Chassis Upgrade

Post ideas & suggestions you have pertaining to the game here.
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Trensicourt
Anarchist
Anarchist
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 9:20 pm

Since there is a ship selling feature coming soon, I want to point out the idea of upgrading chassis because it increases realism and emphasizes the importance of buying ships.

At the moment, there are almost no limits on what you can upgrade. This is unrealistic. For example, there should be very little reason why my starting Starship can equip a thermonuclear cannon when it had basic lasers. Next, if the limits of your upgrades are limited only by the weight, a number of devices, and reactor size, then why should I buy new ships when it's cheaper to improve a specific feature at a time. A new starship in a shipyard is and should be expensive. There is no reason I am buying that new ship because it has one or two things of the many I want. It needs to have something more and tangible and the first step we should take is adding limitations to ship chassis.

For now, the starter ships should have their own tiers that will force you to buy the next tier or temporarily improve your chassis. This also makes sense since Starships need to be built stronger not only by armor plating and weaponry but by internal systems the more dangerous the system. For example, Earth Industry can produce a basic E1500 freighter in Eridani but would need to produce a much tougher version post St. Katherine. This simply doesn't mean a larger ship but a higher quality one, so think Mark II, III, or more.

Further differentiation beyond levels would be nice. Such tags could be Civilian and Military.
ex: An EI500 could accept a level 6 civilian armor but would be unable to install the same level of armor from the military.

I believe the starting ships should not have starking differences since they are all civilian vehicles. However, tier 2 ships is where stark differences in upgrade potential should be noted. For example, a make-believe Wolfen II needs to install better armor and goes to a shop. It looks through the list but of the armor it can buy, it can only install a Tier 9 and below military armor but would be incompatible with a Tier 8 Civilian Armor.

The concept is still in its infancy and quite overcomplicated but I hope you understand why I thought of this.
JohnBWatson
Fleet Officer
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Posts: 1452
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:17 pm

George suggested this a while back, and I agree wholeheartedly. It gives players a reason to use ship classes that would otherwise be ignored, like the slow, conspicuous Centurion and Britannia. It also adds a much - needed money sink, and makes it a bit more difficult to just skip through system after system without fighting anything.
Derakon
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 175
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:53 am

There's a number of "unlock" upgrades you can get in the current game. The most obvious is the military ID, but there's also the smuggler's hold and simply upgrading your reactor. I'm not automatically averse to adding more such unlocks, but I do think the ones we currently have are nicely integrated into the game both flavor- and mechanics-wise (though I wouldn't mind if the military ID were unsellable). It'd be good if any additional unlocks also were. So I'm not really in favor of saying "your Sapphire Mk. I can only equip up to level-6 armor". If you really want to incentivize upgrading ships, there should be a good reason why the new chassis can do things that the old one can't -- upgrades that you can reasonably say can't be retrofitted onto an existing ship.

On that note, the big upgrade that leaps out to me is...the reactor! Reactors sound like a really core component of a ship, and frankly I was surprised, when I first played the game, that you could simply swap them out for new ones. If reactors were instead a "locked" system (unable to be removed or replaced), then you'd have to buy a new ship to be able to get a new reactor.
PM
Fleet Admiral
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Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2010 12:54 am

In part 2, reactors (in mechanist, biotech, and archaeotech ships) cannot be swapped.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
JohnBWatson
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1452
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:17 pm

PM wrote:
Sat Feb 17, 2018 2:01 am
In part 2, reactors (in mechanist, biotech, and archaeotech ships) cannot be swapped.
George has made a lot of design improvements like that in part II. Most notably, every enemy faction has at least one unique gimmick that affects their behavior.
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