The System Upgrade Meta

[Nanaki]

I just got this game for early access, and one of the things I noticed immediately was the usefulness of system upgrades varied wildly, and the big, core question behind the usefulness of them ended up being the question "Can I replace the functionality of this module with more blocks?"

 

Generally, the most useful system upgrades in the game tend to have features that cannot be replicated by blocks. There is no block to increase turret count, no block to increase deep scanning range, as a result, system modules are your only way of enhancing your capabilities at that and the game very heavily pushes you in that direction.

 

Because of the limitation of systems, and the fact that blocks are not likewise not limited, this enforces a meta where you want to replace system modules by blocks in every situation you can. This destroys the usefulness of the cargo, engine, battery, shield, and generator boosting system upgrades. The Hyperspace module would also likewise be in the same boat, were it not for the fact that it reduces hyperspace recharging time, which is invaluable for larger ships.

 

So, we have a situation that for general-purpose ships half of the modules in the game are mostly vender fodder, which is not an ideal situation.

 

The only solutions I can think of, however, are to either add blocks for all stats, such as turret control blocks and sensor blocks, or add features in all system upgrades that cannot be replicated by blocks, for example, the cargo module system upgrade might shield your cargo bay from NPC scans. This would still make it specialized, but at least, situationally useful in certain circumstances.

 

I do believe that adding a turret control block would enhance the system upgrade diversity a bit, at least, since, for the average general-purpose ship, turret control upgrades end up dominating a player's system upgrade list because of how necessary the extra turrets are. The game even acknowleges this, since the Xsotan upgrades are all Legendary Turret Control Systems in functionality.

[koonschi]

I'm aware of this, and the solution will be to add more unique specialties to the system upgrades, just like you said. We've started doing this with the shield booster upgrade, which will quickly recharge your shields once they're depleted. Upgrades are also meant to be used as a quick respec, if you don't want to alter your ship structure all the time.

 

You can also expect the Xsotan Artifacts to have other, more unique features in the future. The goal would be to give each Xsotan artifact a unique, non-stacking feature that also matches the flavor of how you acquired it.

[SageThe13th]

I just got this game for early access, and one of the things I noticed immediately was the usefulness of system upgrades varied wildly, and the big, core question behind the usefulness of them ended up being the question "Can I replace the functionality of this module with more blocks?"

 

Generally, the most useful system upgrades in the game tend to have features that cannot be replicated by blocks. There is no block to increase turret count, no block to increase deep scanning range, as a result, system modules are your only way of enhancing your capabilities at that and the game very heavily pushes you in that direction.

 

Because of the limitation of systems, and the fact that blocks are not likewise not limited, this enforces a meta where you want to replace system modules by blocks in every situation you can. This destroys the usefulness of the cargo, engine, battery, shield, and generator boosting system upgrades. The Hyperspace module would also likewise be in the same boat, were it not for the fact that it reduces hyperspace recharging time, which is invaluable for larger ships.

 

So, we have a situation that for general-purpose ships half of the modules in the game are mostly vender fodder, which is not an ideal situation.

 

The only solutions I can think of, however, are to either add blocks for all stats, such as turret control blocks and sensor blocks, or add features in all system upgrades that cannot be replicated by blocks, for example, the cargo module system upgrade might shield your cargo bay from NPC scans. This would still make it specialized, but at least, situationally useful in certain circumstances.

 

I do believe that adding a turret control block would enhance the system upgrade diversity a bit, at least, since, for the average general-purpose ship, turret control upgrades end up dominating a player's system upgrade list because of how necessary the extra turrets are. The game even acknowleges this, since the Xsotan upgrades are all Legendary Turret Control Systems in functionality.

 

I find this isn't the case at all.  I have to leave all my turret systems in place, of course.  But, other than that I'm constantly switching out other systems depending on what I need.  Yanking out every available slot and replacing them with hyperdrives when I need to go somewhere fast.  Replacing those with shield and power boosters when I'm fighting a boss, I don't always need to bother when I'm fighting normal pirates.  Replacing those with scanning systems while mining or salvaging.  Even using a mix of deep scan radar and hyperdrives for shorter range sector exploring.  If I was using blocks for all that I'd be giving up a lot of my ships internal space to have systems that I then can't switch out with any degree of ease.  I'd lose a lot of power and versatility.  I feel like the hyperdrive blocks are best used on ships in your fleet that you aren't controlling.  Letting you hard wire certain capabilities into them without having to tie up your precious high rarity system upgrades that you'd rather be using on your own ship.

