I give that back to you
You would use it on your main ship, but not for AI-controlled ships.
Because you can increase the strength of player control for a
high cost. You pay to transfer power from AI-escorts to the player's hands.
Or if you had a "captain's fighter" in your flagship, you pay 1000x for the flagship and it does not matter if you pay 1x or 4x for the "captain's fighter" but your hangar size matters.
I guess I should have pointed out how your math in your original post didn't work. A ship of which costs 4x as much to be 30% more effective is retarded. Now, you were sort of ambiguous with this, maybe you meant it was not the same ship, but with a system multiplier. Maybe you meant it was larger, but also used a multiplier system. In this second example, it's impossible to extrapolate what you really mean, in terms of the ships relation between the other ships.
Your fascination with gates really doesn't interest me. I've seen your suggestion, it's utterly retarded and wouldn't fit into the game at all. You believe your idea would be some grand thing for the game, it would fix everything and make it perfect. No one gives a shit about gates tbqh. Setting up a network of them in game wouldn't fix the underlying issues with them. Now, with that said, if it's cheaper to make a ship significantly more effective for it's size, of course it's cheaper than modifying the gate, but at that point, why would you ever use anything except the multipliers? Why wouldn't you make the gate bigger and send through a bigger, multiplier filled ship?
My point is not that people would or wouldn't use them; it's that everyone would use them, or not. Any element which you could add to the game, which introduces blocks of the same type and function, but of different values is very difficult to balance, and other options present much greater diversities of options and play styles, for less balancing effort. Regardless of how powerful they are, or what exactly they would do for a ship, they would be very boring to use.
My first comment illustrates why I believe this is the case: "Unless the system was balanced absolutely perfectly, it would favor one method over the other." This statement brings out three options, which I'll dissect for you, so you don't have to use critical thinking skills yourself.
If modified systems are better than unmodified systems by resource cost, in any tiering system (replacement blocks, slaves, what have you,) then everyone who knows about the system and how it works will always use the system. This basically puts us back at the current system, everyones ships would have the modifier system, and everything would have to be balanced accordingly.
If modified systems are worse than unmodified systems by resource cost, then everyone who knows that fact won't use the modified systems. This would put us in literally the same position we are in now.
If modified systems performed exactly the same as unmodified systems by resource cost, it would be a purely aesthetic choice whether you wanted to use modified systems or not. This basically leaves us how we are now, but with a new mechanic that really does nothing.
I believe the reason this works in EVE is because of their economy system, and their fixed ship system. I don't play the game, and this is just an assumption, but my guess is that EVE's economy (like many other MMO's) is a bitch to get into, and takes quite a while to get anything decent. In addition, there's only so many ships, each is a point to balance around, and is unique and adjustable. What leads me to believing these factors allow it to have a tier system? Well, there's actually a reason for wanting a better ship, and there's an easily quantifiable means of acquiring it. There's also an easily quantifiable means of determining its output in terms of damage, damage resistance and mobility.
In starmade, you don't have any of this. Each ship is unique, damage applied from a battle makes it more unique, modifications from its original blueprint make it even more unique. You can't balance specific ships, because there are no specific ships. Take every ship in EVE and draw a line between it and every other ship, assume that that line has infinitely many ships on it, all of which scale evenly based on how far they are in the line, between the two ships that define the line. That is the balance challenge star made faces. Some ships are very effective and don't cost a lot, others cost more, but have different characteristics which validate a need for more resources. This sort of tiering adds a layer of complexity to the balance, while not actually modifying the gameplay.
(Thinking back to my English class on persuasive essays here)
Now, you might have a counter argument to this. Armor blocks are already tiered, I can already hear you wailing. To which I respond by saying you're wrong, so incredibly wrong. In the tiering system described in the OP, it describes exclusively scaling the function of the tiered blocks. Armor blocks are not scaled linearly. Their different block armor, block HP, armor HP, and mass make them critically different, and overall leads them to be support blocks for each other. Advanced armor is often used for its high armor value, but standard armor has better effective HP/mass, so it gets used too, and basic is great for soaking damage, with cannons penetration system, missiles explosion system and beams just not working well with armor. These blocks, while all sharing the same base function, act in unique and different ways because of the different values assigned to them.
The concept of modifying soft caps and exponential values could potentially work, but I still think it would be boring. At the very least, it would make a point where it is more effective, but that point is a mathematical certainty. The game already has a lot of math in it if you want to build a good ship, I don't think we should just add another thing that you add when you go above a certain value. We need to add systems that require users to make critical choices when designing their ships and fleets, choices about counter-plays and what their opponents might be using. I don't think there's any way to make tiered systems do this in a meaningful way.
(oh and then there's Azereiahs post. It illustrates my original comment pretty well. The resource cost vs effectiveness of diamond in minecraft is really dumb. The effectiveness you lose by not having it could almost never not justify acquiring it.)
