Weaker build skills

[Tyran]

Hi all,

I thought I'd mention something that has maybe been said before which would definitely spice the building business up. The effect would be making the least demanded build skills somewhat more useful, especially lategame. These build skills are engines, shields, and reactors - as only one per ship per level is generally required. The reason build devices and weapons are superior is because each ship requires multiple of these at each level, therefore a multitude more builds are carried out with these two skills compared to others.

This "spicing up" would be achieved by making quality affect not only the shield recharge, but also the shield capacity. Same could be of warp speed, reactor capacity, and possibly other stats involved in these items. 200% stats would be unaffected compared to current 200% stats of equipment.

Now, playermade reactors were already due a rebuild when the quality dropped more than a few percent, so it would not greatly affect that.

But I am sure if warp speed is affected by quality it will make engine rebuilds much more needed - after all how many people bought their warp engines and never opted for a PM one because warp was always maxed out anyway?

With shields the change will give the most noticeable effect. Since shield recharge is pretty silly as it stops during combat, it is hardly something to keep finetuned. Effect is that you could fly about with a pretty bashed up shield and not really bother with it, as the capacity is unchanged. But when the capacity drops with quality, people are suddenly much more aware of the shield's quality percentage.

One could ask who is waiting for this kind of change?

1) I am resoundingly sure builders will regard the build skills as much more useful - after all rebuilds are part of the game, only the frequency of rebuilds of different builds is not equal and thus requires balancing.

Build engines and shields are as it stands now, nearly a waste of skill points. Reactors don't trail too far behind.

2) In the light of realism, if that even is possible here, is it not logical that if a shield is damaged the ability to produce capacity is hampered? (same goes for warp speed and reactor capacity)

Feel free to comment,

Tyran

[Terrell [BT]]

I don't have a problem with engines having quality above 100% increase their warp speed, and reduce their signature. It would make more demand for them. On Shields, if the shield has buffs on it, quality would affect the power of those buffs. Jenquai and the Terran Scout are particularily sensitive to this with each class having a custom designed shield. The Defender's Doumaru shield has a buff to Shield Capacity, Reactor Capacity, Critical Targeting, and shield recharge. The Veiled Oyoroi, has buffs to Prospect, Reactor Capacity, Scan, and the ubiquitous Improved Cloaking buff. The Sharim Prototype Shield has buffs to Reactor Cap, Shield Recharge Skill, Psionic Shield Skill, and Recharge Reactor. The Hyperian Frontier's Friend has buffs to Reactor Cap, Hacking, Prospect Skill, and Scan boost. For any of those 4 classes with their custom shield, loss of quality points, means a reducuction in reactor performance, and smaller buffs to key skills. Now if more shields are introduced into the game, that have good buffs on them, and are desirable, at least some JE's might carry two, one for mining, one for combat. Scouts might if the right buffs are on a different shield that was used for combat. As long as buffs are good, and affected by quality it's a reason to replace a shield that's been bashed up a bit.

Engines, I agree, but I would allow the warp speed to go up as it went over 100% and not otherwise mod the speed (base the speed on 100%, but maybe add 100 warp or so for 200% quality) More desirable engine lines for all, would help some, but it's not unusual for many chars at least at lower levels to carry 2 engines one for travel, the other for combat or mining, at least until they can get their hands on a Solar Sail 8 which pretty much eliminates the need for a travel engine for all classes in Live since with that engine a RR+ and a Charging Unicorn you could do the 5K warp limit in live. In Emulator though there isn't a warp limit, at least not as of yet (My JT has 5800 warp with a L8 Terran engine, a Charging Unicorn, and a L7 RR+). If the devs do intend to implement a warp limit, perhaps if they put it higher than it was in the old game, as high as they can without negative consequences to the game like bad lag, they could add some more engines to the mix, that were just for travel, but not useful for much else. Give the engine the buff of Additive Turbo Warp, and have it have a warp speed comparable to an engine 1 level higher (with that buff), but have all the other things about it suck. Give it a sig that advertises for Tada-O, and poor otherwise performance, but people would use it for at travel, at least while they're doing trade runs, or any missions that require lots of travel.

