Ship Designer: Module Editor for Customizing Ship Modules

Impact of Early Access Update 1 on idea proposal as pitched:

Well, Update 1 dropped last night and as expected, it brings some changes to the game.  Including a couple that directly affect this idea proposal.  Although, if anything, the changes made in Update 1 make my wanting of a module editor even stronger, for reasons I'm about to outline.  As in the original proposal, I will be including screenshots to help illustrate the points I'm about to make.  Think of this portion of the thread as nothing more than updated information to ensure information stays relevant with the current state of the Early Access Release version.

Ship Designer Number of Module Listings Halved (But in a Bad Way)

It seems the Dev's have taken on board the communities request to diversify the logical differences between different "types" of resources.  But they've chosen to apply that idea in a very broad and ultimately, detrimental fashion.  The result?  The total number of individual module listings have been halved.  In effect, helping clean up the ship designer interface (yay! ).  However, this in turn has also halved the number of options we can choose when choosing modules to install on our ships (oh crap! ).  This is not what we were hoping for when we asked to diversify ship module characteristics.  This is also not what we were hoping for with this idea.  We were wanting to reduce the number of listings at the same time as "expanding" our options.  Not reduce the listings at the same time as reducing our options.  We wanted more options, not less.

It seems they have broadly chosen to directly link researched resources to specific module types in a very rigid fashion.  Material resources (Titanium etc.) directly link to projectiles and armor (Torpedoes are classed as a projectile).  Substance resources (Hyperium etc.) directly link to energy weapons and shields.  So all listings out-with those broad links are now completely gone.  So now, I'm sure many of us are asking the obvious question, "Why no antimatter torpedoes?".  After all, a grenade without gunpowder is nothing more than a fancy looking rock.  Makes sense right.  Well, as an outside observer, my best guess is it seems like they've made this decision in order to perfectly split resources applications down the middle.  Otherwise, things like anti-matter would have more possible applications than say adamantium on it's own.  Where anti-matter would have applications in Torpedoes, Lasers, Beams and Shields.  Adamantium would only have applications in bullets and armor.  Using this example, would imply too heavy an emphasis on researching substances over materials.  Something I think the dev's wanted to avoid, maintaining the importance of researching both resource types as opposed to one over the other.  Which is why I think they chose this broad approach.  Unfortunately, I don't like this decision.  It's too rigid and it has considerably reduced our options when designing ships.  The exact opposite of what we are hoping to accomplish with this module editor concept.  Sure it reduces the number of individual listings in the ship designer, but by nowhere near as much as the editor would've achieved.  I hate to say it, but it's a half-measure at best and feels more like a step backward rather than forward.

Resource Module Scaling is Still a Big Problem

In this update, the dev's have introduced a second tier for some of the older resource based modules.  Here's an example:

So yeah, they've added a second tier to resource-based modules.  But the problem I highlighted in the above idea concept is still present.  Here's the associated basic modules stats at this point in the game to illustrate the issue.  For the record, tier 2 is the highest level the titanium torpedoes can currently be upgraded to:

So again, my original point stands.  The upgraded "naturally" scaling basic white modules are still more powerful than the best old resource based modules.  Making them completely useless.  And if that wasn't bad enough.  At that time in the game, the adamantium torpedoes don't fare much better at the start of the new era:

Exact same stats as the current basic white modules.  Which again means, until I upgrade the adamantium modules via research (which takes time), there's no point in using the adamantium resource-based modules over the basic white modules.  In case your curious, here's what that eventual upgraded module looks like:

But all of this just further illustrates the issue with scaling in the current system.  Because you know what's going to happen when the next era starts.  The basic white modules are going to scale up again automatically (as they should), but the older resource variants won't.  Because there's no research to scale them up again.  Because there's the new resources on the list.  Again, costing turns to develop.  Or more to the point.  Why did I bother to research the older resources at all, costing lots of turns, when it would probably be better to just ignore all older resource based weapons/shields and save those turns to just focus on researching the best resource based weapons/shields in the very last era.  Otherwise, it's like watching a disappointing game of leap frog and ending up with tons of resources I either don't have any real use for, or have a use for, but for a very short term and cost me too many turns to develop for such a short term of usefulness.

