Picking up Modules vs Credits/Upgrade

[NiteHawk]

Here's another thing I saw when I was working on the new stat system.

Picking up modules that are floating in the air gets confusing, you don't actually know what is going to happen! I understand the module pickup is supposed to be 'random' but sometimes it is too random. Reason being is it tries to take your credits to upgrade as well. For example what it does, internally:

Let's say a weapon cost 1200.

-I have 500 credits.
-I pickup a module, the game gives me 1000 credits, for example. You don't see this yet. I have 1500 credits atm. But this is not what is displayed yet..
-It picks a random module slot, lets say the weapon slot, and sees that weapon costs 1200, since I have 1500 credits, it leaves me with 300 credits, and tells me a module has been upgraded.


It could also GIVE credits this way:
-I have 500 credits.
-I pickup a module, the game gives me 500000 credits, for example. You don't see this yet. I now have 500500 credits total, again, you don't see this yet.
-It picks a random module slot, lets say the weapon slot, and sees that weapon costs 1200. It takes away 1200, so I'm left with 499300 credits. What will be displayed is that a module has been upgraded, and that I have receieved 498800 (-500 I had from 499300) credits.



Overall, its real messy. If you don't understand the above, that's fine, it's a mess. Your credits go up and down during module pickups, simply put, and people get confused (was a topic before). So this is what I want to do the following, so vote:



Idea 1. You pickup a floating module, if its a upgradeable module, it will upgrade your module. If it cannot upgrade, it will give you credits.

Idea 2. You pickup a floating module, if its a upgradeable module, it will upgrade your module. If it cannot upgrade, it gives you only a percentage of that module to prevent a huge credit boost.. Like 20%-25% only.

Idea 3. You pickup a floating module, if its a upgradeable module, it will upgrade your module. If it cannot upgrade, it won't give you credits.

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The thing is, right now, is that you really don't lose credits at all unless you logout after reequipping. You get a good portion of the money back even on death. That is the reason for Idea #2 since you really, at the moment, don't gain much credits. REMEMBER: When you pick up a upgrade, it's like picking up credits, you can 'downgrade' your module, or on death, you normally get extra credits from that upgraded module. For example, if you get a shield:3 upgrade, it might be like getting 50k credits, since you can downgrade back to the shield:2 and get the money back.

In the future I'd love to propose 'cargo' where you pick up modules, but cannot use them until you are at a dock or sell them, but thats future stuff. Right now aiming to make the new stats basically work. Theres a couple other things for example, when you die, what should happen?:

Idea 1. Should you lose all credits you put into THAT ship?
Idea 2. Should you get 50% of the credits you put into THAT ship?
Idea 3. Should you get XX% of the credits you put into THAT ship? (Specify)


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I'd propose #2 mainly for balance reasons. Credits right now are very useless, I feel, though it shouldn't be HARD to get, it shouldn't be completely useless either. I'll fix a few things too, like having it save credits on exit properly etc. So you don't lose/gain credits that way (as I know people equip a giant weapon and logout to gain more credits since its not saved). #3 would be fine too as long as you get a portion (50% at least) back when you die.

(I'd like to only have two/three settings, for module pickups (Like I can do one where you ONLY get credits each time you pickup a module, etc.)

[alex136]

I choose #1 from the pickup ideas.

[ChillFactor]

yep, I'd go for #1 as well

[Mars]

1 sounds good to me too.

[Conker-]

So you 3 choose #1 so you'll never have any credit problems? Sounds a little weak to me.. I'll vote for #2 (both idea's) but since the half of the community already voted, sadly, Its pointless for me to vote..

[Trompete]

I like idea #2 but configurable per mod as to what percentage of the mod cost goes on your credits

[Havik]

#2

[NiteHawk]

I like idea #2 but configurable per mod as to what percentage of the mod cost goes on your credits

Yeah true, for balance reasons be best to do a setting Means you can do #1 if you really wanted with a configuarable #2.

For the most case I look and realize they only give credits for alien modules right now, so we need to be careful with this. There needs to be better reasons to lose credit too

[Mars]

Im currently ranked #1 on the nexus and dont have a credit problem so i have no reason for your remark but for 2.0 thats about what it is now you get the module if you dont have yours locked usually a missile if a weapon or a brake or cloak since you can set your modules to - if you dont like what you have dont much matter, it was for a while broke so bad you lost credits when you picked one up.  so just to make that up alone either 1 or 2 is fine.  im sure nite isent going to jew me out of a few credits for running over the junk i made of your ship after your death.

Mars

[NiteHawk]

Well, no one has a credit problem because credits are ultimately useless right now. You pick up tons of credits, and you really never lose them. While I still want you to gain credits faster then losing them on general gameplay, could use money for special things in the future too. As of now, you don't GAIN flat out credits per module pickup, only by picking up a ALIEN module (other teams). It gains credits kind of wierd right now (as I stated in my post) and its more difficult/silly then it should be. It should not TAKE your credits to use with the upgrade, which it does now too.

I want the game to be more interesting, while still promoting the fast paced killing. If I left it as it is now, I might as well remove credits all together as they are so useless since you gain so much credits and you never really lose it unless you log off before stripping your ship of your upgrades. I'll plan something up in the near future then with this.

