Selling upgrades

[slayernz]

Wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to be able to sell upgrades to your ship at the Stardock. This would solve two problems:
1) the ultra-cash strapped trader who needs to get enough money to buy some units of water for travel
2) more importantly, I've found that a lot of upgrades become unavailable when you already have upgrades installed. Sometimes you install a low-spec upgrade for a specific purpose (or are just desperate) but then when something better comes along, you are out of luck because although you have the $$$ you just aren't allowed to fit the hardware on your ship.

[Cory Trese]

Upgrades change the nature of the ship and make it unique.

Our actions echo in the eternity of space and we cannot take back what we have done.

The desperate times motivate the player to buy certain upgrades.

Later, those upgrades motivate the player to buy new ships and install collections of better upgrades.

I have great fun building 6-10 specialized ships with each Captain, balancing the base ship, cargo, upgrades and crew. This ship building, buying, customization and perfecting is part of the "end game level" play for level 40+.

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Unfortunately I designed Star Traders based on my games and experience. I have worked on vehicular modification design for various systems. In my real-world experience (part of the ST RPG world model) those upgrades were permanent and changed the very nature (and designation numbers) of the craft.

Now recent developments have enabled the US Navy to build some very agile platforms with interchangeable modules but I wasn't thinking about those when I design ST RPG.

An extended gun deck or new reactor core physically and permanently changes the structure of the craft. Repeated upgrades are not performed because "weakening" the structure by changing it over and over is a bad idea for a space ship (or combat helicopter or any other huge vehicle.)

--

I'll do my best. This is a very common question and the answer of "this is part of the fun, buy a new ship" doesn't always work, even when I explain it the very best and nicest way I can.

[slayernz]

Cool - thanks for the rationale behind your choice. It makes me appreciate the upgrade feature path more and reinforces the fact that I have to choose carefully (unless desperate)

[oldalchemist]

I can't bring myself to buy the 'low end' upgrades. There's some waffling between improvements that work on different paths (engines or armor? boarding or armor? sails or engines?), but if I'm upgrading, I'm saving fro the big one. Why get a 15% sail upgrade when the 25% one is not all that much more expensive? Why get any crew booster except for the huge one?

[Ryan]

Well, how about to compensate for the possible weakening of the ship, we just have to pay the same price to remove the upgrade as we did putting it on, and doing this completely ruins the upgrade (I'd say exception to this being armor upgrades... which I would have destroyed when you are damaged, so that +6 armor only lasts until you lose 6 armor, then you have to rebuy the upgrade, rather then making the ships max armor go up by 6).
Then people who are REALLY attached to there ship (me), can pay to remove something they don't need or want anymore. The 2k credits to remove something weak, is very easy, as long as the new thing I want (from game updates) is better for me.
Just my idea, hope it helps.

[darkmonk]

Seems a bit like taking the sink with you when you move. It's part of the infrastructure, so you leave it there. Besides the game becomes radically easier if you can just sell addons at a whim. This way you cam choose whether you need a short bonus quickly or whether you can afford to go without until you can afford a better one, possibly risking your neck on that gamble

[diablodestroyer]

Yea i agree with monk that the game might get too easy. I believe the game now currently runs on the idea that searching for the appropriate upgrade is also part of the game and to wait and risk ur ship being destroyed.

Not all upgrades are the best all the time. For example for more passive classes, u focus on upgrades that help u escape such as the stealth thing and sails and things that do not increase your signature too much.

For those who wanna go in all guns blazing, they will get all the hardcore upgrades like the miltary architecture that really increases the consumption not allowing for long haul journeys or at least not that easily

[Cory Trese]

Maybe part of this is in the naming.

Perhaps "Cargo Pod" and "Crew Pods" should be called "Stealth Crew Cabins" and "Shielded Cargo Bay" instead...

[ryan]

Confused as to how that would help... as if its an internal restructuring, how is it permanent?

[Cory Trese]

My response was commentary about Diablodestroyer's observation that the benefits of each upgrade shouldn't be discounted because it provide less than maximum direct ship attribute boost. Each upgrade has multiple modifiers.

The names are just variables assigned, those could be changed around without actually changing anything in the saved games. This way, when the game is translated to french it can be "Les Torpeodo De Grande"

I'm not sure what you are saying, Ryan.

What I'm getting at is that "Battleship Architecture" sounds sweet but "Crew Pods" does not sound sweet. Crew Pods *is* sweet if you are looking for the bonuses it provides, but either way it is still just called "Crew Pods" when perhaps it would be a more respected upgrade if I renamed it to "Stealth Crew Cabins" or something.

[oldalchemist]

I am in favor of more descriptive upgrade names. Maybe displaying the signature rating of the ship would help, too.

[ryan]

Ok Cory, sorry I was not understanding that. The description or name needs to be a little better I think is all.