(As you can see, this image pretty aptly illustrates that at this point in the game, I have literally no use for the older resources, resulting in a huge stockpile of resources I can't do anything with.)

Where as with the proposed module editor approach outlined above in the initial concept brief, and converting all the resources to modifiers/secondary effects that simply boost the base stats of whatever white module you attach them to.  You "naturally" eliminate all of the scaling issues and simultaneously make all resources useful again throughout all eras.  Such as using Adamantium to increase a white modules damage or increase armor penetration etc, but then, you could attach Titanium to the second slot to increase the white modules critical hit chance.  (You did notice that the Titanium modules both have an increased critical hit chance compared to both the white and Adamantium modules, right?)  This is just one example of the many ways the editor/modifier approach could greatly expand ship design options, while solving a lot the problems inherent to current system.  

Now obviously, you probably don't want older resources to be better than later resources and that does make a fair amount of sense.  But at the same time, you don't want all older resources to become completely obsolete and useless either like they currently do.  Which is one of the big problems with the current system.  The idea behind this proposed system isn't to make older resources as powerful as newer resources.  It's goal is to restore their relevance in the later eras by simply making them competitive at the very least.  It would be up to the Dev's to find the best way to balance the resources in that respect.  There are plenty of ways this can be done.  Such as spreading a particular resources usefulness based on which module type your attaching it to.  Such Anti-Matter could offer it's biggest boosts to Torpedoes, Shields and Lasers, but offer only a moderate boost Beams, and only a very minor boost to bullets.  Where as Adamantium could give great boosts to Bullets and Armor, a moderate boost to Torpedoes, but only a minor boost, if any, to other modules.  You could even have it to where titanium may be the best overall material for one specific module, but adamantium may be the best overall for another.  So in effect, you're not only varying boosts/effects based on resource, your also varying their effects based on which module types you're attaching them to, adding a lot of depth and experimentation to the ship designer.  This last paragraph is just spit-balling random thoughts to convey the shear amount of possibilities the module editor approach affords you (the Dev's), that the current system does not.  In other words, it affords the Dev's just as much freedom (if not more) as the players.

As it stands, the module editor still seems to be the best option for fixing the issues currently present with the ship designer and resources as I've outlined in the original concept brief.  If anything, Update 1 doesn't fix these issues, it just makes them all the more glaringly apparent.

good work in compiling your ideas.

Damn, you must be playing the bejeezus out of this udpate to have advanced so far.

I hope the Devs take your proposal into the 'wishlist' phase.

This is a really cool and well thought out idea Valhalla, very well done. :) 

I'm really liking the idea of giving strategic resources their own kind of "personality" in terms of ship design, which was something ES1 didn't really have, and EL, though adding some interesting capabilities to the resources (mostly through the accessories units could equip), only accomplished weakly; the only real difference between generic equipment and resourced equipment was the stat buff the latter received, which had two unfortunate gameplay effects: one being that the resources made themselves obsolete at higher tiers (leading to stockpiles of useless resources), and the other being that it led to a weak sense of the "strategic" in the resource's namesake as there is very little depth in stat buffs (bigger is always better), and so decisions around the mechanic were decidedly simple and uninteresting ("Do I have the resource? If so, I should use it; if not, meh."). I think you've done a bang up job of showing that ES2 is falling into the same sort of pitfalls EL ran into in this area.

Now, I think the vision for strategic resources (and similarly, luxury resources) is for them to be points of interest and/or conflict between empires contesting over and trading for them. In its current iteration though, I don't see much reason to do so apart from wanting military parity or superiority in terms of stats (in the case of strategic resources; luxury is a different beast); there is for one, an overabundance of the resources, and for another, they just aren't very interesting. I could see myself playing a game of ES2 without ever wanting to delve into strategic resources and doing reasonably well using just the base modules in all my ship designs. And well, that kind of sucks. I want my blue/red/yellow lazers to mean something! :P