Another thing that could be done for engines, is put some desirable buffs on them, without having especially high sigs on most of them. Even if it means that it goes a little slower in warp, or costs more to build, etc. If there has to be a penalty with getting a buff on an engine, other than the uber ones, make sure that the penalty isn't so high that the engine is useless for combat (unless the devs intend it to be a travel engine). For example the Pegasus engine that is available to Jenquai has buffs to Fold Space that are useful for a JE or JW, but what JE or JW in their right mind is going to go into combat with an engine that has a 2.5k sig? That really doesn't fit playing a JQ char, we're all about stealth in combat, we need to be able to kill mobs without alerting their friends as much as possible. We can't stay cloaked constantly, we have to decloak to fire, and even if we didn't our reactors aren't infinite. (nor should they be).

On reactors, many of them also have useful buffs, so as long as one isn't using a buff-free reactor, you have a reason to replace it when it gets dinged beyond a certain point. Jenquai for example get a beam range buff on our most commonly used reactor line Galling/Draco/Cygnus. Damage to the reactor, as it increases should diminish the buff (which it probably does). I could see a small increase in cap for being over 100% so long as it's not too big. IIRC increasing quality in a reactor does improve it's recharge, and reactors do recharge during combat, provided it's recharge rate is high enough to keep up with whatever weapons you're using. If you have a JE or JT around, to buff your reactor then expect more performance out of your reactor.

Overall I support a small increase in performance, in stats that aren't affected by quality on Shields, Reactors, and especially engines.

If anything I think that the best option is to introduce more equipment that is desirable, and good for some situations, but not others. It's easiest to do this with weapons, and with devices, and as a result most chars have plenty of them, albeit more for Jenquai, and to a degree Terrans.

[bondct]

anything engines would be a boon for the TS cuz since engines are so lame atm and are already made by others... its a waste of pixels for it to even be on my screen... I am working on new monitor software to actually turn off those pixels when engines comes up on my TS in order to extend monitor life...

imho there is too much stuff that people are forgetting about from live... for example Zeus a TE in our guild one day started building engines... Why? you ask... well let me tell you... He started building them cuz he had exceeded max skill points and figured well once all the TT's have all the engines he might as well take the leftover looted ones...

Guess what... that will happen again

so in the words of Raddimus (from Waiting)... a little floor (or engine in our case) spice makes everything nice

or we can always remove engines from the TS and create a new skill for the game called... BUILD AMMO, which everyone hates to do anyway...

[thejman85]

I remember back in live there was some discussions about being able to increase build % from a max of 200% to 300% with the additional percentage points being the increase of attributes not touched when moving around the normal 0-200% area (Reactors/Shields would be a boost of capacity, Engines would be warp speed, Weapons/Devices would be energy used). I honestly don't remember much more than that, digging through the web archive of ebportal I can't find much. Hopefully someone else on here remembers the thread a bit better.

[Rasorow]

I would suggest (and I know that this would probably be a lot of coding) that the items have a decay factor. If you truly want building skills to be more useful late in the game and generate economy that is the best way. Permament objects (objects that do not decay) do not provide incentive for developing building no matter how many better items you include. Eventually the person gets the perfect setup and no longer buys anything. If you have decay, that person keeps coming back to buy more to replace decayed items giving them incentive to adventure and the builder incentive (and cash) to build.

[Terrell [BT]]

I would suggest (and I know that this would probably be a lot of coding) that the items have a decay factor. If you truly want building skills to be more useful late in the game and generate economy that is the best way. Permament objects (objects that do not decay) do not provide incentive for developing building no matter how many better items you include. Eventually the person gets the perfect setup and no longer buys anything. If you have decay, that person keeps coming back to buy more to replace decayed items giving them incentive to adventure and the builder incentive (and cash) to build.

All equipment, starting at level 4, can lose quality anytime you take hull damage, and will eventually need to be rebuilt. Some items that you acquire during your play are irreplacable, I don't think those should have "decay" factors but should still be subject to quality loss, if one takes hull damage. Not to mention some items are non-manufacturable.

[Moche]

All equipment, starting at level 4, can lose quality anytime you take hull damage, and will eventually need to be rebuilt. Some items that you acquire during your play are irreplacable, I don't think those should have "decay" factors but should still be subject to quality loss, if one takes hull damage. Not to mention some items are non-manufacturable.

that isn't implimented yet last i checked, i've taken quality damage on several items at level 2-3.

[Irbis]

watch out there when buffing gear crafting, this skill can be VERY easly overpowered

[beisser]

that isn't implimented yet last i checked, i've taken quality damage on several items at level 2-3.

its implemented.. my jes lvl4 stuff only has 98% quality left after beeing killed a lot recently