Post by Dominus Sicarum on Jul 29, 2018 7:40:33 GMT -5
Disclaimer: I do not think it's impossible to play with a small ship or that you can't be successful with it. My thoughts are directed towards the current meta and small ship viability and effectiveness among other choices.
After playing a "few" runs and trying to stick to small ships in some of them (trying to recreate age of discovery privateers or sneaky spies mostly), I've noticed some problems with it. It seems like the answer to any shortcoming you may or may not have is to get a bigger ship. Need more dice? Get a bigger ship. Need more speed? Get a bigger ship. Need to evade, chase, fight, spy or collect space plush bears better? You guessed it, chump, to the docks you go.
It feels like ship size categories are simple upgrades with no downsides whatsoever. The hull diversity within size-class is fine. But the smaller the ship, the bigger your self-imposed handicap is. By biggifying your floating tin can you get more guns, more accuracy (this is somewhat justified, as bigger ships can mount better and bigger targeting solutions), but also, counter-intuitively, better evasion, speed and chasing potential. And generally more of everything else you can get your greedy trader hands on.
Thus you can come to the conclusion that size class is king in this game. It doesn't matter if you want to play as a sneaky spy, elusive smuggler or a daring pirate. Answer to getting better at these things is getting a bigger ship. It's not the only answer, but it is the optimal and easiest of all. It looks to me, the way the dice system works in this game is somewhat to blame:
1. The bigger your ship is, the more dice and "power" you get.
2. There are no penalties for getting a massive slower ship. Thanks to dice you'll still be able to outmanuever, outchase and outgun any smaller ship.
3. The linear semi-forced progression (cases of extreme roleplay excluded) feels daunting and unrewarding to me, as a player. Why try to specialize my small spy-ship, when I can just get a bigger ship and be done with it.
4. Because of the point above, upgrading your components also feels pointless unless you are at the highest size category (or your ship is big enough for your liking and you feel like getting an even bigger ship would be an overkill).
5. Small ship is a self-imposed detriment to be dumped as soon as possible, only picked at start to min-max your captain. Lets be honest, finding enough cash to up your game is a breeze even on harder difficulties so going bigger is a top priority when you want to dominate your chosen field.
Thus, my suggestions are as follows, in no particular order of importance, to be perused at your leisure:
I. Add the possibility of crippling overspecialization for ships. Mods\parts\weapons only available to certain class categories seem feasible in this regards. I.e. smaller ships may not be able to keep up with fatter, juicier ones with more sardines packed in them, but if they overspecialize by the way of installing components of specific types only available to them, that maybe add maluses to the other ship capabilities, they might exceed their effectiveness in those chosen venues, while abandoning some paths completely.
II. Increase the advantage of having a fast and agile engine over hulking behemoths of the void, by, perhaps, limiting the skill pool you can use for very specific tasks only (changing range and evasion come to mind) by correlating it with speed\agility somehow or increasing that correlation if it's already works like that. Thus, even if you have massive skill pool on your big ass ship, if your engine is a slow turd you won't catch up to a small ship in your life, unless you use some sneaky-beaky-cheaty talents. E.g. smaller ships get mobility, bigger ships get firepower and cargo\component space.
III. A mechanic, based on your ship size, stealth\electronics and possibly certain components to ambush or surprise your contacts and chose starting engagement range or have one being chosen for you if you're on the slow side of the scale.
IV. Coming from previous points, bonuses\maluses for ships of different size classes, with medium-sized ships getting neither. Although crew-count and component space are already kinda serve as this, but still, bigger ships get no downsides to them. On the other hand, specific size-restricted components might also do the trick!
These are my thoughts on changing the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything in ST from "get a bigger ship" back to "42" as gods intended.
After playing a "few" runs and trying to stick to small ships in some of them (trying to recreate age of discovery privateers or sneaky spies mostly), I've noticed some problems with it. It seems like the answer to any shortcoming you may or may not have is to get a bigger ship. Need more dice? Get a bigger ship. Need more speed? Get a bigger ship. Need to evade, chase, fight, spy or collect space plush bears better? You guessed it, chump, to the docks you go.
It feels like ship size categories are simple upgrades with no downsides whatsoever. The hull diversity within size-class is fine. But the smaller the ship, the bigger your self-imposed handicap is. By biggifying your floating tin can you get more guns, more accuracy (this is somewhat justified, as bigger ships can mount better and bigger targeting solutions), but also, counter-intuitively, better evasion, speed and chasing potential. And generally more of everything else you can get your greedy trader hands on.
Thus you can come to the conclusion that size class is king in this game. It doesn't matter if you want to play as a sneaky spy, elusive smuggler or a daring pirate. Answer to getting better at these things is getting a bigger ship. It's not the only answer, but it is the optimal and easiest of all. It looks to me, the way the dice system works in this game is somewhat to blame:
1. The bigger your ship is, the more dice and "power" you get.
2. There are no penalties for getting a massive slower ship. Thanks to dice you'll still be able to outmanuever, outchase and outgun any smaller ship.
3. The linear semi-forced progression (cases of extreme roleplay excluded) feels daunting and unrewarding to me, as a player. Why try to specialize my small spy-ship, when I can just get a bigger ship and be done with it.
4. Because of the point above, upgrading your components also feels pointless unless you are at the highest size category (or your ship is big enough for your liking and you feel like getting an even bigger ship would be an overkill).
5. Small ship is a self-imposed detriment to be dumped as soon as possible, only picked at start to min-max your captain. Lets be honest, finding enough cash to up your game is a breeze even on harder difficulties so going bigger is a top priority when you want to dominate your chosen field.
Thus, my suggestions are as follows, in no particular order of importance, to be perused at your leisure:
I. Add the possibility of crippling overspecialization for ships. Mods\parts\weapons only available to certain class categories seem feasible in this regards. I.e. smaller ships may not be able to keep up with fatter, juicier ones with more sardines packed in them, but if they overspecialize by the way of installing components of specific types only available to them, that maybe add maluses to the other ship capabilities, they might exceed their effectiveness in those chosen venues, while abandoning some paths completely.
II. Increase the advantage of having a fast and agile engine over hulking behemoths of the void, by, perhaps, limiting the skill pool you can use for very specific tasks only (changing range and evasion come to mind) by correlating it with speed\agility somehow or increasing that correlation if it's already works like that. Thus, even if you have massive skill pool on your big ass ship, if your engine is a slow turd you won't catch up to a small ship in your life, unless you use some sneaky-beaky-cheaty talents. E.g. smaller ships get mobility, bigger ships get firepower and cargo\component space.
III. A mechanic, based on your ship size, stealth\electronics and possibly certain components to ambush or surprise your contacts and chose starting engagement range or have one being chosen for you if you're on the slow side of the scale.
IV. Coming from previous points, bonuses\maluses for ships of different size classes, with medium-sized ships getting neither. Although crew-count and component space are already kinda serve as this, but still, bigger ships get no downsides to them. On the other hand, specific size-restricted components might also do the trick!
These are my thoughts on changing the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything in ST from "get a bigger ship" back to "42" as gods intended.
