Specialty Blocks and Equipment

[Criss]

Specialty Blocks

This is the main suggestion I’ve thought up today. Have you ever flown around and salvaged a ship or looted an enemy in another game. You find a cool sword in WoW or better gear in a chest or an upgrade to your ship in EVE. Why wouldn’t that possibility exist for this game. What I suggest is the addition of blocks, with randomized uses and stats for your systems. What about a special power converter, that increases your recharge rate, or heat dispersers for your weapons, that increase the rate of fire. All the systems implemented in the game could benefit from this. It’d be more useful to salvage a ship and get components for anything other than just more power blocks, who says they don’t have special equipment on board? Specialty items like this should still be rare, like loot in any other game. Hidden away on pirate stations occasionally, or lost and buried on a planet. I’ve got plenty of ideas for things like this and will list them below. The names for these don’t have to be exact, I assume some sort of randomization would be implemented with this, like adding numbers and letters to the part : “ZZ-145 Power Relay”



Heres a list of some of these I thought of off the top of my head.



Shield Reinforcer - Adds a large amount of shield threshold.

Anti Antimatter Screen - Increase threshold against antimatter. **This would be useful for different types of weapons systems.

Shield Booster - Increases recharge rate of shields.



(Weapon name) Accelerator Coil - Increases speed of weapon shots.

(Weapon name) Superconductor - Increases rate of fire.

(Weapon name) Rangefinder - Increases distance of shots.

(Weapon name) Additional Charge Battery - Increases damage **Mostly an energy weapon thing



Missile Loading Bay Accelerator - Increase rate of fire

Warhead Cataylst Unit - Increases damage of missile

Warhead Fuel Cache Unit - Increases range of missile

Warhead Afterburners Unit - Increase speed of missile

Warhead Fragmentation Shells - Increases radius of missile.



Ship scanner - Provides info on ship capabilities in a separate window **Extremely rare and semi OP

Survey Scanner - Provides info on the resources available from asteroids like materials or numbers of blocks



Microwarpdrives - Gives a large boost to speed for a small amount of time. Almost like a strong push

Afterburner - Increases thrust

Overdrive Injector - Increases thrust greatly at the expense of more power. **Used in ships with small space for thrusters.

Inertia Dampeners - Change the mass of a ship, either increase a small amount or decrease a small amount **Perhaps it can be used to combat the effects of the pulse weapon

Inertia Stabilizers - Increase maneuverability



Reactor Control Unit - Boost power recharge rate

Power Capacitor Unit - Greatly Increase maximum power reserves

Powergrid Subroutines - Reduces power requirements for all ship systems slightly, the more systems, the less of an impact.



Sensor Array Network - Increase range that objects can be locked on to or displayed



Cloak Dispersion Generator - Decreases amount of cloaking units needed to cloak a ship

Cloaking Field Regulator - Decrease power needed for cloak systems



Target Painter - Combats jamming

All of these would have randomized stats and some sort of code added to it just to make it seem like specialty equipment like I said above.

I have more suggestions if you care to see and they are posted here:
http://star-made.org/content/taking-ideas-all-my-sci-fi-knowledge-and-putting-them-here-weapons-planets

Thanks for reading!

 

[Riftmaster]

Some of these are already in the game - you can go into the weapons list and tweak the values of your installed weapons from a pool of 100%

Default is 25% for each catagory, which are Damage, distance (range), speed (projectile velocity?), and reload (how fast it fires).

So effectively you can make an extremely rapid-fire weapon if you want, or a high-powe slow-firing one.



Personally, while I kinda like the idea of specific blocks for this purpose, the weapons interface is far less complex, and already in place.

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Now, I would like to see a similar tweaking system for the engines, which so far as I know is not currently the case...

So your block idea might be one way of doing so...

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As for the power thing, currently power generators fill the role of your \"Reactor Control Unit\"...they \"boost power recharge rate\".

While the power storage thingies (whatever they are called) fill the role of your \"Power Capacitor Unit\"...they increase power storage, or \"reserves\"

The \"Powergrid Subroutines\" bit is an interesting idea, but unless carefully implemented, I could see it being abused.

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I have no experience with cloaking, jamming, etc.

But I kinda like some of the ideas...

 

[Criss]

The principle is these blocks would do more than the average unit could. For example. A specialty capaictor could hold 5 times as much as a regular power storage block. On smaller ships it would be a massive boost, where as on larger ships it would require a stronger version with better random stats to have the same scaling effect.

Technically weapons do do this but they do this at the price of all other stats on the weapon, I dont like this. One because I dont believe all these stats in a real life weapon would all be connected. For example. How does the number (length) of a launch tube determine the power of a missile, that is specific solely to the missile, not the space that the missile uses as a launch bay. These blocks would be added in order to give bonuses to ship systems without having to sacrifice other stats on that system. Like I said, they would be rare, if they are randomly generated then perhaps they will be impossible to spawn in as well.

Same thing for the power units that I said in the first paragraph, itd be an upgraded version of the already present power generator or storage units being able to generate x times the amount or store x time the amount of power respectively. One of the specialty units could replace half a dozen power blocks, which would indeed give a benefit to a smaller ship.

See what I\'m saying? To me the main use for this would be for weapons. I find it annoying that many of the stats would have nothing to do with each other in a real system. Warhead size and damage is not based off the pod it shoots from or the silo. I have another suggestion thread where I better explained this linked in the OP.

