In another post I threw out the idea of "slotless modules". I want to expound on that more to explain the concept.
The Issue with Slots
In general, I think the new slot model is far superior to the old mass model. Its much easier to understand, its less fiddly, miniaturization is much meatier and usable, and it gives tiny and small ships a greater purpose as compared to old systems.
That said, the main issue is the loss of granularity. I use to be able to have a module that was 1/4 the size of a weapon, and so could slip it in on an otherwise full ship, or it allowed me to trade in 1 weapon for 3-4 of something else. Without that granularity, certain modules are hard to justify, because they compete with the loss of a weapon, defense, or engine I could have otherwise had.
Slotless Modules - High Cost / No slot
One simple way to reintroduce some granularity is with slotless modules. Simply put, they are on the outside of the ship and so don't take up a slot.
The two best modules to start with are:
Its also worth removing the 3 +25% boosters in favor of a single +25% to all offense. Frankly, most ships already have tons of incentive to stick with one weapon type, generally it will do more damage on average than a ship that is dividing its damage among multiple weapon types. Further, its very tech expensive to maintain good stats on multiple weapons. So if the ship is willing to pay that cost, no reason to further punish it by only allowing +25% on a portion of the weapons....go all the way. So I recommend a simple +25% slotless offense booster for 3 or so durantium.
I don't like using resources for ship parts, or using resources altogether.
I'm fine with increasing ship construction costs though.
GalCiv 2 (TA expansion) had HP modules. I had designed and built ships with double or even triple the normal hit points. Combined with good defenses, ships could be nearly unkillable. That was fun. I wasn't the only one who did this.
The unfortunate things was there was no standard or progression for HP modules. Some civs had HP modules that were clearly better than others. The Terrans and Iconions had variants that worked very well for huge modules.
It's an interesting idea. How do you limit "slotless" modules? Is there only one allowed per ship, or would the player be able to put as many as they wanted so long as they paid the construction costs?
It would be limited as it is now. For example, you can only have 1 +4 hp module, and 1 +4 /+20% hp module. You can also only have 1 +25% attack module. Those restrictions would still be there.
I want to add my voice to the cause of ship module reform. Right now, ship design seems very stale and boring.
I have a slightly different take on the slot issue. The loss of granularity is a big problem, but it's not the only one. There's also the loss of racial diversity. In 3, you had the Dense trait or attribute (I forget what these things are supposed to be called) that would increase total capacity of the ships. Added on to that, you could specialize your technology to miniaturize your modules to make even more use of your Dense bonus. There were also race-specific technologies that could affect things like ship capacity. The result was a huge variety in ship designs between races. This in turn would affect the decisions you made about fleet composition and logistics. (You could choose to prioritize better ships, or bigger fleets. Since there was also a racial trait effecting fleet size, it could be a legitimate strategy with some races to prioritize quantity over quality.) The result: every game of 3 you had to adjust your ship specifications (and research priorities) to make the maximize your race's strengths or mitigate their weaknesses.
This depth is completely lost in 4. The only reason to design a custom ship now is to make sure that you are using all of your slots for weapons, with maybe some defense thrown in. You researched Flexible Bulkheads? Better put another gun on the ship. There is absolutely no diversity outside of command ships. There is the Warrior trait, but that existed in 3 also.
Despite the huge loss, I haven't lost hope for GC4 yet. The new system is easy to understand and use, and that makes it a good starting point. If certain reforms are made (like the idea of slotless modules), then I think the new system can become better in time. Another option would be to designate a certain number of slots for certain functions. Each hull size has its own base slot capacity, so you could say that there are X slots designated for weapons and Y slots for defense, with larger hull sizes also having one or two "special" slots for amplifying/extending range, etc. (The extra slots you get from technology could be totally free slots, or they could be free for anything except "special.") This would do a couple of things. First, it would solve the "defense vs. more offense" issue without requiring the developers to figure out how to balance defense and offense. People would use their defense slots because you either "use it or lose it." Second, it would do the same thing for the "special" modules which at present don't see much use. Third, the proliferation of "special" modules would increase the sense that each ship has a designated role in the fleet. One ship might be solely about damage, another might be about staying out of enemy range (through extended range) and buffing the defenses of the fleet. Lastly, it would further differentiate big ships from small ships because only the biggest ships would get multiple "special" modules. This would result in more interesting choices in ship design and fleet composition.
One last point. I was intentionally vague about the relationship between Y (the allowed number of defense modules) and X (the allowed number of weapon modules). Because I am neither certain myself what would be best, nor how this solution is likely to be received by the community, I thought it best to leave it open. One possibility would be to have X=Y; another would be to have X be less than or equal to 3, depending on hull size. This last one would be interesting because on all hull sizes except Massive it would force the player to choose which kind of defense to build, adding a layer of strategic depth. Only massive hulls would have the advantage of having all three types of defense, making them the ideal backbone of any fleet.
I'm not a huge fan of the idea of limiting slots by offense/defense, as that feels more limiting in how ships can be designed (which to me, restricting options is the reverse of what a lot of us want). If a lot of us are honest, the GC series is a lot more about ship building and RP than it is about min-maxing for *most* players. I do like the idea of "special module" slots being separate and larger hulls having more of them. That would make larger hauls more useful and "feel" more like the capital ships they are purported to be.
Unfortunately, I think all of the different ideas the community has to improve the combat and ship building mechanics needs to be debated holistically and that is hard to do via a forum system where each thread is generally about a distinct issue (this is why I don't want to sound too critical of SD, this game design stuff is hard!). Maybe one of the mods or a SD employee could collate and produce a thread with all design suggestions and the community can discuss using a more comprehensive list? This could be a project that eventually leads to a DLC/expansion overhauling the entire system...? I'm not sure if I am just a whiner or if most of the player base also isn't enjoying the ship builder/ship combat system in GC4.
This isn't a bad idea. I could see slotless modules being an improvement as long as you can't stack them.
I'm really hoping SD does a patch focusing on the current combat situation. Large and huge ships could use some more work.
I think a DLC that revamps the combat system entirely would be the best way to go. That way SD could give it the time and attention that it really needs.
Personally, I feel like the system should gravitate toward the module-based command-ship methods. You only EVER get 7 command ships....yet you could get a dozen or more specialty modules. (kind like how you keep discovering "free planet upgrades" long after you have upgraded all your colonies)In other words, why not just let you swap each module off your ship "for a cost" after you have researched a better module? This helps both the "upgrade model", plus the use of found bonus modules. Hell you could even make a mechanism to manufacture "special modules" and make a whole race out of it.
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