[Nanaki]

As I mentioned at the end of my post, I find that the only toxic part of the current meta are the turret control systems. In my own game, I currently have six slots, four are permanently fixed to turret controls, one of the remaining two is permanently hyperdrive, and the remaining is a 'flex' slot I change based off of what I need. Even with that, I was toying with the idea of replacing the permanent hyperdrive with another turret control because I needed more firepower, but I just unlocked Trinium so decided to go for bigger ship and some computer cores for more slots.

 

That is why, at the very least, I suggested adding a turret control block.

 

PS:

 

One of the things I did notice is that hull blocks have absolutly no purpose at all aside from aesthetics and the occasional weapon mount for materials lacking an armor plate equivilant. Maybe adding turret slots can be the hull block's purpose?

[SageThe13th]

As I mentioned at the end of my post, I find that the only toxic part of the current meta are the turret control systems. In my own game, I currently have six slots, four are permanently fixed to turret controls, one of the remaining two is permanently hyperdrive, and the remaining is a 'flex' slot I change based off of what I need. Even with that, I was toying with the idea of replacing the permanent hyperdrive with another turret control because I needed more firepower, but I just unlocked Trinium so decided to go for bigger ship and some computer cores for more slots.

 

That is why, at the very least, I suggested adding a turret control block.

 

PS:

 

One of the things I did notice is that hull blocks have absolutly no purpose at all aside from aesthetics and the occasional weapon mount for materials lacking an armor plate equivilant. Maybe adding turret slots can be the hull block's purpose?

 

Fair point.  I need to give this some more thought.

[Tajin]

Hull blocks have no purpose ?  :o

They're what keeps your ship together. How is that not important?

 

Anyhow, I wouldn't say that any of the modules are really useless. It mostly depends on the situation – modules can give you great flexibility there.

 

 

If shipbuilding and modifications in the field get a bit more limited/costly (which I really hope for), then that flexiblity will become even more useful.

While I also wouldn't normally use cargo-modules, they can certainly be handy if you have to quickly expand your cargo capacity without modifying the ship.

 

 

In my eyes the modules have a similar role as energy-redistribution has in some other games.

 

 

 

I do agree though that some special blocks for turrets could be useful. Maybe not to modify the number of turrets but there could also be blocks that modify the turrets placed on them in some way. (like making them bigger)

[CitizenCake]

Hull blocks have no purpose ?  :o

They're what keeps your ship together. How is that not important?

 

 

I dont use any hull at all. Its all specialty blocks (shields, generators, hyperjump cores, thrusters) covered in armor. I'll very rarely use a hull block

[Subquake]

Certain guns have a modifier, that allows them sometimes to penetrate shields, like 10% of time or something like that. So you do need some hull.

 

You can swap out turret modules to other modules, the turrets won't fall off your ship, but if you try to shoot, the last turrets on the list won't simply work based on the amount of turret modules you remove. And that means, that whenever you are out of combat, you can use your turret slots for whatever modules you need - hyper-drive, engine, scanners, deep range scanners, etc.

 

I wish there could be a module, that allows for big ships to use the warp gates, that physically can fit inside them.

[Nanaki]

Certain guns have a modifier, that allows them sometimes to penetrate shields, like 10% of time or something like that. So you do need some hull.

 

Hull blocks have no purpose ?  :o

They're what keeps your ship together. How is that not important?

 

Armor does that job far better than hull. The only time I ever use hull is for weapon mounting for materials that do not support armor. That is fairly niche for a block that is supposed to be a basic building material.

[Falkenherz]

For me it is the turret modules which I constantly swap out. They only come in when there is a combat which needs a certain amount of firepower. Currently, I am in Xanion area and have 10 lasers with 950 firepower, an obscene amount. For exploring and trading, two of those weapons are already plenty. From then on it is more a question of balancing your energy supply, hyperspace cooldown and cargo/scanner slots.

