for those that choose to take advantage of it. Even if flux boost is only relevant to a handful ships played in a specific way, it makes these ships more unique, interesting and worth playing.
Matter of opinion: where you see streamlining and removal of clutter, I see flattening the game and removal of nuance.
The exact same argument could be made for ballistic ammo.
I get what you're saying, but there are a couple more things to consider here. One is that this is something the AI couldn't take advantage of at all, so that's immediately problematic. ("Better AI" wouldn't necessarily help much here - the AI has to play it safe to be a useful ally, so taking chances is fundamentally at odds with that mechanic.) Two is that the feature was awkward in that there just aren't enough mechanics around explicitly controlling your flux levels. So, yes, it's a removal of nuance, but it's not the "good" kind of nuance imo. It had some upside, certainly, but it had its share of problems as well.
I mean, I do understand your point, but as you say, it's a matter of opinion - otherwise, one might consider *any* random mechanic thrown in as adding nuance, you know? Making judgment calls about what to cut and what to keep is probably one of the most important things in trying to create a coherent design. Again, though, it definitely is subjective to a large extent. Personally, I never felt like the high flux damage mechanic worked out as it was originally envisioned, which plays into me being unhappy with it.