random enhancements on items

[Betelgeuse]

I think random items should have a chance of starting with an enhancement. That why enemies automaticly become more varied and could mix up the plain 25% enhancement for weapons (0%-50% would seem fair) in so doing mixes up the weapons a bit. (armor and shields could get random enhancements too)

[Karl]

Just having random percentage bonuses would mess things up, because every weapon you find would suck except for the ones with the biggest random bonus.

But having random enhancements among a selection of possible different enhancement types would be great, though. In fact, that would be... Diablo-like. (And copying one of the best aspects of Diablo, too.)

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p.s. In case anyone gets the wrong idea from my tone... Being Diablo-like isn't necessarily a good thing... that game has its flaws and weaknesses, but the item enhancement system is very nice.

[Betelgeuse]

I would take a normal ion cannon over a +100% x-laser any day
You forget damage types.

[Karl]

No, it's basic math.

Your normal ion cannon sucks, and so do your +10, +20, +30 and +40 ion cannons, because there's a +50 ion cannon out there somewhere. So all weapons in the game become junky unless they have the max bonus. It just messes things up.

[Betelgeuse]

you will not find an ion cannon with max bonus 99/100 games
and even if it didn't have the max bonus you should be able to play fine the game should never be made so that you need the optimum stuff.
Haven't you ever played those tons of games where they have random weapon stats?

[Burzmali]

Umm, that's not the best approach on this topic Betelgeuse. Farming enemies for the "best" weapon in those games is a past time for many. Making them rare doesn't fix that problem, it just makes farming harder.

However, maybe if the "enhancement" was hard to determine (i.e. cost money, etc.) players could be convinced to take what they can get and move on, instead of waiting for the big one.

[Betelgeuse]

hmm sounds good you would have to go to a station and pay to analize if a item has an enhancement (you don't even get more money for selling it unless you so this)

[Karl]

Oh, great, lets take something simple and effective and add not one, but two layers of busywork to make it messy and tedius.

While you're at it, lets add screws for weapon mounts, and you have to get the right type of screw for the weapon... and you have to identify the screws before you use them, and oil them, too. And to make things really fun you have to find the right nuts to match the screws, because why would anyone have matching nuts and screws in the same place?

Seriously, though: All this to add... what exactly? How is this random percentage bonus supposed to improve gameplay?

[Betelgeuse]

so you can't just use your favorite weapon every single game and do the same thing from game to game. The game gets dull if you know everything about whats going to happen every game. (not sure but rare weapons seem to be getting more common with later versions maybe it is just my luck)
I want more variety. Gameplay is already there what we need is more variety.

[Karl]

Ok, I agree with you on the motivation, but I think, if you just add generic random bonuses, then all that would do would be that people would wind up using their favorite items anyway but with the highest random bonus that they could find.

I like adding variety... but I don't think making it harder to get the items you want is the way to do that. You should be able to customize and optimize your ship how you want it--alot of people enjoy doing that.

But... if there are different ways to customize that are effective... then you'll want to replay using different setups. (Adding more ships with different abilities, for instance, would enhance that.) Also, if you run into different situations, that's your variety right there, as you have to adapt to the different situations.

After all, Indiana Jones didn't have to trade in his whip or his hat, yet managed to have adventures all over the world.

[Blinzler]

hmm... if you want to add the good you should have the bad, too.
So in leaning to and learning from nethack - instead of cursed/blessed you simply rename to ineffective/enhanced and add a little, say +/- 15%.
And maybe you could work on this, upgrade your weapons software so that your ineffective blaster gets better or some nanobots work on the insides and do their thing (yadda yadda - I know it's very diffuse, but unless you can explain me how that beamweapon is supposed to work on the insides I ain't gonna give the detailed explanation on how to improve it ).

However - I would put a cap on the whole process of how much you are able to improve somthing. I'm not sure if it would be best to make it a general cap or have it more specific for item groups or even singular items themselves.

Maybe go as far and make the highest possible upgrade-option based on missions for certain factions (later in the game, so you have always something to look forward to) or bring in the tinkers and add some more items to screw around with.

Maybe an example: you could upgrade your regular omni-directional laser with some parts scavenged from military weapons and have the tinkers put the whole thing together. You'd end up with a much improved weapon, that's illegal and sucks you dry, but revives the whole omni-laser for a little longer. In that way you could find ways to make pretty much useless weapon systems that you'd never considered an alternative to what your using now.

[Burzmali]

Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but this isn't Nethack. If you want enhanced items floating about, try this on for size. You find weapons tagged "modified". If you equip the weapon, sometimes you notice the chance and the modification is identified, and sometime it isn't, depending on the particular modification. If you really have to know, and some weapons have unpleasant modifications such as booby traps, you pay to have the weapon analyzed first, at some cost and time.

[Blinzler]

uhm... just out of curiosity - how exactly is this different from nethack? There you got unidentified items you can put on/ use, they can be cursed, blessed, have +/- attribs to their regular stats...

Sorry, but that sounds awefully similar, doesn't it?

I would avoid booby-traps and make it more sci-fi - say that there's, e.g. an energy converter inside the weapon and it's cracked. Regular guy won't ever notice this, but the lab back at the station will. Sounds more fitting.

[Burzmali]

Make the enhancements more that just damage and accuracy bonus and penalties. Decrease energy use, increase fire rate, change to dual, shift damage type (laser to particle, etc) that kind of thing. Avoid just making the weapon more damaging.

[Blinzler]

I don't know about the whole changing the damage type.
Even if it's just Sci-Fi I'm hard-pressed to beliebe that the workings of a laser and a particle ray are so similar that you could modify one to produce the other one.
I might be more willing to accept this with launcher systems but energy weapon - nope, not plausible enough.
As for changing the accuracy - uhm? How? In Transcendence?
And for Energy use & rate of fire, multiple rays etc. - I think this shouold be handled in a way that it's believable, too. You got two beams instead of one - you gotta use more energy. You fire faster - the weapon should be more likely to overheat. You use less energy - the ray should be weaker, have shorter effective range.