 

However, I agree that it would be much less of a hassle if swapping modules would become less obligatory, i.e. not impacting your activity per se as it is right now, but more the question of which style you want to go after a given activity. E.g. small cargo hold, fast hyperjumps vs huge carge and slow hyperjumps.

 

Maybe a higher number of basic turret slots would already help. Needing more turrents should just compensate for having little turret firepower, and vice versa.

 

[CitizenCake]

Yeah i think 2 turret slots for weapons, no matter the size of the ship, is a kinda strange. I would think that youncould get tirret slots by making a bigger ship, kind of the same way to unlock more upgrade slots. They would still be limited. Upgrade slots only shownup after a pretty hefty size upgrade.

[Nanaki]

I also feel that just tying it to ship size would be a bad solution, since it will not change the meta aside from making it possible to fit more turrets on at a time. The only real change can come from having a block that increases turret count, which will compete for Shield/Generator/Hyperspace blocks for internal volume.

 

Yeah, I always avoided switching out turrets because I assumed that the turrets would pop out (much like systems pop out if you can no longer mount it), but now, yeah, it does help the usefulness of non-combat upgrades like the cargo bay one.

[Michigo]

Turrets are the way to go?

 

Well, that is until you realize that "normal" difficulty is anything BUT normal. :D

On normal players recieve only 10-20% damage from enemy turrets.

 

This naturally results in a player that can tank pretty much anything in his tier, but to kill the swarm of enemies he's in the player NEEDS to focus on extra turrets or get bored to death.

 

After i started a new game on maximum difficulty i only get into battles i can actually survive. Those battles don't require a huge turret arsenal anymore, my system slots are much more balanced now. :)

[Nanaki]

The meta of higher difficulties does sound interesting, but the constant alien spawns on the player and the inability of the factions to defend against them make me a little apprehensive on the prospect. The current system in my creative universe that I use for ship design is already nothing but a roving band of 30+ alien ships.

[MrVorgra]

The meta of higher difficulties does sound interesting, but the constant alien spawns on the player and the inability of the factions to defend against them make me a little apprehensive on the prospect. The current system in my creative universe that I use for ship design is already nothing but a roving band of 30+ alien ships.

 

Pretty much the same for me, the prevalence of Pirates and few security vessels is problematic, and due to the randomization you can't be sure those ships of faction xyz can adequately defeat pirates while also fighting off the near endless hordes of Xsotan ships, And if you decide to fight off those same Pirates you also have to fight off the Xsotan.

 

Now if fleet control was improved and various fleet commands where implemented and automatic trading was possible it would great, I could set up a trading empire, while staying neutral and safe and constantly fleeing from every threat, then I could afford a large fleet to constantly protect me and sectors/ships/stations of value.

[Snoweh]

While I do feel you have a point, I would have to disagree about them being useless. I find myself using Shield and energy upgrades very often. Some of these can pretty close to double your shields or energy recharge rate, and it's incredibly useful. Though, part of that is, I usually spend several hours to a day designing each of my ships and am kind of at a loath to just slap more shields or what have you to the outside. (Though I do build some empty space on the inside, for future upgrades. This space get's used up pretty quick though). For reference I play on insane, or whatever the hardest difficulty is called. Another way to think of it, is that the moduals are worth their weight in materials. 100% extra shields is basically another 40k Xanion or nanite or trinium, or whatever you built your shields out of.

 

So of course building a bigger ship, is the better solution. but until you can manage that, using system upgrades provides a great stopgap, and increases the longevity of more rigid ship designs.

[blackether]

Currently it is much easier to just build a tanky ship than it is to try and build a glass cannon. You can use blocks to build out shields, fields, generators, and armor, but the number of turrets is directly controlled by modules, and thus is simply a function of ship size anyway (just abstracted through another layer). You cannot build a small ship that can equal the firepower of a large ship, given they have the same percentage of possible module slots filled with turret upgrades.

 

On top of that, I always feel like I need at least half my slots to be filled with turret mods anyway to keep battles from dragging on and on.

 

 

Why couldn't this turret count abstraction be simplified and not made to be reliant on modules?

