While staring at the In Progress page, this bit finally registered in my brain:

"we also have a number of designs in the works for new addons (radar mods are likely, and other things), as well as further ship changes, improvements"

I would like to submit a plea for simplicity in ship modification. It's easy to think, after you've been involved in a game for a long time, that more ship options would be neat. But when the new player shows up, the extra complexity can be really unfun. Example: I played a Freelancer mod where there were 9 different kinds of shield and 6 different kinds of shield battery. That's too many choices. Is shield #4 plus battery #3 better than #7 plus #4? No way to tell.

That's not to say adding new choices for ships is always a bad idea, but the number of options has to be kept down, and there needs to be a simple "wrapper" for it. The S-port/L-port paradigm works great as a wrapper -- most ship equipment fits either a small port or a large port. It's easy to understand how you make tradeoffs. Now if there were, say, an E-port as well (E for electronics), it would be easy to see how to make decisions such as "Do I put Enhanced Radar or a Missile Jammer in there?"

As for number of options, a think a good game design rule is to have only vertical variety, with no horizontal variety. Restricting horizontal variety means, for example, there is only the Enhanced Radar, not 7 different kinds of radar. Vertical variety is like Plasma Gun Mk I, II, and III -- that's OK.

Each item has energy consumption, mass, recharge rate, etc. in its description. With the limited choices for batterys, I would say its not terribly difficult to figure out which is best suited to a players use at the moment. But I see your point about things becoming too complicated if too many variants are offered. As to the question of "horizontal variety" as long as each type offered does something notably different than the others then I am all for variety.

I think that having more complex ship modification is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. That means that there is no one best combination that everyone and his brother fights with, but rather lots of different combinations of ships, weapons, batteries, and other equipment to make combat fun and different for each player that you fight against.

It used to be that EVERYONE flew a Valkyrie with three Sunflare Launchers, or a Prometheus with an Advanced Gatling turret and two small cannons. Now with the new mass system, people are searching out all new combinations of ships and weapons, and battles are becoming more interesting - although since things are slightly unbalanced, there aren't very many viable combat combinations.

Wylfing's point is a good one. Yet Vendetta already manages this learning curve issue: currently n00bs have a relatively limited selection of ships, weapons, batteries, mining equipment, etc. So, in fact, beginning players do have a simplified job of configuring their first boat.

Once those novices get more experience and familiar with equipment behaviors, then the world of options unfolds. Seems simple enough.

Adding a radar capabilty or whatever else will probably follow the same path and thus not take away from the initial game experience.

yes, having a slow buildup for new characters is a good thing, KISS for the beginning, and show that there are more possibilities ahead.

The possibilities ahead are there as a carrot, a good reason to strive for something. Reaching it should allow you to learn the interface and the works of things.

Fex, I'd love to see some missions that required you to be grouped, and some items that required you to have done theese missions, just to encourage some level of cooperation. :-)

But yes, Keep it Simple is a good idea.

I'm definitely not complaining about the current system. And I'm not saying don't add to it. I would just hate seeing an explosion of options where now you have to choose which flux capacitor to use on your ship -- i.e., a piece of equipment that doesn't fill any need in the game, it's just there for complexity's sake.

I also agree that it's desirable to not have a "best" configuration, because that is extremely boring. Avoiding that isn't accomplished by having to choose among 13 different types of armor plating, though. I still think extending the "port" system would achieve the right results, where you could install things like better radar or additional cargo space or intertial dampeners in ports just like the mining equipment is done now. That way there could be a wide variety of ways to specialize your ship, and not clearly any best way, without needlessly complicating the basics. (All the ship stats are already there, we just need a way to mess with them.) There is probably a need for an additional port type so that, for instance, an EC-101 could have some extra options without getting the ability to have 3 guns.

While you might think that as the originator of the 'toys page' that my opinion would be the exact opposite of wylfings, he does bring up some very good points.

I'm the sort of person that likes selecting engine #3, battery #4, computer #2, armor #3, weapons #12 and #21, and an assortment of accessories from a long list. I want to be able to maximize a ship for my particular style of play.

But not everyone likes having that mental of a game. How do you achieve a balance between mental gamers like me, and people like wylfing who think that all those abstract seeming choices get in the way of the game play?

Eventually, too many abstract choices is the same as no choices at all. If any of you have played both MoOII and MoOIII, then you know the difference between a cleanly designed game and one that isn't. MoOIII has more choices than MoOII, but its not actually any deeper - just more frustrating to play. How do you make a truly deep simulation with forcing the player to fiddle with every number in the game?

Those are serious questions. I don't think we could answer them in one thread. They are more the sort of things that you have to address every time you make a suggestion. Does this suggestion increase gameplay or just complexity? Is the idea simple yet deep? How is my suggestion addressing the needs of different types of gamers?

On this topic, Wylfing and I actually answer them in a lot more similar way than you might think. For example, he says, "There is probably a need for an additional port type so that, for instance, an EC-101 could have some extra options without getting the ability to have 3 guns." That quote could have just as easily been taken off my 'toys' page. And when he says, "Now if there were, say, an E-port as well (E for electronics), it would be easy to see how to make decisions such as "Do I put Enhanced Radar or a Missile Jammer in there?", then despite the fact he's calling for a simplified clean design he might just as well be reading from the 'toys' page. If a 'mental gamer' like me is agreeing with Wylfing (I don't know how he describes himself but its clear that we like different styles), I think its a pretty good endorsement of the idea of an 'electronics port'.

I've always supported the idea of a new non-weapons port which can _optionally_ be filled with various goodies. One thing that has to absolutely be true about these goodies is that when you equip them, they have to make a noticable difference in your game play. In other words, toys have to modify something that can be understood, and they have to have descriptions that clearly explain what they do. That's why I've always prefered toys that have a one sentence description. If the toy requires complex checks and balances, not only is it harder for the devs to code, but then figuring out what it does and whether what it does is worth is alot more frustating.

I'm not saying that extra useless crap should be added, but I don't want the game to be dumbed down so that there are so few choices that there's no individuality in what players use. If you add an E-port, you need to have enough options to make it useful. As it currently is, the game is a bit too unbalanced so (as I said) there are only a few viable weapon and ship combinations, but as that gets worked out, then the mix of weapons and ships on the battlefield will increase. That's what keeps games interesting.

"If you add an E-port, you need to have enough options to make it useful."

Obviously, an E-port is most useful if the number of options vastly exceed the number of ports on a typical ship. However, you have to start somewhere.