In working on an analysis of weaponry and turrets in Avorion, I've been thinking about the game's design and how the ship designer and system upgrades are implemented. There is a rather large imbalanced in the usefulness of various system upgrades, even outside of the raw numbers associated with them. It occurred to me that the most useful system upgrade cards are usually the ones that have a direct interaction with the function of an actual block that you can build into your ship in the designer. That then got me thinking about what upgrades are not associated with blocks, and how things might be improved if they were.
Here's a list of system upgrade cards taken from the wiki:
Battery Upgrade
C43 Object Detector
Cargo Upgrade
Energy To Shield Converter
Engine Upgrade
Generator Upgrade
Improved Trading System
Mining System
Quantum Hyperspace Upgrade
Radar Upgrade
Scanner Upgrade
Shield Booster
Turret Control System
Velocity Security Control Bypass
If we correlate each block in the design mode with its associated system upgrades, we get this:
Energy Container Block > Battery Upgrade
Cargo Bay Block > Cargo Upgrade
Shield Generator Block > Energy To Shield Converter, Shield Booster
Engine Block > Engine Upgrade, Velocity Security Control Bypass
This leaves us with a selection of half of the system upgrades that are not associated with a block, and conversely, a number of blocks not associated with upgrades.
Upgrades
C43 Object Detector
Improved Trading System
Mining System
Radar Upgrade
Scanner Upgrade
Turret Control System
Blocks
Integrity Field Generator
Thruster
Computer Core
Crew Quarters
Gyro Block
Inertial Damper
Hangar Bay
What I propose is an expansion of both the block and system upgrade lists to make the correlation between the two more explicit and, potentially, more useful.
New Upgrades
Integrity Field Upgrade
Block Association: Integrity Field Generator
First, I would propose that the base effectiveness of the Integrity Field Generator be reduced. Then, this upgrade could function in all other aspects just like the Shield Generator Upgrade does.
Energy to Integrity Field Converter
Block Association: Integrity Field Generator
This functions just like the Shield version.
Thruster Upgrade
Block Association: Thruster
This one's pretty straightforward, and would function largely like the engine upgrade does, although thrusters do not drain energy the way engines do when boosting so that aspect of the upgrade wouldn't be used.
AI Upgrade
Block Association: Crew Quarters
This block would reduce crew requirements for the ship by implementing the installation of sophisticated AI systems and/or androids into the Crew Quarters block that automatically handle ship functions.
Quantum Gimbal Upgrade
Block Association: Gyro
Through the magic of advanced... you know what, skip the technobabble. Functionally, this increases the rotational torque of your gyro arrays.
Flight Assist Upgrade
Block Association: Inertial Damper
This would have the ability to increase the drag production and reduce the energy requirements of your inertial damping systems.
Mass Detector
Block Association: Radar Block (see below)
Installing this system upgrade would allow you to detect hidden mass sectors within the full range of your radar. Split this function off from the existing Radar Upgrade, and make the Radar Upgrade function purely to extend the radar's range.
New Blocks
Sensor Suite
Associated System Upgrades: C43 Object Detector, Scanner Upgrade
The Sensor Block, as its name suggests, highlights interactable objects in the sector. The C43 Object Detector should now include the function of highlighting ore-bearing asteroids, and it should sense objects out to your max sensor range. The Scanner Upgrade now simply extends the range of the Sensor Block (synergistically increasing the range of the Object Detector, of course, if you have one installed). Friendly gates and installations should ping your ship's transponder directly once you enter a sector, so you can always see them regardless of range, but enemies and other objects will not. If you don't have a Sensor Block installed, don't expect to be able to target everything in the sector as soon as you jump in.
Radar Array
Associated System Upgrades: Radar Upgrade, Mass Detector (see above)
Without a subspace radar installed, you'll be unable to see anything in sectors beyond your jump range (your hyperdrive ostensibly contains enough sensing power to see where you're jumping so it doesn't land you inside a star). Oh, you also won't be getting any warnings about approaching Xsotan without one, either.