 

What if we made turret count directly tied to ship size (more volume gave more turrets)? You would get x number of turrets for every increment of size you build to, just like how the number of module slots works now. Turret slots could still share between armed and unarmed. You get more than half your module slots back to be filled with interesting and differentiating upgrades, rather than boring and "forced" turret slot mods.

 

Now, in order to balance this with other systems, you add a new block which actually allows you to control the turrets. It does not impact the number you can actually place, just how many of the placed turrets you can control. It would be expensive and vulnerable just like shields, fields, generators, etc. and "fit in" better than the current system, which feels arbitrary and forced in comparison.

 

 

 

Likewise, the other systems which can only be adjusted with modules also feel very constraining in an arbitrary way. I feel like module slots should relegated to helping you specialize, not be forced and required to even function. There are several modules that feel arbitrary and annoying to swap situationally.

 

  - Hyperdrive Recharge Time (kind of able to be adjusted indirectly at the moment)

  - Radar (both kinds)

  - Trading System

  - Mining System (I'm not even sure this is ever really viable currently, as you can see each asteroid far beyond the ranges, especially on early mods)

  - Battery

 

As well as Hyperdrive Calculation Time, which is killing me, and completely neglected at the moment.

 

I think the module system is interesting, especially at first, but as you collect more and more modules things become annoying quickly. Without a way to easily save and control "loadouts" picking and choosing modules out of a huge list just isn't fun or easy. I do like the premise of the system, but the implementation can be lacking at times.

 

This goes quadruple for turrets and the absolute mess that is trying to find, pick, and place turrets situationally. It is an absolute chore to switch between turret loadouts from combat to mining to salvaging. Similarly, trying to choose between Turret A and Turret B, whose stats are further abstracted due to a non-transparent overheat rate, is a nightmare. Then, once I've found a turret I actually want in the inventory, I have to find it again in the non-searchable, non-sortable build menu.

 

Rinse and repeat, potentially for dozens of turrets in the late game, each time I decide I want to mine rather than fight, rather than salvage.

 

We definitely need a loadout system for modules and for turrets, as well as much better searchability/sortability for the inventory system. Likewise, a way to mark each as good/bad/junk would be highly appreciated.

[DivineEvil]

Mostly disagree with the original statement. All the modules in question, that might be considered "redundant" are multipliers, i.e. their impact directly depend on the number of blocks with similar function in the first place. True, you can replace some of those modules with blocks, but after you do that, applying that module produces even greater returns than before.

 

In the end, its just a matter of what you're actually want to specialize into. Adding more blocks to replace the bonus require resources, credits and negatively affect other systems as a payoff. Using modules circumvent that. You use certain modules because you need certain benefits, not because they're the only way to get them. A large trading vessel may not need any Turret Control Systems at all, but would much benefit from Warp Drive and Cargo expansion. Same is true for all modules.

[Nanaki]

This is true, but the issue in the first place is that (assuming crafted turrets) you can only increase your firepower by mounting turret modules. Thus, it makes sense that, if you want to increase your durability, you use more blocks to do so (because there is no downside to it aside from cost), wheras if you want to increase your firepower, your only way is to mount more turret modules*. Even if you do decide to mount something like a shield module, you never want to use more than one, as the added durability does not justify the loss of firepower.

 

Of course, specialized ships do benefit from modules affecting their specialization, but in terms of meta, I am talking about general purpose ships that most people are going to use on a regular basis.

 

*Fighters are an option, but far more expensive than simply expanding your ship, between hangar bay costs, pilot costs (and the additional sargeants/lieutenants needed for them), and the costs of fighters themselves, they are a prohibitively expensive and not very effective option. So far, I have only seen fighters as a viable replacer for miners/salvagers on general purpose ships, where you do not need that many and they tend to not die.

[DivineEvil]

Weapon Control blocks are already a planned method to increase turret count, together with Scanner blocks.

[Nanaki]

Just did some digging and found the planned features list for Avorion, which does alleviate a huge part of the problem. The only thing I would suggest now is to add some vital function to hull blocks, because of the meta where specialized blocks are always a better choice for ship interiors, and armor always being a better choice for exteriors, but that probably deserves its own thread.