To that end, I'm on board with tuning the strategic resources to have special modifiers when attached to various weapon/armour/support modules. I think though, it would be more interesting if the resources actually opened up new avenues of gameplay, apart from just stat buffs or debuffs. I'm thinking something like what the Blink ability does for the Stalker in SC2; it turns a reasonably mobile unit into a ridiculously mobile unit capable of hit-and-fade attacks like few others. I'm not saying that we need active abilities in ES2, only that perhaps the resources could be used to allow ships to do something different in a battle that could be surprising; in the context of ES2, maybe this looks like a resource-modified weapon that is capable of firing twice in one salvo with sizable penalty to accuracy and/or range, or a shield that is weak in terms of overall strength, but cloaks a ship until it is in close range.

As for resources being tiered over each other (as they are now), I think the module system could safely do away with them if the modifications the resources give are powerful enough to be worthwhile, while also being varied enough that choosing which two mods you'd want would actually be interesting. All 6 resources would have to have their own identity. If that were the case, we wouldn't have to place adamantium and anti-matter over hyperium and titanium in desirability; instead, being able to combine 4 different elements instead of 2, and later 6 elements instead of 4, would provide the depth. Whether or not that is the way to go is up for debate, but I find that idea interesting nonetheless.

That's my (long) two-cents. It would be interesting, I think, to brainstorm what kind of identity each resource could have as a modifier, based on ES lore or otherwise.

Lulz! wrote:

I could see myself playing a game of ES2 without ever wanting to delve into strategic resources and doing reasonably well using just the base modules in all my ship designs. And well, that kind of sucks. 

That's actually exactly what happened in my last game just there.  I completely skipped over researching all earlier resource based modules, because of the issues I highlighted in my earlier posts.  Didn't even bother researching them and used the research turns saved by not researching those to simply focus on other technologies to boost my infrastructure and economy.  Boosting my production, research and economy greatly, because I wasn't wasting turns researching things that had such a short period of usefulness, only to watch them get relegated to obsolescence in such short order.  In fact, the only resource based research I did throughout the eras, was the resource exploitation research, to allow me to put more basic weapon/shield modules on my ship hulls.  But that was it.  I did eventually research the resource based weapons and shields themselves, but that was only at the very end when I had literally nothing else to research.  But my economy and infrastructure was so strong at the point, I was able to research all of them at 1-2 turns a pop.  Which is a hell of lot less than if I'd researched them back when I was in those eras, when it would've cost me 4 -15 turns a pop.  The more I play, the more I'm thinking that a different approach to resources needs to be considered by the Dev's.

lo_fabre wrote:

The only drawback I see is the actual attachment of support modules to one specific resource , but as yourself said in your first post, I think this specific kind of module should be left as it actually is, linked to a specific resource. Of course there may be some exceptions where your idea will fit like in weapons and armor, but will be this: exceptions.

Completely agree on that point.  I do think support modules should remain as they are, resource specific.  Since support modules are meant to fulfill a very specific function, it makes sense that they require a very specific resource.  The module editor as pitched is mainly meant for customizing weapons (beams, lazers, guns torps etc) and defensive modules (shields, armor, point defense etc).  Support modules should remain as they are so as not to over-complicate things.

As a plus to what you explained, I think this system will emphasize seeing space battles (at least some ones per opponent) and reading the after battle report (when the improved version devs promised comes out), to see what are your opponents doing and counter it. This is assuming that specific bonuses from strategic resources are explained in the report or has specific battle visual effects (say changes laser color or shields texture).

That's actually a really cool idea.  I'd like to see that as well.

Congratulations for this good entry, I hope we'll see it implemented, or at least something similar.

Thank you.  Yeah, I really hope this one gets more support.  I think a lot of people are skipping over reading it due to it's length.  Unfortunately, I can't really think of a way to shorten it without it losing critical information necessary to putting this idea into context with the game.  And the current issues within the game that this idea hopes to resolve.  Here's hoping and thanks for the support.