 

[Starham1]

Sir, you are a genius. I have not seen anyone with the same idea as you. I fully agree with your idea, and belive it should be added in as soon as possible.

 

[Caidicus]

I think the idea for pirates and npcs using modified modules and weapons is great, but how about the existence of these blocks also has the mechanics of modular research?

If you want to research antimatter guns to find a recipe for a stronger version of it, you would put the antimatter gun into a research style factory, input some ingredients that it requires to perform the research and then start the process. It could work off the tick system, meaning it doesn\'t just output the recipe, it takes time, and the result could be varied.

The other option is to put a module in a single slot on the GUI of the research factory, then put in different elements in another slot. After performing the research, the GUI would give a comparison chart of the gains or decreases that resulted from the research.

Putting 1 metate into the element slot and researching it resulted in a 1 point increase to the power of the antimatter cannon, though it decreased the range by 1 as well.

If you print this recipe, produce that item, then start research on the resultant item by placing a new element, it might make up for the loss of range, and even add a point to the fire rate.

The player could choose whether to print the recipe as it is, or keep adding new elements to tinker with the module research until it is at a desirable level.

When the module gets to a certain point, it could be upgraded to a new tier, at which further gains could be reached, however this tier upgrade only happens if the recipe is printed.

To perform tier 2 research, you\'d need to produce that module, then put it in the research slot, after which you\'d continue trying new elements to further increase its potency.

There could even be bonuses to reaching a new tier, such as different behaviors for weapon types, like beam instead of pulse, or a slight aoe effect.

The key to this research would be in how it allows more power to be packed into smaller spaces, making specialized ship types.

How do you feel about that?

 

[z1967]

Typing from mobile device

what if the specialty blocks, were actually just upgrades to the weapons or computers?

for example, in real life, you roalxe obselete parts on a computer with newer and more powerful versions. These upgrades can be called \"chips\" or \"programs.\" So they aren\'t abused, they stay with the ship and are not transferred by blueprints. When the computer or core that holds the upgrade chip things is destroyed, there is a certain percentage of a chance that the chip may be destroyed. Adding that would allow for the chip to be rare, and hard to salvage from enemy vessels since it may be destroyed.

i should probably talk about the carrier of these chips. The two options are, a special upgrade block, or just adding a GUI when computers are clicked with R. A seat block will be added so you can carry passengers still.

an upgrade block would be normal to find in a ship and often sold by shops, it wouldn\'t be cheap but it would be well worth it. With 35 slots, you could hold an upgrade for every system you have, and the rarity of these would keep you from gambling them every time you battle.

adding them to each computer would be nice for the quick implement, just another GUI to add and then you are good. A few slots or only one would be where you stick the chips.

this is just an idea so that they can\'t be duped or easily obtained. But an increase in my guns range as a sacrifice for reload would be nice to have.

 

[Criss]

I do like the idea of research. I\'m not so sure how well your idea would work. I only think it wou’d if there was a set number of outcomes for a certain block. Versions that have a bonus for each individual stat and then one that is the base antimatter cannon. I would also be inclined to spend time on this game if the crafting aspect was much more in depth. Currently I build ships with spawned blocks because I don\'t see the point in a legitimate single player game right now. Research/crafting would be an incentive.

 

[Criss]

I like that. If it had to implimented that way I would be totally fine with it. I just wanted there to be a system where you had specialty blocks, that possibly looked cool and did something extra for your systems. The idea of looting a ship is great and all but you do it because you want to get epic cargo from them. Not the same old power blocks and cannons that everyone else has.

 

[Stakhanov]

So now there\'s grinding for countless epic modules on top of grinding for credits and masses of blocks. It\'s like the idea of a level playing field got too old-fashionned for 2013.

Eve\'s faction modules did nothing to improve the game - they contributed to risk-adverse behaviors making space that much more boring , and gave a larger unfair advantage to those buying everything with real-life money. Only thanks to effective tech 2 ships and modules (which were restricted due to a player-run monopoly for a while) did the game remain interesting for those not farming all week , but at the cost of waiting much longer to become of use at competitive levels due to character skills requirements.

By the way , all those meta items have a significant cost in database capacity , such a system would raise system requirements of Starmade servers. So , not a good idea.

 

[Criss]

Schema has implemented a meta item system for things like log books and hand held weapons and who knows what else in the future. Its pointless to say this idea is not a good idea when something similar is already implemented and in development. If grinding is a concern, then increase the number of these modules that appear throughout the game and ensure that more impressive versions statistically show up less often in loot. Also I can’t seem to make a post in the suggestions thread without you shooting me down. If you’re going to contradict my arguments then provide an alternate solution instead of just saying that everything I say is useless and incapable of becoming a reality in one form or another.

 

[Stakhanov]

No alternative is required to turning the game into an epic module collection frenzy ; merely not doing it will be fine. Furthermore , Schema is not an omniscient game designer and may experiment with questionable concepts sometimes , so it\'s especially important to issue concerns ahead of development efforts , and not reinforce bad ideas.

This thread has merit in discussing just one direction of game design , thus I can take the time to explain why it\'s a bad idea in detail instead of having to dismiss the entire suggestion list.

 

[Criss]

People already scramble for resources and money currently on servers where they cannot spawn items in. If loot becomes less common in the future, (and schema has already lowered it in the latest patch), then its only going to get worse. By your words you are saying that the idea would only compound the problem. Are you also saying that Schema has already made a bad decision by implementing meta items? I don’t see why there shouldn’t be an opportunity to test something like this if something similar is already on its way into future versions of the game.