Forums » Suggestions
I've tossed this around in a few different places, but figured I'd cross-post it over here as well since it's been a while, and more feedback is always good.
Summary of Goals
* Expanded Manufacturing
* Improved Player Economy
* Improved Purpose to Conquerable Stations
* Improved Addon Variety (what is proposed here will obviously require Incarnate's approval for changes and additions to addons.)
Link to the proposed starting point for powercell stats. (also found below)
Expanded Manufacturing
There is a certain type of person who comes to the game that really likes manufacturing, and they are typically rather disappointed at the lack of manufacturing options. This project will begin to address the dirth of manufacturing options by introducing multiple new recipes available at a variety of different stations, to include the conquerable stations for specialized or highly-tuned addons.
I understand that the current inability to manufacturing directly from your ship or station cargo hold makes manufacturing a little onerous, but I don't see that being a good enough reason to forestall any longer than necessary on introducing new manufacturing recipes.
Improved Player Economy
The current player economy is rather limited, since almost anything that anyone wants is readily available at most stations in their current system (faction not withstanding). By introducing new items that are only available through manufacturing, we create a new market that can't be fulfilled by any other means. Many of these new items would also be superior to their station purchased counter-parts.
Improved Purpose to Conquerable Stations
Except for the building of tridents, there seems to be a fluxuating interest in controlling the stations since they don't have much to offer, other than a point of conflict for those that want conflict. Some of the manufacturing recipes to be introduced through this project would be limited production run items with better stats even then those manufactured at regular stations.
Improved Addon Variety
Currently most ships are configured fairly similarly to each other due to a lack of variety or other reasons. Specifically within the scope of the goals of this project, I hope to add variety initially through the modification of existing powercells and addition of new manufactured variants with better stats than their purchased counterparts. The changes required here are probably the most controversial and the most demanding of scrutiny to ensure a good balance.
Currently Light and Medium power cells are merely items you grow out of when you reach the next combat level. Heavy and Fast charge cells are used predominantly with Ultra Charge and Hive cells covering the rest. What I propose is balancing the recharge rates for Light, Medium, and Heavy power cells, adding increased mass to the latter two, and possibly tweaking the grid allowance. Purchased cells would have the worst stats within their class of cell. Mk2 variants, manufactured at non-conquerable stations, would have better recharge, capacity, and lower mass than the Mk1. Mk3 variants, only manufactured in limited quantities at conquerable stations, would be better even than the Mk2.
By balancing the recharge rates, we remove the current problem with the Light and Medium cells not being competitive with later equipment. By increasing the mass of the Medium and Heavy cells, we create a reason to choose a Light cell with lower capacity over a Heavy cell.
I have drafted up some stats to show what I currently feel is a good starting point for these changes.
http://vo-wiki.com/wiki/User:Draugath
Breaking Down the Recipes
First, a little history on me I suppose. I wouldn't say I'm an avid crafter, but I do enjoy it, and have pursued many tradeskills in other games to a high level. I both love and hate sub-combines, and see them as a necessary evil to the growth of the economy and definition of manufacturing. With that in mind, I see a need for the initial creation of some manufactured sub-components, similar to what has already been seen with tridents, but not requiring nearly as many resources.
* Refined Ore would be manufactured at mining stations as described in this suggestion.
* Energy Storage Cells would be manufactured at Research stations and represent incremental amounts of storage capacity for power cells. I currently envision each cell being able to hold up to 100 energy, so a power cell with a max capacity of 250 would need 3, 450 would need 5, and so on.
* Light/Medium/Heavy Power Cell Mk2 would be manufactured at all Commercial stations. In order for this to succeed, the quantity of required components should be diverse enough to be interesting (not all purchased at the same station), but also not such a large a list that gathering them is too big of a chore, too expensive, or take up too much room in the cargo hold. They should also be purchasable at a price marked-up from the wholesale cost to build one.
* Light/Medium/Heavy Power Cell Mk3 would be manufactured at conquerable stations and have some increased quantity requirements.
* Fast Charge Power Cell Mk2 strikes me as one that should be manufactured at Research stations.
I have a LibreOffice spreadsheet which shows the start of my thought process on what these various recipes should be comprised of. At this point in time it is not complete and certainly needs to modified more.
http://bespin.org/~draugath/vo/powercells.ods
http://bespin.org/~draugath/vo/powercells.html
EDIT:
This was originally written before the change to turret health at conquerable stations and I had in mind a greater difficulty in holding them to create incentive to keep them from one's enemies.
EDIT2: Changed refined ore description to link to the refined ore suggetion.
EDIT3: Added that Mk2 should also be purchaseable.
