Take 2:Allowing components to contribute more to operations.

[tarquelne]

EDIT: Okay, trying this again. Stared up a game to test things and got confused ...

Anyway:

I was fooling around with my early-game Longbolt, and thinking about how ripping out every +Electronics component didn't alter the card game. It'd do terrible things to combat and saves, of course, but all those antennas just help when you draw a bad card - they don't help get a good one.

I like that the cards drawn in operations are primarily decided by crew make-up, but I'd like to see *some* contribution from the ship.

Perhaps a 0.1% bonus to the skill pool or pools for every point from the ship? (So a Ship with 20 Nav and 30 Elect would give a +5% to spying, or +2% to Patrol.)

Since some operations use pools that don't have any associated components (Intimidate for Blockade, for example) only give a bonus to one pool? (Like E for spying, Nav for Patrol, and Pilot for Blockade.)

Another possibility would be comparing relevant ship score or scores to the operation's risk factor and deriving a bonus, similar to how engine speed or agility gets compared in combat.

Either way, a ship bristling with antennas would become a better spy ship, a ship able to move around the system with ease a better patrol ship.

Dedicated components might be the way to go, though, to open up ship design space. Rather than getting a Nav Module, say, to help with combat and Patrol or Spying, a "System Command Center" might give a bonus to Patrol, (or to Command, only for the purposes of Patrol.)

[fallen]

Sorry to hear you're having issues with the system of how risk and reward work. We'll keep working to improve.

[tarquelne]

I could have explained that better - it’s not so much the risk/reward system, but the idea that while crew composition has a huge impact on every aspect of success in the game, the contribution of ship design to “ops” is rather light. While individual components can kick in and modify rewards for success and and penalties for failure, there’s nothing that encapsulates a *ship’s* overall ability help a crew achieve success.

A crew does no better at spying on a ship with nothing but antenna than it does on a ship with nothing but prison cells.

I don’t think there’s a *problem*, but I do think it’d be great if we had to consider more trade offs between the various ops and combat when designing ships.

[daveal]

My understanding of the card game is different:
startraders.gamepedia.com/Spying
This says the electronics "skill pool" is a factor in determining the reward level. Assuming "skill pool" means the number of strong dice, then the antennas do give a better reward. The green cards will be stronger ones, even if they don't come up more often.

[tarquelne]

Jul 13, 2019 15:01:50 GMT -5 daveal said:

My understanding of the card game is different:
startraders.gamepedia.com/Spying
This says the electronics "skill pool" is a factor in determining the reward level. Assuming "skill pool" means the number of strong dice, then the antennas do give a better reward. The green cards will be stronger ones, even if they don't come up more often.

That’s what I thought at first, but if there’s a difference it’s not reflected in the Ui where the contributing scores are listed - it seems that “skill pool” just means the crew’s score - not the “ship skill pool,” where components give strong dice and the crew weak dice.


The confusion mentioned in my first post was when I tested, just to make sure, and accidentally compared Patrol to Spy after stripping out a Longbolt’s optional Electronics boosting components. (I couldn’t remove the Engine & Bridge.) When I managed to actually hit the right buttons I saw that the 42 (IIRC) Electronics I had with a default Longbolt was the same 42 after turning most of the ship to prison cells.

The common/good/rare distribution didn’t budge either, though I don’t remember if I checked after going completely Bastille.


After all the testing I’m going to be really embarrassed if I still somehow misunderstood the game. The word “mortified” is calling for my attention.

[daveal]

I did not experiment, so I accept your experiment. I agree it seems wrong that the card game isn't affected by ship components at all.

[fallen]

Ok, thanks for clarifying, we'll take a look. Sorry you dislike the setup.

[tarquelne]

Jul 14, 2019 18:53:27 GMT -5 fallen said:

Ok, thanks for clarifying, we'll take a look. Sorry you dislike the setup.

Thanks for taking a look, and “dislike” is too strong a word.