Chambers using fixed % sucks

    Edymnion

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    In does in terms of ROI (return on Investment). A chamber increases the cost, mass, and block count of a ship. Even if you are unconcerned about the financial cost of a ship, this increases lag and pushes you towards server limits imposed to limit ship sizes.
    Hence you have to balance the cost of your improvements with the benefit they provide.

    You can still build a ship with no chambers and it will function pretty much the same way ships did before.

    You have to make choices now. Choices that have consequences. Thats a good thing.
     
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    only if the choices are logical. arbitrary restrictions aren't choices, are restrictions.
     

    Edymnion

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    only if the choices are logical. arbitrary restrictions aren't choices, are restrictions.
    The only restriction is that you can't have everything at maximum at once. You can't have one ship that is perfect at everything. Thats not really a restriction, thats just good gameplay mechanics.

    None of these choices take away anything. They all add to what we had. The lack of bonus is not a penalty.
     
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    I just honestly do not see the need for a ship that can do everything anymore. I know thats how its been, but it was never a good thing in terms of gameplay.
    Ships ARE specialized. Vaygr makes really good shield tanks, MagicTech specializes in high speed in-fighters, Trinova focuses on long-range artillery ships. Pretty much all of the major factions use highly specialized ships, it's generally the younger factions with less experience that try to design do-all ships only to learn that they are not as good.

    Speaking from experience, my faction uses a combination of tanky front-line ships, long-range artillery ships, fighters, and anti-fighter gun ships, stealth recon ships, heavy freighters, and miners just thinking off the top of my head. If you do not specialize, it's not because you are taking advantage of the system, it is because you are NOT taking advantage of it. However, if you are a one or two man faction that is trying to establish itself, generalizing is a good way to fill roles that you do not have the wingmen or resources for.
     

    Edymnion

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    Ships ARE specialized. Vaygr makes really good shield tanks, MagicTech specializes in high speed in-fighters, Trinova focuses on long-range artillery ships. Pretty much all of the major factions use highly specialized ships, it's generally the younger factions with less experience that try to design do-all ships only to learn that they are not as good.
    And now we have options to make those specializations even better and more meaningful.

    If you're already specializing, then you're not really going to want or need chamber capacity towards things you aren't using anyway, right? A heavy shield tank doesn't need high turning or high max speed, it needs tons of shields and lots of regen. A high speed fighter doesn't need regenerative armor and uber long jump distances, it needs turning and max speed. A stealth alpha striker doesn't need tons of armor and max jump distance, etc.

    There is no issue here for anyone that is making specialized ships. The only issue is for people who are trying to make jack of all trade ships who want to be best in everything at the same time, a method that is already a poor choice before. We're just getting extra incentive to stop trying to pick it.
     
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    None of these choices take away anything. They all add to what we had. The lack of bonus is not a penalty.
    Not true, we used to get to choose what combination of things we needed to fulfil the role of the ships that WE designed. Now we are bound to the ship roles that can be effectively designed with 10 chambers or less which excludes or totally neuters things like rapid response warships, battle miners, long range perma cloakers, and tactical command battleships. This takes away so many options that you may have simply not considered yet. In fact, it is those non-archetypal specialties that give this game so much replay value because even after 3 years and 3600 hours of gameplay, I still have new things to explore. If this chamber cap was part of the system from day-1, I would have quit playing this game after 9 months.
    [doublepost=1513368937,1513368674][/doublepost]
    There is no issue here for anyone that is making specialized ships. The only issue is for people who are trying to make jack of all trade ships who want to be best in everything at the same time, a method that is already a poor choice before. We're just getting extra incentive to stop trying to pick it.
    If you agree that it is not an optimal choice, then there is no reason to further incentivise the choice, and no reason to deny people who want to explore variations of it that might add to gameplay.
    [doublepost=1513369747][/doublepost]
    If you're already specializing, then you're not really going to want or need chamber capacity towards things you aren't using anyway, right? A heavy shield tank doesn't need high turning or high max speed, it needs tons of shields and lots of regen. A high speed fighter doesn't need regenerative armor and uber long jump distances, it needs turning and max speed. A stealth alpha striker doesn't need tons of armor and max jump distance, etc.
    Your arguement is moot, because these classes can be effectively achieved regardless of whether you also allow general purpose ships. For example, a ship with all of the defensive buffs and nothing else will be harder to kill than a ship with all the defensive and mobility buffs because it will have more room for shields and armor and will be able to function with a smaller base reactor as well; however, you may NEED the extra speed to get you shield tank into position to be useful in a fight. Otherwise, it will just be a brick that sits off to the side while the fast attack ships drift off to fight elsewhere.
     