EDIT4: Added HTML version of spreadsheet
Summary of Goals
* Expanded Manufacturing
* Improved Player Economy
* Improved Purpose to Conquerable Stations
* Improved Addon Variety (what is proposed here will obviously require Incarnate's approval for changes and additions to addons.)
Link to the proposed starting point for powercell stats. (also found below)
Expanded Manufacturing
There is a certain type of person who comes to the game that really likes manufacturing, and they are typically rather disappointed at the lack of manufacturing options. This project will begin to address the dirth of manufacturing options by introducing multiple new recipes available at a variety of different stations, to include the conquerable stations for specialized or highly-tuned addons.
I understand that the current inability to manufacturing directly from your ship or station cargo hold makes manufacturing a little onerous, but I don't see that being a good enough reason to forestall any longer than necessary on introducing new manufacturing recipes.
Improved Player Economy
The current player economy is rather limited, since almost anything that anyone wants is readily available at most stations in their current system (faction not withstanding). By introducing new items that are only available through manufacturing, we create a new market that can't be fulfilled by any other means. Many of these new items would also be superior to their station purchased counter-parts.
Improved Purpose to Conquerable Stations
Except for the building of tridents, there seems to be a fluxuating interest in controlling the stations since they don't have much to offer, other than a point of conflict for those that want conflict. Some of the manufacturing recipes to be introduced through this project would be limited production run items with better stats even then those manufactured at regular stations.
Improved Addon Variety
Currently most ships are configured fairly similarly to each other due to a lack of variety or other reasons. Specifically within the scope of the goals of this project, I hope to add variety initially through the modification of existing powercells and addition of new manufactured variants with better stats than their purchased counterparts. The changes required here are probably the most controversial and the most demanding of scrutiny to ensure a good balance.
Currently Light and Medium power cells are merely items you grow out of when you reach the next combat level. Heavy and Fast charge cells are used predominantly with Ultra Charge and Hive cells covering the rest. What I propose is balancing the recharge rates for Light, Medium, and Heavy power cells, adding increased mass to the latter two, and possibly tweaking the grid allowance. Purchased cells would have the worst stats within their class of cell. Mk2 variants, manufactured at non-conquerable stations, would have better recharge, capacity, and lower mass than the Mk1. Mk3 variants, only manufactured in limited quantities at conquerable stations, would be better even than the Mk2.
By balancing the recharge rates, we remove the current problem with the Light and Medium cells not being competitive with later equipment. By increasing the mass of the Medium and Heavy cells, we create a reason to choose a Light cell with lower capacity over a Heavy cell.
I have drafted up some stats to show what I currently feel is a good starting point for these changes.
http://vo-wiki.com/wiki/User:Draugath
Breaking Down the Recipes
First, a little history on me I suppose. I wouldn't say I'm an avid crafter, but I do enjoy it, and have pursued many tradeskills in other games to a high level. I both love and hate sub-combines, and see them as a necessary evil to the growth of the economy and definition of manufacturing. With that in mind, I see a need for the initial creation of some manufactured sub-components, similar to what has already been seen with tridents, but not requiring nearly as many resources.
* Refined Ore would be manufactured at mining stations as described in this suggestion.
* Energy Storage Cells would be manufactured at Research stations and represent incremental amounts of storage capacity for power cells. I currently envision each cell being able to hold up to 100 energy, so a power cell with a max capacity of 250 would need 3, 450 would need 5, and so on.
* Light/Medium/Heavy Power Cell Mk2 would be manufactured at all Commercial stations. In order for this to succeed, the quantity of required components should be diverse enough to be interesting (not all purchased at the same station), but also not such a large a list that gathering them is too big of a chore, too expensive, or take up too much room in the cargo hold. They should also be purchasable at a price marked-up from the wholesale cost to build one.
* Light/Medium/Heavy Power Cell Mk3 would be manufactured at conquerable stations and have some increased quantity requirements.
* Fast Charge Power Cell Mk2 strikes me as one that should be manufactured at Research stations.
I have a LibreOffice spreadsheet which shows the start of my thought process on what these various recipes should be comprised of. At this point in time it is not complete and certainly needs to modified more.
http://bespin.org/~draugath/vo/powercells.ods
http://bespin.org/~draugath/vo/powercells.html
EDIT:
This was originally written before the change to turret health at conquerable stations and I had in mind a greater difficulty in holding them to create incentive to keep them from one's enemies.
EDIT2: Changed refined ore description to link to the refined ore suggetion.
EDIT3: Added that Mk2 should also be purchaseable.
EDIT4: Added HTML version of spreadsheet
Dear god how long did you spend on this
+1
+1
" I had in mind a greater difficulty in holding [the stations] to create incentive to keep them from one's enemies"
The only way to create an incentive for someone to keep them from their enemies would be to have a limit on production at the conq stations, both for these powercells and for other manufacturing that occurs there. Otherwise we just get everyone doing a big fat "who cares" number on it as before.
