Multi slot devices

[OddBob]

Just summing up some ideas we threw together in IRC, namely multi slot devices.

These are some devices that take up more than one slot, some of them are dual devices, like shields. You can get two shields combined at a station to create a powerful dual shield (that eats power as well as slots).
Possibly combine other devices as well.

The station could possibly be a rin-based late game tinker or something entirely new, and they'd combine devices and also sell complex multi-slot devices (but you can still get multi lot devices elsewhere).

Some more device ideas:

A CPU that also identifies items or maps systems (2 slots)
Low level items that are as powerful as high level items, but take two or more slots.
Powerful, level appropriate weapons that are just plain large and take two or more slots.
Multi slot reactors that have a lot of power for their price/level, or are very fuel efficient.

[Betelgeuse]

a three slot solar array so you never have to worry about fuel again 8)

[TedStudley]

I like the ID CPU idea. It's annoying to not know what you have!

[Burzmali]

That's kind of the point of making them unknown.

[TedStudley]

Yeah, but there should be some way of identifying them! I mean, there should be some things that you won't know what they do before you try them, but for a lot of things, you could just look them up on the transcendence equivalent of Wikipedia

[OddBob]

If there's an identifier it needs to be expendable. One items that does it over and over again is just free ID and becomes just another Required Item.

[goat not sheep]

Some testing device... i guess.

[Burzmali]

There are 3 "established" ways to identify (without using).

First, is a similar item that you can use, but have to identify by guessing (ex. the identify scroll in Nethack)

Second, is a unrelated item that identifies the item for a price (ex. the rink/sink combo in NH, or the "ID Guy" in every game ever made)

Third, is the 100% accurate, cheap reliable method to ID, that is a pain to find (ex. the spell identify in NH)

One of the mods I am playing with implements all three, but the key point is to introduce a drawback for every advantage added to the game.

[Betelgeuse]

what would you need in a device to be worth taking up two or more device slots?

[Betelgeuse]

sorry for the double post.
just had a cool idea
automatic weapon installer - equips or unequips weapons in the field, takes up two slots

I rarely use more than two weapons but this would tempt me for using the correct weapon for the enemies you are fighting anytime or equiping thing you find right away.

[Karl]

re: unknown items and identification

You should also ask the bigger question: What's the point of having unknown items in the first place? How does it make the game better and improve gameplay?

And I don't think that Burz's answer: "The point of making items unknown is to annoy you", is a very good one.

And then ask: What methods of identifying them would you most enjoy having?

In most games which have unknown items, I find the process of identifying them to be tedius... so whether it's the "ID guy" that Burz mentioned or an identification spell, it's rather uninteresting and repetitive to have to identify items over and over.

Which is why I prefer it when you just know through common sense what most of the stuff you find is. Then, in the rare cases when you do find that strange alien item that you don't know what it is, it's an exciting and intersting challenge to identify it:

"By Crom! What is this alien device? We better take it to Yoda/Gandalf/Dumbledore/Spock to find out..."

"Or we could try pessing this button over here... Oh, look, a hot alien chick... Aaaaaaah, she's sucking out my protons and neutrons!... I'm being transformed into helium! ...Sentient helium... But is this new form a blessing or a curse?"

[Betelgeuse]

Karl please calm down it is obvious that you want a different type of game than what this is. We want things that enhance exploring and experimentation.
So please stop calling parts of the game tedious and stupid.

[Karl]

Betelgeuse, don't try to read people's minds. (Which you tried to do three times in your short post, by the way.)

I'm not talking about a different type of game; I'm talking about thinking about game mechanics and what are the effects of those mechanics. (Which you apparently *didn't* do. And if you did then it certainly isn't reflected in your post.)

...you want a different type of game...

I already explained to you in IRC why this is nonsense, so that fact that you bring it up again--and state it as true no less--is in very bad taste and makes me wonder if you are actually reading what I've written or just forming conclusions ahead of time and then warping what you read to fit those conclusions.

I do have to give you a compliment, though... rereading your post, I've never encounted such a systematic misreading of something I've written. You should go into politics; you'd make an excellent propagandist. But here on the forums... we are trying to have a productive conversation... so it kinda helps to not be making up your own facts. Ok?

[Betelgeuse]

Karl all I am trying to do is ask you to stop calling parts of the game you don't like wrong or stupid or tedious. If there is part of the game you think can be improved tell us what is going wrong and accept that not everyone may agree with you. It seems you are not trying to compromise at all and trying to make your own game and thats why I have been saying you want a different game.

[Karl]

Betel, I can see that you mean well but you don't seem to understand what I've been saying, my responses to others, or my reasoning.

Let me ask you something, and then I'll respond:
What are you trying to do, overall, by posting in this forum?