Progression and material

[nmb206]

    As of right now progression can be done in two ways, through material and size. Most commonly people use both methods to progress but since the balancing of the materials is all over the place most end up using tritainium for the majority of the ship as it has the lowest mass. Both methods use vertical progression.

 

    Naturally a larger ship will be more powerful as it requires more resources. Size progression remains vertical.

 

    Material progression how ever should be horizontal. This would mean that as you explore and find new resources they would each have a specialty but with the exception of starting iron all the materials would be generally equal. Some materials wouldn't be able be some blocks but excels as others. EX: Perhaps Titanium is a good engine but it cannot be a hanger and is a poor shield generator.

 

  This would make it easier to track your progression. It keeps most materials relevant. It would help keep your ship upgraded and you wouldn't need a new design of ship depending on the material used. It also makes vertical progression of the game clearer as there's only one line of vertical progression.

[Fox]

I dont know what you would mean with vertical and horizontal progression, but for the resources (even tho they have some kind of linear progression regarding HP/Weight ratio) and there special abilitys you should be aware of that it alrdy exists, kinda at least:

 

- As you pointed out, Iron is the starting material, not much special here, besides the fact you can build Inertia Dampeners from Iron and Avorion only, and you would always require Iron to fund ships (outside factorys)... so there is a reason for being attractive while progressing.

 

- Titanium (AFAIK) is not used for the majority of ships besides early game when better ressources simply arent available, but it gets at least a decent usablility in early upgrading, kinda "advanced" starting material, since you get Integrity Fields and Generators with it for the first time... thats an example of what you meant with straight progression and restricting blocks to materials?

 

- Naonite is the first "energy-rich" ressource, which means Hyperjumpdrives and Shield Generators can be made from it... on the other hand it isnt as durable as the former Titanium, so that keeps still a viable option for Armor and Hull... pretty useful until you leave the three beginning "Starter-Tiers"! (I admit i dont see a reason to get back to Titanium or Naonite once you reached the next step, if that was your point...)

 

- Trinium... now things start to get interesting! Not only you get Hangars from it (another example of "getting new blocks as you 'level up'"), its also the lightest material available, thus replacing T2&3 Materials in every aspect... and it stays a viable option until Endgame because of its lightweight

 

- Xanion basically mimics the progression step from Titanium to Naonite on a higher Level, another energy-rich but low-durable Material... (werent computer cores introduced here first? too lazy to check back right now...)

 

- Ogonite is kinda special: Its superheavy, but also an excellent choice for energy systems... also brings the most HP with it, so Stuff made of Ogonite will give you best HP/Volume, but not always best HP/Mass...

 

- and finally Avorion, the red stuff everyone wants... Inertia Dampeners can finally be upgraded and Jumpdrives made of Avorion allow jumping over those instable Rift-stuff that blocks you on the map otherwise...

 

So i'd say yes, there is a good progression and reuseabliity in the current ressource system... maybe Naonite and Titanium could get a little love to be more viable endgame (besides of being way easier to aquire)... what exactly had you in mind to change/improve here?

 

For the "new design of ship depending on the material" part, i guess you know you can upgrade you design "on the fly" with the dropdown in the upper right corner of the Spacebar-Menu in Buildmode? And for upgrading specific blocks within my designs i tend to use this Tool until we get a proper vanilla solution (which is alrdy announced to come with the Alliances Update!)... makes editing your ship towards your needs much easier IMO!

[nmb206]

I know the games materials. The materials are in tiers and the closer you get to the center the better they get with some variation. I want to change that in the way of specialist materials that keep most of them relevant and ease the burden of ship upgrades. It won't be bad to make a ship out of a single material but a ship taking advantage of their specialty will be better.

[Yeedo]

I'm OK with some materials being flat out better than others, but when you reach the endgame pretty much the two materials everyone uses are Trinium and Avorion, so I'd like to see at least one more material be relevant at that point. I think Ogonite should make very high power/volume shield generators, hyperdrives etc., but still be weaker than the same mass of Avorion, so Ogonite becomes the material of choice to squeeze extra power out of a small space, while Avorion is better for bigger ships.

 

Something like this would be nice so it's not just two materials that are actually useful for the best ships.