Tya's Minor Changes List

[Tya]

This is a list of tiny gameplay changes that I think would have a dramatic improvement on the game. I've kept them as simple as possible, literally just numbers tweaks for the most part.

Of course, I by no means expect anyone to agree with all 5 changes.

"Just use mods" -- I know mods exist, but the goal of this thread is to make the base game healthier.

SHIP MOD RNG
Importance: High

Problem: When equipping mods onto a ship, you are given a minimum and maximum possible stat, and the final amount is randomly chosen between these two values. The ranges are often very large, with a high roll being upwards of 4x more effective as a low roll. This isn't fun. It actually puts me off the entire system for all but my personal ship.

Solution: Either drastically increase the minimum roll (eg a shield capacity mod would go from 5%-20% roll, to 15%-20% roll), or just outright remove the randomness. Honestly, having no randomness in this system would make it significantly better and more satisfying to use.

Benefit: Ship mods are fun. Rerolling poor rolls is not. I want to have a good reason to use them more.


SHIP MOD DISMANTLING
Importance: High

Problem: Currently if you dismantle a ship mod, you always get 1 of a given part back (eg a mod costs 3 Nividium Crystalite, you will dismantle and get 1 back). This feels unnecessary. You already pay credits to apply the mod, to then penalise you for dismantling the mod feels like double-dipping the punishment.

Solution: Dismantle refunds all parts used to apply the mod. Perhaps also increase the number of secondary components required to apply a mod, if this needs balancing.

Benefit: Acquiring secondary mod components such as Nividium Crystalite will feel more satisfying, knowing that it won't cost 20-30 of them to successfully get a high roll on whatever mod you want to apply.


SHIP MOD APPLICATION
Importance: Low

Problem: Docking a ship onto the proper wharf to apply a mod is an irritating process. Often this results in me ignoring the mod mechanic on ships that I'm not actively flying.

Solution: Allow ship mods to be applied while the ship is in space, like paint mods. Perhaps make the application of mods also remove all of the ship's shields, to discourage changing mods mid-battle.

Benefit: The mod system is engaging. Removing this barrier to using the mod system would give me more reason to use mods on ships that I am not willing to take out of service to apply them, such as miners or transports. However, using mods on these "unimportant" ships would also be a satisfying game progression mechanic, and hence this suggestion. It would also make ship mods more consistent with paint mods.


REFUND PAINT MODS
Importance: Moderate

Problem: Applying a paint mod to a ship, and dismantling it, will permanently cost you that paint mod. Paint mods are an interesting cosmetic progression path, but selling ships is part of gameplay, and this penalty severely reduces how often I make use of paint mods. It also just feels needlessly punishing.

Solution: Refund the paint mod when it is dismantled. Maybe this causes problems with dismantling NPC paint mods, but given that paint mods are reset when you restart the game, it isn't really abusable. As an optional bonus, maybe refund the paint mod if the ship is lost. Losing ships is part of the game, and this is at odds with paint mods.

Benefit: I'd actually use them on non-capital ships. Overall I think the paint mod system is awesome, but hamstrung by the nature of the game. I think these changes would change paint mods to better fit X4.


RUN SPEED
Importance: Low

Problem: It feels a touch too slow. Running around stations isn't that interesting. Running from your M ship to a transport room takes too long, and this is a fairly common scenario.

Solution: Increase run speed by 10-15%.

Benefit: Less time spent running around stations. Especially during long distances.


THANKS FOR READING

That's all for now. I don't expect everyone to agree with every change I suggested above, so feel free to chew me out in the comments. If this ends up being beneficial, I'll write more. For now, 5 changes seems like plenty.

[Buzz2005]

SHIP MOD APPLICATION
Importance: Low

Problem: Docking a ship onto the proper wharf to apply a mod is an irritating process. Often this results in me ignoring the mod mechanic on ships that I'm not actively flying.

Solution: Allow ship mods to be applied while the ship is in space, like paint mods. Perhaps make the application of mods also remove all of the ship's shields, to discourage changing mods mid-battle.

At least put mod station on equipment docks, why only wharfs???

[GCU Grey Area]

Disagree with pretty much everything.

Very much enjoy the randomness of the modification process, never knowing precisely what I'm going to get & it doesn't exactly take long to click dismantle to try again if the results aren't good enough.

Have no issue whatsoever with losing parts when dismantling mods, think there should be a cost to this beyond simply monetary - rather enjoy the risk/reward element of deciding whether the current mod I've got installed is good enough or whether to re-roll, thereby losing valuable components in the process.

Perfectly happy with docking at a station with appropriate equipment in order to tinker with my ships, though agree with Buzz2005 - this should also include equipment docks. Only annoying thing in this regard for me is capital ships auto-undocking immediately after being built - takes a long time for them to re-dock if I want to install mods.

