[netburnr]

But it would be cool if you could sacrifice the space to add a bigger engine, or more armor.

I love the idea, and hope it gets merged with mine from last month

[Jonboy]

I like that hard-points are tied in with the ship-model. A ship with two engines has two streams of green stuff out the back. The tensy has all three guns in the middle and the cuda has them spread along its line. I don't think that should change.

To aid with balance you can add in diminishing returns, i.e. that although you're adding 17 powerplants, you lose more power in the wiring as you add more powerplants, so you're only getting the power of 16.1, etc.

Even if this idea is a little over-the-top, I do think that when ND are designing their ships, they should give each ship of the same class a 'number of points' and use up points when assigning gear-slots.... Just as a starting point for balance.

[Chaser]

I see what Jump is saying as basic ship design using a set amount of mounts per ship...fighters wouldnt have a lot of mounts, but you could build a great little runner, with bigger engines, not more engines, just bigger. But there would have to be certain maxes to use, depending on ship size. You couldnt run cap ship engines in a fighter, but you could give up (for instance) one armor HP for another gun. It would be great for custom ships, the game could set the max allowed for each design, and we would choose what to give up. Its a good idea, I'd use it.

[Ambrosius]

Said it before: variable loadout like this is too hard to balance.

From what NetDevil has said, it soulds to me like they will handle ship/loadout diversity by maing more than one option pre ship-class (e.g. two different types of Quantar Heavy Miners -- one the maximizes defense for Edge Space minine; another that maximizes ore extraction capability for reg space mining).

[Jump]

Yes you've said it before but that doesn't mean that's true.

There could be a specific limit for each type of ship since they are different sizes. Engines would serve their purpose better in the rear of the ship not the front. Though, the ability to fire up a thruster break would be cool for a tow. The point of the original idea was not to balance ships but to create variety and risk. Balance comes from specific uses for different setups and the risk of not having what you need when other parties outsmart you.

[Ambrosius]

Very cool ideas. Far too hard to balance. It IS true. Not because I've said it a lot. Because I've seen first hand how hard it is even to balance ships that do not have this kinds of customizability. We simply tried to re-do the shields to give players tactical options -- still failed miserably.

[Wild_Bill]

Ambro, perhaps the idea of "balance" is part of the problem. If by "ship class" you work on the principal of "form following function" you could get the base frames for all the factions, which would include the number of engine mounts, external hardpoints and gun slots, and then a set number of spaces to alot out to armor, cargo and equipment. If you want a fighter that can haul cargo, design it that way. If you want something light and fast, but with some serious firepower, design it that way also.

You could have similar designs by faction/nation. Just enough to give each a destinctive profile etc, but leave the actual set up to individual pilots. Yeah, there would be certain "best" configurations, but this would also allow some serious pilot modification. It would also allow more specification as well.

There is already talk of having different models within various ship classifications, so I can see this working well. Don't know if ND would go for it, but what I'm saying is "Don't try to balance anything. Give us the basic frames and equipment then we can find our own balance".

[Ambrosius]

If you have 100% customizability, then everyone ends up flying the same ship. If you do not have 100% customizability, you have balance options.

[Wild_Bill]

That's one away to answer the question I suppose. If everyone is flying the "same" ship, then by definition they are balanced. More equitibly balanced than anything any dev could possibly come up with.

I don't believe that would be the case though because there will always be someone with a different viewpoint on what the "best" might be for a particular ship/situation. There could be several of this sort. Just one example. Some folks prefer ammo to lasers. Another example: some want light and fast; others want the ability to hang in there and slug it out. Different strokes for different folks.

I'll ask you this one, how often did your ship setup match Nohbody's "ship loadout" for that ship?

[Ambrosius]

My point is that we tried to do just what your're saying -- just with shields -- to create different sz 2 shields with different benefits: high damage, low mass, high recharge and balanced.

We worked quite hard on testing and tweaking, and the result --- everyone uses the Haven.

Im not saying it is impossible to do this kind of thing . . . just VERY, VERY difficult. And we tackled just one thing. Now blow this out to having scenarios where you can equip multiple sizes and multiple types of equip.

It would take months and months of dedicated time, testing and tweaking to have a prayer of getting right.

[GrimGriz]

Originally Posted by Ambrosius

We worked quite hard on testing and tweaking, and the result --- everyone uses the Haven.

And then me and some octs figured out how to make the defier usable without being overpowered and were summarily ignored because we happened to not be on the testing team

[Jump]

Balancing the test team has always been a problem.

The point of the idea Ambro was not to balance. How smart you are or how task specific your flight plan would be how you setup your ship.