[Tritian]

My idea is to have a UI for customizing your ships equipment. In the UI, there will be a slider for each piece of equipment where you can choose which end of the spectrum you want more emphasis on, while loosing something from the other end. Obviously the tolerances for such extremities would not be extreme. Just a minor boast from one end of the spectrum to the other. But enough to customize your ship more to your preferences.

For example, here is how my ship might look:
Power Plant: Cent. Mk V
Wattage: 16500
16000 ---[]------------- 17500 (higher risk of breakdown)

Engines: Dream (default: 3680 / 0.62)
Thrust: 3750 / Efficiency: 0.55
efficiency ------------[]---- max thrust

Radar: Knocker (default: 35000 / 150)
Range: 38000 / Power: 500
power --------------[]-- range

Shield: Haven (default: 15400 / 112000)
Damage: 13000 / Charge Rate: 140000)
damage ----[]------------ charge rate

Capacitor: Alembic (default: 7400 / 0.95)
Capacity: 7400 / Efficiencity: 0.95
efficiency ---------[]------- capacity

For the power plant, I mentioned 'Higher risk of breakdown', what this means, is that perhaps if you juiced your power plant, your ship might have unpredictable and undesireable consequences, such as random shut downs which would take 20 seconds or so to recover from. The more you juice your power plant, the more likely of a shutdown occurs.

[Karash]

slider system....pretty proven game design stuff. I would add/promote the idea that you have to make changes while docked (and commit to a desicion on ship balance) before undocking.

Of course, we could have refit stations in space....

[Jump]

Over clocking for space ships! Not as dangerous as over clocking my computer. I like it.

[Tritian]

Originally Posted by Karash

slider system....pretty proven game design stuff. I would add/promote the idea that you have to make changes while docked (and commit to a desicion on ship balance) before undocking.

Of course, we could have refit stations in space....

Yep, this would be an in-station thing that you'd have to commit to before you launched.

Originally Posted by Jump

Over clocking for space ships! Not as dangerous as over clocking my computer. I like it.

Yep! spaceship over-clocking. =)

[SingleShot]

Putting aside the PP issue it seems like this already exists a bit (and could exist even more with rebalancing) in the choices between equipment. eg, Dream/Burn 2, Haven/Defier, capacitors in general.

It seems interesting, but maybe a little redundant?

[Tim]

It does seem a little redundant, as long as one has access to every piece of equipment, and money is no object. (there is a price difference between those equip groups you pointed out).

Perhaps, however, if one could only mount certain equipment for various reasons.. faction restrictions, level restrictions (that apply to use as well as purchasing), contraband, etc... Well, then it might make the choice of a particular piece of equipment matter, at which point the slider concept would be useful and cool.

[Tritian]

Originally Posted by SingleShot

Putting aside the PP issue it seems like this already exists a bit (and could exist even more with rebalancing) in the choices between equipment. eg, Dream/Burn 2, Haven/Defier, capacitors in general.

It seems interesting, but maybe a little redundant?

Perhaps a little redundant, but much more flexible. Also, there's something to be said for that extra personal touch this would add to the customization of your ship.

Plus, if we 'trim the fat' and get rid of a lot of the redundant equipment, such as the engines, radars, shields, etc we never use, this could be a way of still allowing the flexibility of all those variety of equipment, while getting rid of a lot of effectively worthless gear.

So in the end, we might end up with two pieces of equipment for each classification. For example, the two size 3 engines would be the Guzzler and the Shepard. Both would have similar slider tolerances, but the shepards tolerances would be more geared towards efficiency, while the guzzlers tolerances would still be more geared towards raw power.

I think this system could work very well.

[Karash]

ingame money should never be used as a balancing feature between ships or equipment.