Think paint mods should be lost if removed, or if a new one is applied - every time I've repainted my house never got the previous coat of paint back. However it should perhaps be easier to obtain them - maybe buying them from equipment docks etc. Seem odd the only way to obtain them is from an entirely different universe.

Run speed seems perfectly adequate to me.

[Loneshade]

Honestly, I'd prefer it the way it is.....

[Olfrygt]

First and second yep im with ut.

That randomshit is ok for T1 mods, but for T2 and 3 its simply annoying without any gameplay benefit.

[radcapricorn]

Removing randomness and enabling total refunds? That's an insta-win button. Might as well just remove mod crafting mechanic altogether and make uber-mods a dropped loot. A better solution IMHO would be to introduce a Mechanic mechanic (yes). E.g. doing some missions or training etc. could net you a skilled mechanic who could install mods for you. The higher their skill, the narrower the spread. So unskilled mechanic might have a spread of 5%-35% for a particular effect, but a very skilled one would have perhaps 25%-35%.
Or mods could require some optional (non-refundable) parts, and the more you use, the closer the mod gets to top quality.

Refunding paint jobs removes the incentive to want to acquire more. They're already accumulating in your account, the more you play, the more you'll have for each playthrough.

But having to personally walk to that workbench is indeed annoying, and run and walk speed are indeed too low

[Loneshade]

ideal Runspeed = 500m/s?


Ps: I'd guess removal of randomness is easily achievable with a mod?

[LameFox]

I agree with these, and would prefer straightforward get-what-you-pay-for 'tuning' over the tedium of randomness. Random rewards are to me only as fun as the activity that generates them, and a bench is not. At all. If there's going to be randomness I'd rather pick up blueprints for them from killing big things or something.

On the other hand, I don't use them since I've never seen one on an AI ship and they're already at enough of a disadvantage without me having better stats. Maybe I've just not looked hard enough, or do they really not use them?

[Artean]

Honestly, I'd prefer it the way it is.....

+1

[Imperial Good]

Currently the randomness does not even seem fair, as if the probability distribution is skewed towards worse numbers than better ones. For example a mod with the range of 5% to 20% one will see a lot more rolls in the range of 5-10% than 15-20%. Of course I could be extremely unlucky, but I am talking in the range of like 80% of rolls will be 5-10%.

I would much rather the randomness be removed, and instead there be different cost tiers. Low ones, like a 10% mod, are cheap, but higher ones, like a 20% mod, cost exponentially more.

On the other hand, I don't use them since I've never seen one on an AI ship and they're already at enough of a disadvantage without me having better stats. Maybe I've just not looked hard enough, or do they really not use them?

AI ships can spawn with mods. I have seen one so far on an SCA Behemoth. In fact it had a turret mod which is currently impossible to manually apply (bug?).

[radcapricorn]

I would much rather the randomness be removed, and instead there be different cost tiers. Low ones, like a 10% mod, are cheap, but higher ones, like a 20% mod, cost exponentially more.

Unless you're talking seven/eight-digit figures, monetary cost wouldn't really be an obstacle to applying mods (it isn't now), as the game treats anything with six figures as pocket change. But then there's a question of why should it even cost so much?
To keep in touch with the game world, there needs to be some gameplay aspect to improving quality of mods. IMHO.

[Imperial Good]

Unless you're talking seven/eight-digit figures, monetary cost wouldn't really be an obstacle to applying mods (it isn't now), as the game treats anything with six figures as pocket change. But then there's a question of why should it even cost so much?
To keep in touch with the game world, there needs to be some gameplay aspect to improving quality of mods. IMHO.

Monetary would be just one of the larger costs to pay. Higher value mods would also need more mod components to craft. A cheap mod might need just 1 mod component but an expensive mod might need 5 or 7 on top of a few million to equip. They might also need to be researched which could be non trivial (have an actual cost or requirement as opposed to all the free research we have now). This would make the high end mods with large values a very much late game concept, similar to warfs and shipyards.

Lore wise this makes sense since they might need to take the best parts of multiple components, or need to use more of such components to get better results.

[Loneshade]

who cares about cash? a few million is change at best when your factory complexes cost in the billions....

Seriously, cash in X4 is not really a relevant factor... so trying to use it for game balancing, doesn't sound like a good choice to me.
You'd first have to 'fix' money, making sure that making profit is not easy to begin with.

[LameFox]

AI ships can spawn with mods. I have seen one so far on an SCA Behemoth. In fact it had a turret mod which is currently impossible to manually apply (bug?).

Weird that a bugged one would be the only one to turn up. I wonder if it was nearly implemented but couldn't be finished in time for release or something.