I do not take pleasure in writing this one:

Been playing the new update today.  I hate to say it, but the new tech tree in update 2 has rendered this idea effectively dead.  In my update 1 post I pointed out that the developers had taken a very broad approach in splitting resources between the various modules and while it did effectively help reduce the clutter of the ship designer, it also effectively reduced our options for designing ships by half.  Something I was really unhappy with.  Now with update 2, they've now halved our options again.  . . .  I'm not kidding, they really did.  Basically, in the tech tree, they've put research for both the types of resource based modules you can research (for a given resource) in the military tree (like you would expect), but now they've elected to create an exclusion link between them.  Which means, you can no longer research both resource based variants of a module type.  You have to pick up one or the other and you're stuck with your choice.  Once it's researched, there's no going back to change your mind unless you load an older save.  You can no longer research both even if you wanted to.  So your options when designing ships is now even more restrictive than it was before.

If that wasn't bad enough, wait for this.  Remember the issue with scaling I've been harping on about all throughout this idea thread.  Where once you researched to a certain point, the white modules would scale up in a new era, becoming even more powerful (as they should), but their resource based variants wouldn't, resulting in the following 2 issues:  

1:  Non-scaling resource variants would be the same or lower strength compared to the basic white modules, making them worthless to use because all they would do is increase the cost with zero benefit.

And 2:  Why did I bother wasting the turns to research them for such a short period of usefulness prior to the era advance?  

Well, it's even worse now.  If you still think I'm kidding, you obviously haven't picked up on the tone of this post.  I $h1t you not.  If you thought the length of usefulness of resource based modules was bad before, listen to this.  I did a "test" to see how the resource based modules would pan out with this new system.  Researching them and then checking their stats.  FYI, you should note that with this new system, you now "have" to research resource based modules to advance your white ship modules strength.  The reason for this is you now have to research a certain number of techs within a research branch to advance it's era.  So you now have no choice but to research resource based modules as well to advance the era, to increase your basic white modules level.  Anyway, while researching the various resource based modules, I found that the issue of scaling is worse than ever.  Remember issue "1" I pointed out a few sentences ago.  Well now they're no longer identical stats, they're just 1 point higher now once the era advances. . .  I know what your thinking, "I thought you said it was worse, that's clearly better even if it is just one point".  Wait for it. . . .  Upon researching just one more tech (without me realizing it at the time), because I decided to research a logistics increase on the other half of the tree, I had accidentally increased the tech era again.  Guess how long this took. . . . .  4 turns.  That's right, in just 4 turns I had advanced the military tech era again, advancing the white modules way past the line to tier 4 (bare in mind that I hadn't even started researching adamantium or antimatter modules yet.  Remember, you can only pick one) and rendered the basically just finished previously researched resource based modules completely obsolete.  4 turns.. . . 4!  It takes me longer than that to build just "1" ship.

So from the time I started the test for researching the military section of the research tree to finding this information out, how long did it take me to get to this point.  Total?  About 14 turns.  Oh I really wish I was kidding.  What does all this boil down to:

1:  So now I am forced to research resource based modules just to advance the military tech tree, but those modules are rendered virtually useless literally almost as soon as they are researched due to the scaling white modules and quickly advancing military tree eras due to having far fewer researchable techs as a result of the excessive use of exclusion links. -----  Do not think that I'm complaining about research advancing too quickly, that's not what I'm complaining about.  In fact, the time it takes to research an individual tech is spot on.  My complaint is you've halved our options but didn't properly balance the tree, nor add more module types or new techs to balance this out, creating this scenario.

2:  We wanted more options for designing ships with fewer listings as outlined in the initial idea brief since the initial EA release.  The listings and in turn options were halved in update one.  And now this one effectively halves our options again.  We now have even fewer options for designing our ships.  The ship designer is now a shell of what it was even by the initial EA releases standards.

3:  The idea behind having hybrid modules as an incentive to research both resource based modules is rendered completely dead by this update.  (which btw, was part of the idea that was greenlit a couple months ago in the idea thread that gave birth to this idea thread.  As of this date, that idea "Ship Modules Need More Unique Attributes" is still the number one most upvoted idea thread.)

