Ophiuchus wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:39 pm
I always thought about this tech as a specific small-hulls-buff. If it is not I would not mind if we remove it completely.
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Also 20% i think is way too much for research cost.
It is indeed better suited for smaller hulls, and close to useless for big hulls. I wouldn't like removing it.
But late game is mostly only useful for comsats. The extra +5 structure seldom accounts for an extra hit of any late-game ship design (including small ones). Hence the "need" for an effect more noticeable in small-but-not-tiny ships.
Also, the idea of a tech that upgrades the structure of all ships is appealing, the same way there are weapons that increase their damage output after being built.
You're right also about RP cost and the percentage effect being OP for that cost.
We could make it three techs:
- First one gives a small fixed increase (I say +4). Easier to get than current RH tech.
- Second one gives a small percentage increase (10%). Requirements similar to current RH tech but greater costs.
- Third one gives another small fixed increase (TBD) and another percentage increase (20%?). Must be an expensive, late game tech.
Ophiuchus wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2020 1:24 pm
And we forgot to mention one important reason why the base hull gets the +5 structure boost: you should be able to use the base hull even if your enemy uses mines.
If we change reinforced hull tech we either need to dump that idea, lower damage from mines for base hull, change the way mines work (e.g. just damaging ships down to structure 1), or add a way how to up the structure of a base hull (e.g. internal part with +3 structure for 6PP - we now have three internal slots so we could use up to two for armour).
The last one (expensive internal armour) would be probably prohibitive for troop pods but for outposts and colony ships it would suffice. For chaff one would probably prefer to buy a second comsat at the same price.
I disagree that you have to be able to use base hulls with enemy mines. Actually, currently we can't late game, for the 14 damage mines.
But these techs could be tailored to allow some research race between mines and hull reinforcent.
Whether first mines should counter or not base (non-reiforced) hulls or not is open for debate.