Locked consoles, another pet peeve

stobg2015

As long as I'm already on a rant (yes, I admit it) about eng/tac/sci variants, I might as well weigh in on a related topic.

So-called "universal" consoles that are locked down and may only be equipped on a narrow set of specific ships.

Sometimes it's sort-of justified. The Saucer Separation console, for example, which only works with ships that were designed to support those visuals. Or something like the Tipler console, which is thematically tied to ships which are designated as timeships. Those make sense and I won't argue that they should be equipable everywhere.

Looking at the T6 Flagship consoles, I could almost buy the argument that they're thematically tied to a Flagship. And if this were an isolated thing, I probably wouldn't think twice about it. But I'm noticing that these days we get very few C-Store consoles that can be equipped on any ship at all, other than the ship or ship class it came with.

This diminishes the value of these consoles drastically and takes away our options to customize ships with items we've purchased fair-and-square. What is so special about the Dampening Wave Emitter or the Adaptive Emergency Systems that they can't be 'retrofitted' onto other ships that could benefit from them more?

If balance was a truly great concern, you'd think they'd hold down the number of other things that can be swapped around from ship to ship to make testing easier. But they don't. At this point, there are so many variations they can't possibly test them all. So why not more? You know they're going to rely on player testing to tell them about OP combos with unintended consequences anyway.

So what is the big deal about letting people equip consoles anywhere they want to?

Maybe I could see why they might not want to allow Adaptive Emergency Systems on an escort, or the Dampening Wave Emitter on a science vessel. Either because they'd work too well, or due to thematic reasons. But why shouldn't you be able to equip them on any cruiser or battlecruiser?

Okay, so maybe they don't want the set to work anywhere else. Fine. Why not make it so the set only works on specific ships?

Mind you, I'm picking on the Flagship consoles right now but my peeve isn't limited to this. I'm just using it as a timely example of design practices that are delivering us less value for the money.

Am I expecting them to change that? No, not unless they have a good reason for it. Nope, I'm just pointing out to my fellow players that we're not getting as much value out of our ship purchases as we could be getting. If you're going to buy a Flagship bundle and stick to flying Flagships, then you're getting what you want and this won't matter much to you. If you're someone who buys a lot of ships for a wide range of reasons, the value you're getting should matter very much. It's one more reason for me to recognize that the ships don't provide enough value to justify the purchase in my case.

alexraptorr

Be grateful that you can equip ANY ship console on other ships freely.
Originally ALL ship consoles were hard locked to their individual families.

stobg2015

alexraptorr wrote: »

Be grateful that you can equip ANY ship console on other ships freely.
Originally ALL ship consoles were hard locked to their individual families.

Be that as it may, allowing C-Store consoles to be moved to other ships added value. Restricting where they can go, aside from technical or thematic reasons, detracts from that value... IF, as I say, you're not going to stick with that class of ship anyway. If you're never going to fly any other ships, then it doesn't matter.

And again, if this wasn't such a huge trend that we're stuck in, I probably wouldn't care all that much.

Let's just admit right now that set bonuses (admittedly not altogether a bad tradeoff) are creating a situation where our consoles are locked-in to specific ships. It doesn't have to be that way. We have plenty of other sets that aren't tied to specific ships, so it is do-able. They can modify their design decisions to create more value, and more people would be more inclined to buy more ships.

This isn't stopping me from buying ships. But it is a factor in my decision to buy or not to buy, when I stop to reflect on a ship's overall value as a purchase. When we're potentially talking about laying down $120 US, value is a major consideration. That's not pocket money for most of us.

flyingshoebox

This is something I’ve been thinking more and more of myself. As we get more t6 ships into the system the value of their t5 counterparts goes down. A great way improve that value would be to make some of their bits more truly universal like we see in t1-4 consoles.

Yes, some could be op or just not work outside of their specific ships but doing it over time with a few passes would be a great way to bolster the value of older ships Just like the admiralty system has.

darkhorse281

Cant disagree here since in a lot of instances the console the ship comes with holds most of the value. I certainly don't fly all of the ships Ive bought for various reasons. I'm a fan of the more maneuverable cruisers like the Eclipse or the Arbiter so those get flown on my Eng and Tac captains, while ships like the guardian or Oddy will sit and never get flown hence they would only have value to me in the universal console's they might have, ship traits, and admiralty cards. The console from the fed carrier would be a nice console to have on other ships like the escort carrier but cant be moved. I cant say I would spend 10K zen for just admiralty cards, but and especially with universal consoles that can be moved I see more value in spending 3k zen or 6k zen for some of the single ships, and smaller cross faction bundles or even if I know I wont ever fly the ships. Seems like lost revenue to me.

thlaylierah

Allow me to translate this into Crypticspeak for you OP:

Ahem,

"Making Consoles more interchangable with more ships means that more people will be buying more ships and spending more money on this game."

chiyoumiku

I was led to believe that "universal" only referred to not being tied to a Tactical, Science or Engineering slot and could be fielded anywhereo n your ship builds.