Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Remove unpackaging (or repackaging, how you want to think of it) from everything and let items have only one real volume.

Ups:

+ Only one stacking mode, less inventory space wasted.

+ There is absolutely no need for unpackaging from a design standpoint. It's only a tedious waste of inventory slots and clicks.

+ For lore purposes, write "unpackaged" volume as a curiousity info only.

+ Ship maintenance bays can be adjusted to house the standard volume ships, whether packaged or not.


Downs:

- People who work in logistics in RL lose their valuable background experience in game.

- Carrying ships and damaged items:
Carrying around ships is a very marginal practise when compared to unpackaging and repackaging. Gameplay wise it should be handled as a marginal thing and hence as an exception - the packaging mechanic doesn't need to be in place for that. Won't take long to figure a good workaround and balance for hauling ships. Damaged items could just be separate from main stacks and labeled damaged.

The "packaged" flag in the item primarily determines whether it can be stacked. Most items in the game have the same volume regardless of this state. However, it's necessary:

T2 and faction crystals, both laser and mining, take damage each cycle. Once used, each crystal can't be stacked because it is a unique item with its own health. As soon as you fire a single shot with one of these, it gets "unpackaged" to prevent it from stacking. Modules damaged by overheat or ship destruction are similar, but can be repaired.

*Perhaps* it would be possible to remove the repackaging of modules and allow any with 0 damage to stack. That could apply to crystals as well, I suppose...instead of a dedicated flag for whether it's packaged, determine its "stackability" based on damage alone.

However...

Ships when packaged don't go in ship maintenance arrays. They go in the cargo hold. When you assemble a ship it becomes much larger and can only be carried in SMAs. I can carry a battleship in my orca...packaged. The assembled hull is much larger and won't fit at all.

edit:

A freighter can move quite a lot of ships, but not when they're assembled and rigged. That's by design. I don't think you've thought this through at all.

Carrying around large numbers of rigged and insured ships is not a bad thing, is it? It makes the game less tedious. It would boost some marginal game mechanics and allow access to new mechanics.

E.g: nullsec logistics when deploying. Have your alliance deploy in ships and bring backup ships in JF's and carriers.

Pro:
Added risk in freight ships of getting ganked with insured and rigged ships in the bay.
Improved nullsec deployments and logistics generates more action and more explosions.

Con:
Suicide ganking gets buffed in two ways. Not sure if bad.

Actually, if you create a courier contract that contains an assembled ship, it can be placed into a cargo hold like any other item as it is placed within a generic "plastic wrap" courier container.