    Non

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    If you're already specializing, then you're not really going to want or need chamber capacity towards things you aren't using anyway, right?
    Correct, but thats not what we are arguing. We are saying that we can't get the basic functionality things we need like scanner, inhibitors, and drives while maintaining those very specialized builds.
    10 chambers or less
    I like what you said Nosa, but unless I'm missing something, theres no 10 chamber limit, they used to all cost 10% but they don't now. But the fact that turn rate 3 costs less RC than jump charge time 2 is pretty crazy.
    There is no issue here for anyone that is making specialized ships.
    Yes, there is, I make very specialized speed tanking glass cannons and this does not make my life easier.
    The only issue is for people who are trying to make jack of all trade ships who want to be best in everything at the same time, a method that is already a poor choice before.
    Nor do I see why someone shouldn't be able to make a generalized ship, it'll never be as good as a specialized one anyway, so honestly, why should we stop them if it's what the player wants?
     

    Edymnion

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    Yes, there is, I make very specialized speed tanking glass cannons and this does not make my life easier.
    So what does that require other than chambers in max speed and turning? There are no chambers for weapon damage, the concept doesn't require armor or shield buffs, etc.
    Nor do I see why someone shouldn't be able to make a generalized ship, it'll never be as good as a specialized one anyway, so honestly, why should we stop them if it's what the player wants?
    You can still make a generalized ship. It just won't be as good as a specialized one. Nothing in the current system makes a ship any worse now than it was a month ago. It just makes it better at some things.
     
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    The only restriction is that you can't have everything at maximum at once.
    everything? you can barely sustain a workable jump drive, and to do that your ship needs to be blind.

    meanwhile, a 1k ship can have perfect scanning against whatever amount of cloaking, because of % power usage of scan upgrades and relative size and energy each ship can funnel into the information warfare amounts to nothing.
     

    Edymnion

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    everything? you can barely sustain a workable jump drive, and to do that your ship needs to be blind.
    I must be a space wizard then, because I just made a quick test ship with chambers for decent jump drive and scanning.

    I've got FTL Power Efficiency 2, Charge Speed 2, Jump Distance 2, Long Rang Scanners, and Recon Strength 3, and I still have some reactor capacity to spare...
     
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    I think I get it now.
    So some systems like Jump Drives, Scanners or even inhibitors should be less dependent on Chambers and should be a physical system augmented by the chambers instead:?

    I could certaintly support that.
    I do not think any systems should be created from thin air by selecting an option in a menu.
    A starship can't magicaly just have a Scanner array appear because they changed their reactor output. They would need to go back to base to refit the ship to add a scanner array.

    That being said has anyone just tried quickly re-assigning their Reactor Tech Point usage instead of having multiple reactors every time you wanted to do something different with the ship?
     

    Non

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    So what does that require other than chambers in max speed and turning? There are no chambers for weapon damage, the concept doesn't require armor or shield buffs, etc.
    If we are going into specifics, lets go the whole way. Ill be using Schnells chart rather than going in game. 30% for top speed 3, 20% for turn rate three, at least recon 4 25% (mainly cause I can't fit anything bigger realistically, jump charge speed 2 25%. Cool thats 100%, but my ship has weaker shields, no inhibitor, and no autocharge. My ftl is slower than it was before, I die faster because I don't have the new power equivalent of ion, and if I remember my stats correctly, my speed tank isn't as good as it was with overdrive passive. I also can't hold an enemy down, nor can I travel long distances easily. Man Edy, I sure do love this ship we just designed.
     
