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Mechanics Change to "Ship-Related" Universal Consoles/Device Slots (EQUIP AS DEVICE)
crazedmike
Member Posts: 37 Arc User
Good evening! I believe this is the first time I've actually spoken in the STO Forums so I'll make a brief introduction (If you're super impatient I left a TLDR at the bottom): My name is Mike, although I am probably better known in the game for my "CrAzEd" moniker. I've been playing STO since about a year or so after the game came out initially. I'm a lifetime member, absolutely love the game and have made I believe 53 characters now. I have nearly every ship in the game (R&D, Lockbox, Zen you name it) and the ones that I don't I simply am not interested in.
I'm not trying to flex by introducing myself this way, I'm actually stating it because it's going to lead directly into the topic I'm about to discuss. I mention my history with the game and owning all these ships because I'm actually a little bit irritated by a side effect of one of the more positive changes that was made to the game a while ago.
Back in the day most universal consoles that came with a starship were specific to the ship in question. Generally speaking, only that ship would be able to equip it. I think the initial thought behind this philosophy was that it would help the developers "maintain game balance" by not allowing too many abilities to be intermixed/combined with others. Obviously, pandora's box was opened on that one a long time ago and there's no going back. With so many universal consoles available out of lockboxes and what not, I completely support the change that was made to allow many of these once "ship restricted" universal consoles to be equipped on other ships.
HOWEVER... This leaves me with a bone to pick. The Defiant for instance was once advertised as being one of the few ships capable of equipping the oh so lauded Cloaking Device. The Vesta class was the fastest in the galaxy because it alone could equip the consoles needed to get Chroniton Slipstream. I ask you: Does it really make sense that the ships that pioneered the technology would need to occupy their systems to the same degree as another starship that was never built to do what this ship was clearly built to do?
Ironically, it was the the Defiant and it's Cloaking Device that gave me the idea... DEVICE. Why isn't the cloaking device a device? Then it got me thinking: We don't really use devices much in STO. Sure, there are batteries and fleet calls and whatnot. I'm not saying the slots are useless, but really... When has "how many device slots a ship has" ever truly impacted a build in STO?
This is where I'm getting to my suggestion for a mechanics change: Allow universal consoles that are specific to certain ships to be equipped as a device instead of a console slot. I think this would be a positive change for a number of reasons. First of all, a lot of the older consoles from the lower tier ships are straight up outperformed by newer more modern consoles that give inherent stat boosts and what not. Why would I equip Cloaking Device as opposed to the Covert Warhead Module? We can argue situational scenarios and what not but I think you get my point... Certain consoles that I paid money for back in the day are sitting around collecting dust never getting used. This gives ships like the Defiant some of it's edge back as it was one of the "exclusive Fed cloakers" and this change would put it, the Avenger and the Galaxy-X back to their originally marketed status as being able to special equip cloaking devices.
This would also bring life to certain "ship lines". You would see Prometheus class ships using Multi-Vector Assault way more often if they could slot that as a device instead of a console. Using Saucer Seperation wouldn't be a joke anymore (though admittedly, the Terran Hydra makes it certainly less of a joke now but I digress). It would also give the ship that "spawned" the console so to speak an actual advantage when it comes to builds revolving around their own console. Sure you can put that fancy Eject Red Matter console on your Annorax, but the Jellyfish effectively "gets it for free" as I feel it should in terms of it occupying console space.
Now the obvious criticism I could see for this is POWER CREEP! OMG THE POWER CREEP! Well, yes this would certainly add to the power creep but I've got some bad news for you: Power creep in this game flew off the rails a long time ago. With all the abilities, consoles and traits at our disposal there are players already doing absolutely ridiculous things with their starships (I count myself amongst them). I don't think this change would increase the power creep to such a degree that it would fundamentally change the game. What I envision would be a renaissance of shipbuilding, since players would be able to equip so many of these nifty consoles from many years ago that just didn't make the cut because 30% damage and 2% critical outperforms it.
Another criticism I could see is that it adds even more power to cruisers as they get more device slots than other ships. Personally I don't really have a problem with that concept, as logically I feel like a cruiser would have more space and capability to incorporate tech onto them in the first place, but that's a more "rationale" based answer than a balance based one. I get that and that's partially why I want to share all this so it can be discussed.
