Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Sounds like the way it should have been designed in the first place.

Just don't marginalise T2!! I like the idea of all the options within tech 1, but T2 needs to be better than T1 given its skill requirements.

The job of T2 should be to allow further SP investment into a ship or module.


Ships get a t2 spaceship command skill, which gives an entirely separate, additional set of bonuses.

Guns and Missiles get a specialization skill, which gives a further 2% per level to damage for that specialization.


Things like warp disruptors, shield extenders, armor plates, armor hardeners, shield hardeners, weapon upgrades, etc. do not have specialization skills, which makes their tech 2 counterparts nothing more than harder to fit, stronger versions.


I wouldn't necessarily disagree with these modules getting their own specialization skills to bring them in line with the rest of the t2 model, but that's a different discussion.

Here, we're talking about meta levels 0-4, and the needless, anti-content that is the arbitrary power level of modules.

I believe that it would be more interesting if players could choose a module to fill a role. Maybe you need a lighter-fitting gun that does less damage, maybe you need a higher tracking gun, maybe you need an armor plate with less speed penalty, or a shield extender with less signature penalty. Modules have roles, but currently they are all best filled by meta 4.

Munijugs approves. Give value to all the meta items instead of just the 4 ones being so much better than the rest.

I think that's exactly what they should do. T1 items should be the 'refine' things, and comprise about 80% of dropped loot. M1-M4 should be spread evenly among the remaining 20%. They should be 'sought after' to create their value.

T1's value will be determined by their mineral content.

Metas shouldn't be completely worthless when it comes from minerals, to prevent artificial surplus, so give them only marginally less refineability than t1.

But I'll add in another disclaimer, like I always do, I'm not an industry/market thinktank, I'm a grunt. I shoot things, tell people to shoot things, and very often fail at shooting things and get blown up. I'm just thinking of more ways to shoot things.

Somebody get the balance team in here and reading this stuff.

I am very strongly under the impression that the balance team can, in fact, not read.

But I may be mistaken.

I kid, but seriously it would be awesome if they could chime in on this.

Yeah, it is a very large task, as EVERY module has 4 individual variations that would need balancing, it's much easier to put it in the 'meta' model and give percentages and variances from a norm than actually tailor a role.

Tailoring roles, however, you could have very obscene variances while still not leaving the realm of balance.

Take my armor plate example, the metrics that are important to armor plates are the fitting, armor amount, and speed impact.
It wouldn't necessarily be out of line to suggest an armor plate that has almost no speed impact, if the armor amount and fitting give no bonus from the tech 1 counterpart.

Here's another issue- how to differentiate 4 levels of hardeners; which seem like relatively simple modules. I guess (modifiers are of the initial resitance, not a resistance themselves. (a if t1 is 50%, a 10% modifier brings it to 55%.)
light: less fitting, same cap usage, t1 resistance modifier.
tactical: t1 fitting, uses very little cap, t1+5%.
combat: more fitting, uses more cap, t1+10%.
optimized: slightly less fitting, uses marginally less cap, t1+7.5%

that would probably make the combat version look very much like t2.

Honestly, i think ccp has overheating mechanics backwards when it comes to t2 and t1. I think the t2 item should be better engineered to withstand heat longer, and give further reason to use a t2 (player made) module over the t1 counterparts.