As far as the actual power cells go, I'm not sure about your numbers. I thought there was a proposal for ship specific power cells that had a lot of support and I like that idea better to be honest.
The only way to create an incentive for someone to keep them from their enemies would be to have a limit on production at the conq stations, both for these powercells and for other manufacturing that occurs there. Otherwise we just get everyone doing a big fat "who cares" number on it as before.
As far as the actual power cells go, I'm not sure about your numbers. I thought there was a proposal for ship specific power cells that had a lot of support and I like that idea better to be honest.
+1
That would be the idea, TheRedSpy. After much deliberation on various ways to limit the production of the Mk3 variants, I'd finally come to the conclusion that given existing resources, the best way to do this was to have a separate global limit at each station per day (e.g. 30/day/station). This way the group that controls the most stations will have access to build the most Mk3 variant powercells.
Obviously the numbers I had chosen were just something to illustrate what could be done, and don't necessarily mean they're what the final product would be.
With regards to ship-specific powercells, I know I'd read something along those lines as well, though I thought it had more to do with each ship utilizing the potential of a powercell differently. (i.e. Vulture -5% capacity, +5% rate, -2% mass). Anyway, that's a suggestion for a different thread.
Obviously the numbers I had chosen were just something to illustrate what could be done, and don't necessarily mean they're what the final product would be.
With regards to ship-specific powercells, I know I'd read something along those lines as well, though I thought it had more to do with each ship utilizing the potential of a powercell differently. (i.e. Vulture -5% capacity, +5% rate, -2% mass). Anyway, that's a suggestion for a different thread.
+1......!!!
Can't wait to use a lawneut with a widowmaker and fast charge mkIII cell on my valk.
I think the problem with manufacturing them across the board is nobody's going to bother manufacturing the light or medium variants. Recharge rate is king in the power cell world.
True and, as such, I would advocate for Fast Charge cells being more expensive overall.
Also, just a reminder, but there is no reason to believe the stats I've come up would in any way be final.
Also, just a reminder, but there is no reason to believe the stats I've come up would in any way be final.
Well there's also the other issues with crafted items. If something is likely to be used in a situation where it can be lost easily, but is difficult to manufacture or transport to where it's needed, it won't get used.
A good example is the Centurion Superlight.
A good example is the Centurion Superlight.
Well, the Superlight suffers from ships not being transferable and having a large list of required items. So it's hardly a good example for successful manufacturing.
The trick to making everyday-use items work with manufacturing is to not have the item list be to excessive or the quantities produced too few.
The trick to making everyday-use items work with manufacturing is to not have the item list be to excessive or the quantities produced too few.
+1 OP
Back to the top.
Bumping this again after talking to Incarnate.
+1
I have been thinking a lot about powercells myself, and it seems downright daft in one respect, being that a trident uses the same cells as a normal ship... That in itself is ridiculous. But otherwise, i had already come to the same conclusions about bringing the light and medium cells into a more statistically effective position. Whilst my considerations stopped there, all the points about cells here seem to be a good method of implementation. As for the manufacturing i agree there too, tho to a lesser degree. I do think that there should be an upper echelon of equipment not purchasable anywhere, fulfilling a marketable position in a similar way to hive posis. The boost to player economy would be wondrous, as you have foreseen. The ships in the game seem too disposable, and the addition of this upper echelon would make people a little less whimsical about the fate of their hardware. It should be more akin to the idea of cars... you can go out and buy a car, get electric windows and whatever installed as standard, or you can send it to a garage to be customised, this part being akin to manufacturing equipment to make the ship more individual. A player could maybe add a paint kit to the list of addons allowing visual customisability. Maybe even an aftermarket mechanic who could tweak ship stats marginally for a wildly expensive cost, such as increasing thrust at the expense of spin torque, or maybe reducing weight at the cost of armor, etc. Overall, the mechanics of the game are all based on numbers, there is no reason to keep those numbers so fixed in stone when to allow variability would enable players to create any setup they so wish, such as a battle moth which trades its carfo bay for increased thrust, spin torque, and armour for example.
I never could actually open this spreadsheet.
I added an html version to the top post, but I'll put the same link here as well.
http://bespin.org/~draugath/vo/powercells.html
http://bespin.org/~draugath/vo/powercells.html
I love all the stats of all of these powercells. Do it nao!
Well, that stats definitely need to be adjusted. Those were just some numbers I put together based on current powercell stats to illustrate the concept. There should be a compelling argument for choosing energy capacity over weight, or vice versa. So it might be prudent to boost the Heavy Mk3 to 1000 energy capacity with a higher weight to match, and then move the Medium closer to where the Heavy is currently at. The recipes also need to be revisited.