4:  The issue of scaling is now even worse than ever before where now you are forced to not only research resource based modules, but also watch in futility as they are rendered obsolete literally almost as soon as they are researched.

5:  I have one good thing to say.  The stat diversity between certain module "types" is a little better now.  Such as the difference between lasers and beams etc.  But this is the only positive I can think of.

I have to admit, I'm shocked and dumbfounded.  How did this happen?  Look, I love this game, but this is awful.  I mean really F'n bad.  I like the look of the new tech tree.  But the implementation and continual gutting of the ship designer and related techs is beyond detrimental to the game and gameplay.  It hasn't fixed any of the issues plaguing the ship design process at all.  If anything, it's made the glaring flaws that were already present and highlighted since the initial EA release worse and worse and now it's impossible for anyone not to see them.  Look, I can already see that you've already pretty much tried to kill this idea with these latest changes and that's fine.  I wouldn't be surprised to see an out of vision stamp on this thread in the next few days.  But, the current state of the resource based module research and the ship designer is in desperate need of rework.  It's broken, pure and simple.  And it's badly hurting the game and the gameplay experience.  I'd still very much like to see this idea implemented, but even if it's not, something has to be done about this.

Module scaling and resource modules desperately needs to be fixed.  Basic white modules "SHOULD" scale with the eras, "BUT" resource based modules should "NOT" become obsolete so quickly.  Especially not as soon as they're researched.

We want "MORE" options for designing our ships, "NOT" less.  Not only with resource based modules but also with more module types.

What happened to the prospect of hybrid modules?

Please, Please Fix This!

EDIT:

I apparently made a mistake in my shock.  It turns out I didn't even actually finish the logistics tech before the last era unlocked rendering all the resource based modules I researched obsolete.  Also remember that 4 turn mark I was harping on about above.  Turns out it was 2.  I said 4 because that was how long it was supposed to take from the time I started to complete the logistics research.  I only made it 2 turns into that research before the era advanced.  Here's a screenshot to illustrate what I've described in this post:

As you can see, I'm still only half way through row 3 and still have 2 turns left to complete that logistics research, but have already unlocked all the eras to row 5.  But you have to remember, this is a bigger problem than simply how many techs before the next era unlock.  It's the combination of excessive use of exclusion links (those red lines you see), the same or fewer number of techs in the military tree compared to the other trees (causing a significant imbalance) and the other issues already abundantly defined throughout this thread that has exacerbated this issue to the point that it's at now.  Before today I thought, even if they don't take my idea, it will only get better.  Even with halving our options it can't get worse than it is now.  Hell, I even liked the idea of exclusion links. . . . I was wrong on every count.  I never would've thought the exclusion links would have this negative of an impact.  But then again, I never thought they would've used exclusion links to the extent that they have.  An almost entire tree worth?  Are you serious?  I'll say it again.  Please, Please Fix This!

The exclusion links aren't bad. The only thing they shouldn't be used for though is the weapons/defense and ships tech because then it only limits your combat options.

Your options are good- Could be possible that way.

One thing I didn't understand was a sentence in your last Text Box 

...the main thing, IMO (not sure if was your intention) is still maintaining the blank modules progression independent of the special effects that "modules" give to them...

With "Modules" did you ment the Strategic Ressources? That part confuses me a bit.

While the White "blanc" Modules will still upgrade themselves with each new Era, the Strategic Ressources, which you have to research first, are more like an Add-on to the Blancs. Giving them different stats than before, as well as a different Color.

Example would be Blanc Laser Weapon "20 DPS and 15% Crit Chance" changes to "22 DPS and 15% Crit" with Hyperion Add-On while ehm...Antimatter Laser does "24/25 DPS but only has 13% Crit Chance". 

My guess is to not let the "older" Ressources come to waste when you get the better stuff. Making it possible to give you more space for creativity as much as possible considering the circumstances.

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I may have to draw on some ES2 Screenshots for a better understanding.

Anyways two things must happen before we continue our own "developing"

1. ValhallaAshes has to join our little discussion and 

2. We have to get the Devs Attention again. I actually doubt they look again on a Greenlighted Idea by themselves. Could be wrong though.