I was aiming to do this, and work on being able to save ship setups as well. Possibly making the ship editor interface alot more nicer when you want to equip your ship with the nice goodies.

[ChillFactor]

I meant both #1's... You get money for the modules, doesn't matter how (sell them at the dock, automatic exchange) so you can make some extra cash and don't worry too much on credits.

On the other hand, if you spend too much over outfitting your ship you lose that money. That's basically how it works in real life: get nice pro audio system for your car, the car goes over a cliff and sinks into a lake, but you survive, no one's gonna pay that back (unless you have a very expensive insurance, which militarily speaking doesn't apply to starships... for now), so I'm up for losing all credits you put into the ship, including the ~3mill you have to spend to change ships.

[NiteHawk]

I meant both #1's... You get money for the modules, doesn't matter how (sell them at the dock, automatic exchange) so you can make some extra cash and don't worry too much on credits.

On the other hand, if you spend too much over outfitting your ship you lose that money. That's basically how it works in real life: get nice pro audio system for your car, the car goes over a cliff and sinks into a lake, but you survive, no one's gonna pay that back (unless you have a very expensive insurance, which militarily speaking doesn't apply to starships... for now), so I'm up for losing all credits you put into the ship, including the ~3mill you have to spend to change ships.

Yeah, normally though if you are selling something you don't get the full value when you sell back. in the future when theres 'cargo' , you can probably end up selling that I would think. ;)I'll probably do #2 with a higher percentage, and you can do #1 by setting it to 100%.

I kind of agree about the credits thing. Since you'll be getting credits for picking up modules alot now, #1 (for blowing up and losing credits) might be the best here at the moment. But if it doesn't work out, we can always adjust it back. So mainly you'd lose any credits you put into the ship rather then getting them back on explode. (which is by far silly). The two should balance each other out, anyways. Plus you still get your credits from blowing up ships/capping planets/etc.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Coming in late to this topic, I think the pickup modules system should be altered.  As in completely rebuilt.

Perhaps to something like salvage.  The important fact is that you just blew an enemy vessel to smitherines.  What in all that is holy do you think makes it seem logical that you'll pull a working shield generator out of a cloud of rapidly expanding scrap metal?

I would personally suggest that 'salvage' be something along the lines of a collectable resource that can be dropped off at planets for credits.

How much you can pick up depends on how FULL your ship design is.  The more empty space you have that aren't taken up by modules, the more things you can pack into what can be your 'cargo space'.  

This would balance huge F*ckoff ships who can mulch enemies vs smaller ships.  Effectively, salvage becomes a matter of juggling loadout for space.

If you want to make money by salvaging junk, you have to sacrifice your ability to create junk fields of other ships. (IE, weapons.)

This increases the importance of freighter class ships even more.  As these would be excelent uses of the 'lots of space, no weapons' setup they are stuck with.  It also adds new dynamics to pirates.   Pirates LOVE loot.  Blowing up ships gets you loot.  But you have to balance your loot carrying ability with your armament.  

[ChillFactor]

This sounds A LOT more realistic

[NiteHawk]

True, we were planning on that from the start actually, probably will end up doing it like that instead then, a cargobay more or less. All ships could have it and it could 'store' how much they need. So maybe a cargobay, you can have various sizes. But it would eat at the volume of YOUR own ship, so freighters, since they have so much excess volume, this would work well!.

For example, I have 1000/4000 volume, aka 3000 'units' left. I install a cargo bay that takes up 1000 volume, aka I"ll have 2000/4000 volume, since the cargo bay takes up 1000 'units' now. But now I'll be able to take in '1000' volume wise of goodies to equip or sell. So a blaster might be 50 volume, a Engine 5 might be 300 volume, etc.

It would actually promote using a freighter for hauling, as freighters have pretty much the space of a dreadnought, and they don't use it right now. The above would also be the easiest way to handle this at this time without messing with it too much.

I would also say that picking up ALIEN technology (not your race), you can 'EQUIP' that technology, but it won't be a unlimited resource like it is now. Right now how it works is if you pick up alien technology, you can ALWAYS permanently get it from the starbase. I think it should be limited to how much the starbase or your own cargo has. So if I am Arcean, and I sell 5 Drengin Engine:5's, The starbase will have that AMOUNT to equip until there is no more drengin engine:5's.

We could also then change up modules per race a bit, aka every race has a minor boost and minor weakness. Nothing severe, but like for exmple, Arceans can have better shields, Drengins can focus more on weapons, etc. Makes modules super useful to pick up. Can even make AI sell stuff back to the starbase too if they happen to come along alien technology.

This brings into shed what we talked about in the past too, which is CARGO being PEOPLE. Instead of tugging around colonies, they go into your cargo bay. Again, making transport ships more vital. I'm not sure how the INITIAL starting of capturing a planet should handle at the moment (Maybe a special colonizing unit.. Or just dropping people like it currently is would be fine too), but I do know I wanted to be able to protect the planet better through cargo (aka adding better shields to a planet) as well. But we can worry about that after.

This is probably a good idea to do, I'll have to check it out, at least get it started so that you can get ship modules in a cargobay. Says?