Ore Processor
Associated System Upgrades: Mining System
This block should increase the efficiency of your mining. Devote enough of your ship's volume to it and you can get your mining efficiency to 100%, at a significant energy cost. The Mining System would increase that efficiency even farther and/or decrease the energy cost. Highlighting ore-bearing asteroids is now handled by the Object Detector.
The Improved Trading System is weird. It seems like that functionality should be as basic to your ship's computer systems as mining and salvaging. In most space games, the first ship you get is some kind of tramp freighter, and you're expected to spend some time running space sheep and space ramen between various outposts and stations before you get enough money to start tricking out a pirate hunter, or what have you. I'm not saying Avorion should do that, but I still think the trading capability out to be inherent to your ship, and improving your trading capability should depend upon you expanding the number of locations you've visited, making the Improved Trading System superfluous and a candidate for elimination. Nevertheless, if we must have it, let's associate it to a block:
C3 (Commercial Communication Computer) System
Associated System Upgrades: Improved Trading System
Long-Range Comms allow you to keep in touch with trading centers and stock exchanges in your area, allowing them to update you on their stock levels at an arbitrary interval. More volume equals a longer range before you stop receiving updates from them. The Improved Trading System could increase this block's range and possibly increase the frequency of updates until you're receiving them in real time.
The Computer Core is problematic, because the block currently exists solely to give you more upgrade slots, so creating a System Upgrade to enhance its function seems counterproductive. Also, it's functionally useless, requiring ridiculous amounts of volume just to get one additional upgrade slot out of it. Frankly, I think the block should be eliminated completely, or its function changed to something else entirely.
EDIT: I just realized that there's no need to eliminate one block and create another, so why not just change the function of the Computer Core (and potentially its name... "Commercial Computer Core" or something) so that it handles the whole trading aspect of things. Naturally it would have to be available from Iron on up.
The final block, the Hangar Bay, is actually a block that ostensibly requires a certain amount of space to hold physical objects, much like the cargo hold. We actually do have an upgrade that improves cargo storage capacity, so we should theoretically have one that improves hangar bay capacity as well. That being said, I'm mystified as to how an upgrade to the ship's electronics is supposed to increase physical cargo storage space. What I propose is not the addition of a Hangar Bay upgrade, but an elimination of the Cargo Bay upgrade.
Turrets are the outlier in this list, and already have a laundry list of problems at any rate, so we'll ignore the Turret Control System and avoid the headache of trying to come up with a block for it. If I had my way the Turret Control System wouldn't exist in the first place.
Suggestion
Sable Phoenix
In working on an analysis of weaponry and turrets in Avorion, I've been thinking about the game's design and how the ship designer and system upgrades are implemented. There is a rather large imbalanced in the usefulness of various system upgrades, even outside of the raw numbers associated with them. It occurred to me that the most useful system upgrade cards are usually the ones that have a direct interaction with the function of an actual block that you can build into your ship in the designer. That then got me thinking about what upgrades are not associated with blocks, and how things might be improved if they were.
Here's a list of system upgrade cards taken from the wiki:
If we correlate each block in the design mode with its associated system upgrades, we get this:
This leaves us with a selection of half of the system upgrades that are not associated with a block, and conversely, a number of blocks not associated with upgrades.
Upgrades
Blocks
What I propose is an expansion of both the block and system upgrade lists to make the correlation between the two more explicit and, potentially, more useful.
New Upgrades
Integrity Field Upgrade
Block Association: Integrity Field Generator
First, I would propose that the base effectiveness of the Integrity Field Generator be reduced. Then, this upgrade could function in all other aspects just like the Shield Generator Upgrade does.
Energy to Integrity Field Converter
Block Association: Integrity Field Generator
This functions just like the Shield version.
Thruster Upgrade
Block Association: Thruster
This one's pretty straightforward, and would function largely like the engine upgrade does, although thrusters do not drain energy the way engines do when boosting so that aspect of the upgrade wouldn't be used.
AI Upgrade
Block Association: Crew Quarters
This block would reduce crew requirements for the ship by implementing the installation of sophisticated AI systems and/or androids into the Crew Quarters block that automatically handle ship functions.
