This system is more detrimental to players who build their hull first than those who build their systems first.
That is true. I've pretty much always done my reactors and hull at the same time, then filled in other systems. With the new system, I'll end up doing all the systems while working on the ship's outline, then adding hull afterward.
As a rule of thumb, I've found that ships need around 10-30% by volume of interior either for the interior to act as spaced armor or for the ship to have the look and feel one comes to expect from popular scifi. It's possible to minimize it more, and I've done it, but you have to heavily limit what you do with interiors. In other words, I'm speaking from experience on builds I've either made or given up on out of frustration.
Just to clarify, the 20% mass refers to both the interior blocks and the additional skin needed to cover the extra internal volume. I think I mentioned that in my previous post but I'm not certain. If you're using standard or advanced armor, most of the weight is going to be from the extra armor. If you're using hull instead of armor on your exterior, you cut back on total weight, but you make the remaining weight useless because hull doesn't really provide any defensive value.
He says, while arguing with PvPers who care about their external aesthetics and put interiors in their ships...
I don't really appreciate an underhanded insult that we don't care about how ships look because we disagree with you. Quite the contrary, a large part of why we disagree with this system is because it encourages designs like dumbbells or spaghetti.
WE don't use them because we have a "gentleman's agreement" to not fly shitty dumbbells and spaghetti against eachother. But do you think everyone is going to agree to that in the current state, let alone as the game gets more popular?
Apparently there's a group that doesn't care (I've seen a number of builds with zero aesthetic) and a group that does. I didn't know you were part of the latter, or that the latter was particularly prominent. That actually makes a lot more sense as there's very little creativity with zero-aesthetic builds once you find the optimal meta.
I disagree. Chambers should be modifications of systems that you pick and choose based on the desired role of your ship. There are a limited number of them a ship can have, yet scanners are an absolutely essential system that every ship needs.
I think the intention was that jump and scanners were going to be "free" for basic functionality, but require a chamber for enhanced functions. Jump is clearly underpowered. I guess the scanner requirement depends on how much stealth your enemy uses, but if no one counters it, everyone will use stealth. What we need is a way to give stealth a drawback that leaves it usable but not as an end-all that lets you fight undetected. If stealth isn't universally desirable, maybe scanners won't be universally required. In other words, stealth is just overpowered right now. Romulans are cool, but a Titan decloaking off your stern and alpha-blasting you to smithereens isn't particularly good for gameplay.
At one point someone brought up mass-based stealth debuffs, and I added that distance could be factored in.
What I think would work best is a system where chance of detection is based on distance and current reactor output. The bigger you are, the harder it is to stay hidden. The more systems you're using, the easier you are to see. The current maximum distance for someone to appear on your scopes should be removed entirely. The technobabble excuse is that detection depends heavily on passive sensors to detect heat from active reactors. The more heat you put out, the easier you are to spot.
That should have results similar to this:
- Stealth jmakes more sense this way.
- Large ships can be seen coming from far off. Small ships can't be seen until they get closer. Small ships thus have a better chance to escape larger ones before being seen. Trying to hunt down and kill at target thus calls for a similarly-sized ship to catch it.
- A very large ship can use stealth and minimize power usage to get closer without being spotted, but it won't be able to get as close as a small ship could. This makes small ships better for scouting and ambush, and large ships better for attacking stationary objectives or for area denial.
- (hopefully) Balance of small versus large ships will be greatly improved by the introduction of different strategic roles. You need big ships for heavy killing power. You need small ships for scouting and surprise. You need something in the middle to get the jump on someone while packing enough firepower to bring the target down.
I really think if we can move stealth/detection to a strategic rather than purely tactical role, it will improve the game. Right now we're lacking in strategic options.