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    If we are going into specifics, lets go the whole way. Ill be using Schnells chart rather than going in game. 30% for top speed 3, 20% for turn rate three, at least recon 4 25% (mainly cause I can't fit anything bigger realistically, jump charge speed 2 25%. Cool thats 100%, but my ship has weaker shields, no inhibitor, and no autocharge. My ftl is slower than it was before, I die faster because I don't have the new power equivalent of ion, and if I remember my stats correctly, my speed tank isn't as good as it was with overdrive passive. I also can't hold an enemy down, nor can I travel long distances easily. Man Edy, I sure do love this ship we just designed.
    I think the point me and Non are trying to make here is not about whether your ship is functionally a ship so much as whether it has enough flavor to be fun and different than everyone else's ships. So far you've expressed the basic chambers you need to make a ship be able to see and move and hopefully have enough power to run your systems, but it is not even a specialized ship like you have been saying this system encourages you to do. You just spent your whole pool making the new system give you the old system equivalent of a ship with a scanner, a slightly oversized jump drive, and a partial overdrive.
     

    Ithirahad

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    Honestly, I find that the problem here is certain things have no business being balanced against each other. Armour vs. shields vs. max speed... sure, I can see that, if those three things can be balanced to the point where the tradeoffs are reasonable for all three. Nobody should be deciding whether they should be spending mass and precious resources on better max speed or more convenient gravity, however. The chamber system is good, but there is a limit to what it should be doing. It's great for specializing stations, creating ship roles, and adding some interesting tradeoffs for defense and mobility (and potentially offense). It is crappy as a method of implementing convenience features, though, unless they go and make all those chambers require only one block regardless of reactor size or something.

    I'll just note that whether it's a buff or a nerf vs. the old system is completely irrelevant; the entire playing field is being changed up. The problem is whether or not these things should be counterbalanced against one another, and whether or not the basic functionalities (without chambers) are good enough that the play experience doesn't suffer if one should choose to take one chamber effect over another.
     

    StormWing0

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    Here's a nice idea, why not make it so Chambers only enhance functionality rather than grant it?


    Also side note: I got a ship specifically for dropping gates so I'm not completely worried about travel times but something should be done to move some functions to non-chamber related systems.
     
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    Nobody should be deciding whether they should be spending mass and precious resources on better max speed or more convenient gravity, however.
    Shouldn't that be balanced by the strain those parts put on the reactor? Eg, convenient gravity should be almost free, while max speed should be expensive. Balancing could do half the work there.

    I mean, is it really an inherent problem when a heavier armed (+reactor power)/shielded ship has worse recon abilities or mobility? At least in (an uneducated and optimistic) theory that should balance itself out somewhat. Or are you afraid that the strongest optimized ships are going to be annoying to use because they will lack comfort features?
     
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    Shouldn't that be balanced by the strain those parts put on the reactor? Eg, convenient gravity should be almost free, while max speed should be expensive. Balancing could do half the work there.
    Chamber still needs to be half the size of the reactor.
     
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    And stuff like the new stop effect chamber isn't something that we, players, will use unless it is some specialized ships. Like a shuttle to land on planets.

    If the devs are fine with niche or almost not used chambers then they can continue like this. But it's just trading old defensive effects for new chambers, nothing changes in fact. You just trade defensive effect that you can trigger on/off at will and that drain power with chambers that drain nothing at all but still take a lot of places.

    Only one good thing though is that it doesn't scale anymore on the entity mass, thus docked thrusts are almost useless.
     
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    Will all the complaining children in this thread shut up about “block counts” and ship size/shape restrictions.

    Personally the space it makes on board can be put to better uses for existing systems (such as cargo) and future update content (such as life support, survival elements, crew, further misc functionality).

    Island ships WILL be dealt with. Schene has made it abundantly clear they intend to deal with unconnected ship parts, be that either through decay when not connected to the main body or through physical breakaway (which is currently possible, but disabled for performance reasons).

    If you currently can’t think of a creative way to utilise that space then shut up moaning and get thinking on how to use it. If you don’t like the current “exploit” ship shapes, then take it unto yourselves to not use them and ensure admins/server operators are aware of the problems and assist in the identification and punishment of those that do as well as deterring others from such practises.

    YOU have the power to make the best of the situation, and whining will not help in the slightest so go be proactive in game, not on the forums.