Quantum Gimbal Upgrade
Block Association: Gyro
Through the magic of advanced... you know what, skip the technobabble. Functionally, this increases the rotational torque of your gyro arrays.
Flight Assist Upgrade
Block Association: Inertial Damper
This would have the ability to increase the drag production and reduce the energy requirements of your inertial damping systems.
Mass Detector
Block Association: Radar Block (see below)
Installing this system upgrade would allow you to detect hidden mass sectors within the full range of your radar. Split this function off from the existing Radar Upgrade, and make the Radar Upgrade function purely to extend the radar's range.
New Blocks
Sensor Suite
Associated System Upgrades: C43 Object Detector, Scanner Upgrade
The Sensor Block, as its name suggests, highlights interactable objects in the sector. The C43 Object Detector should now include the function of highlighting ore-bearing asteroids, and it should sense objects out to your max sensor range. The Scanner Upgrade now simply extends the range of the Sensor Block (synergistically increasing the range of the Object Detector, of course, if you have one installed). Friendly gates and installations should ping your ship's transponder directly once you enter a sector, so you can always see them regardless of range, but enemies and other objects will not. If you don't have a Sensor Block installed, don't expect to be able to target everything in the sector as soon as you jump in.
Radar Array
Associated System Upgrades: Radar Upgrade, Mass Detector (see above)
Without a subspace radar installed, you'll be unable to see anything in sectors beyond your jump range (your hyperdrive ostensibly contains enough sensing power to see where you're jumping so it doesn't land you inside a star). Oh, you also won't be getting any warnings about approaching Xsotan without one, either.
Ore Processor
Associated System Upgrades: Mining System
This block should increase the efficiency of your mining. Devote enough of your ship's volume to it and you can get your mining efficiency to 100%, at a significant energy cost. The Mining System would increase that efficiency even farther and/or decrease the energy cost. Highlighting ore-bearing asteroids is now handled by the Object Detector.
The Improved Trading System is weird. It seems like that functionality should be as basic to your ship's computer systems as mining and salvaging. In most space games, the first ship you get is some kind of tramp freighter, and you're expected to spend some time running space sheep and space ramen between various outposts and stations before you get enough money to start tricking out a pirate hunter, or what have you. I'm not saying Avorion should do that, but I still think the trading capability out to be inherent to your ship, and improving your trading capability should depend upon you expanding the number of locations you've visited, making the Improved Trading System superfluous and a candidate for elimination. Nevertheless, if we must have it, let's associate it to a block:
C3 (Commercial Communication Computer) System
Associated System Upgrades: Improved Trading System
Long-Range Comms allow you to keep in touch with trading centers and stock exchanges in your area, allowing them to update you on their stock levels at an arbitrary interval. More volume equals a longer range before you stop receiving updates from them. The Improved Trading System could increase this block's range and possibly increase the frequency of updates until you're receiving them in real time.
The Computer Core is problematic, because the block currently exists solely to give you more upgrade slots, so creating a System Upgrade to enhance its function seems counterproductive. Also, it's functionally useless, requiring ridiculous amounts of volume just to get one additional upgrade slot out of it. Frankly, I think the block should be eliminated completely, or its function changed to something else entirely.
EDIT: I just realized that there's no need to eliminate one block and create another, so why not just change the function of the Computer Core (and potentially its name... "Commercial Computer Core" or something) so that it handles the whole trading aspect of things. Naturally it would have to be available from Iron on up.
The final block, the Hangar Bay, is actually a block that ostensibly requires a certain amount of space to hold physical objects, much like the cargo hold. We actually do have an upgrade that improves cargo storage capacity, so we should theoretically have one that improves hangar bay capacity as well. That being said, I'm mystified as to how an upgrade to the ship's electronics is supposed to increase physical cargo storage space. What I propose is not the addition of a Hangar Bay upgrade, but an elimination of the Cargo Bay upgrade.
Turrets are the outlier in this list, and already have a laundry list of problems at any rate, so we'll ignore the Turret Control System and avoid the headache of trying to come up with a block for it. If I had my way the Turret Control System wouldn't exist in the first place.
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