As a side note to Cryptic, this change would also give players better incentives to purchase the lower tier ships for their consoles if they would be able to slot them as devices. Just pointing out that it would probably be good for the pocketbook to make this change. It would also make players like me who have already filled your pocketbook quite happy too knowing that their old investments are still seeing returns.
So that's my idea. In general, I feel as though device slots aren't being used enough and the game isn't offering many options in terms of what to put in there. Now, if there was suddenly some competition for space like: "OOOOH, do I put Kinetic Amplifiers in or should I slot that console?" That starts to get interesting. I'm a high performance player and I'm telling you I don't use my device slots all too too much. This is an area of shipbuilding which can definitely be improved upon.
And for those who like to TLDR:
Universal consoles that come from specific ships should be able to equip those consoles as devices on the respective ship.
I'm not trying to flex by introducing myself this way, I'm actually stating it because it's going to lead directly into the topic I'm about to discuss. I mention my history with the game and owning all these ships because I'm actually a little bit irritated by a side effect of one of the more positive changes that was made to the game a while ago.
Back in the day most universal consoles that came with a starship were specific to the ship in question. Generally speaking, only that ship would be able to equip it. I think the initial thought behind this philosophy was that it would help the developers "maintain game balance" by not allowing too many abilities to be intermixed/combined with others. Obviously, pandora's box was opened on that one a long time ago and there's no going back. With so many universal consoles available out of lockboxes and what not, I completely support the change that was made to allow many of these once "ship restricted" universal consoles to be equipped on other ships.
HOWEVER... This leaves me with a bone to pick. The Defiant for instance was once advertised as being one of the few ships capable of equipping the oh so lauded Cloaking Device. The Vesta class was the fastest in the galaxy because it alone could equip the consoles needed to get Chroniton Slipstream. I ask you: Does it really make sense that the ships that pioneered the technology would need to occupy their systems to the same degree as another starship that was never built to do what this ship was clearly built to do?
Ironically, it was the the Defiant and it's Cloaking Device that gave me the idea... DEVICE. Why isn't the cloaking device a device? Then it got me thinking: We don't really use devices much in STO. Sure, there are batteries and fleet calls and whatnot. I'm not saying the slots are useless, but really... When has "how many device slots a ship has" ever truly impacted a build in STO?
This is where I'm getting to my suggestion for a mechanics change: Allow universal consoles that are specific to certain ships to be equipped as a device instead of a console slot. I think this would be a positive change for a number of reasons. First of all, a lot of the older consoles from the lower tier ships are straight up outperformed by newer more modern consoles that give inherent stat boosts and what not. Why would I equip Cloaking Device as opposed to the Covert Warhead Module? We can argue situational scenarios and what not but I think you get my point... Certain consoles that I paid money for back in the day are sitting around collecting dust never getting used. This gives ships like the Defiant some of it's edge back as it was one of the "exclusive Fed cloakers" and this change would put it, the Avenger and the Galaxy-X back to their originally marketed status as being able to special equip cloaking devices.
This would also bring life to certain "ship lines". You would see Prometheus class ships using Multi-Vector Assault way more often if they could slot that as a device instead of a console. Using Saucer Seperation wouldn't be a joke anymore (though admittedly, the Terran Hydra makes it certainly less of a joke now but I digress). It would also give the ship that "spawned" the console so to speak an actual advantage when it comes to builds revolving around their own console. Sure you can put that fancy Eject Red Matter console on your Annorax, but the Jellyfish effectively "gets it for free" as I feel it should in terms of it occupying console space.
Now the obvious criticism I could see for this is POWER CREEP! OMG THE POWER CREEP! Well, yes this would certainly add to the power creep but I've got some bad news for you: Power creep in this game flew off the rails a long time ago. With all the abilities, consoles and traits at our disposal there are players already doing absolutely ridiculous things with their starships (I count myself amongst them). I don't think this change would increase the power creep to such a degree that it would fundamentally change the game. What I envision would be a renaissance of shipbuilding, since players would be able to equip so many of these nifty consoles from many years ago that just didn't make the cut because 30% damage and 2% critical outperforms it.
Another criticism I could see is that it adds even more power to cruisers as they get more device slots than other ships. Personally I don't really have a problem with that concept, as logically I feel like a cruiser would have more space and capability to incorporate tech onto them in the first place, but that's a more "rationale" based answer than a balance based one. I get that and that's partially why I want to share all this so it can be discussed.
As a side note to Cryptic, this change would also give players better incentives to purchase the lower tier ships for their consoles if they would be able to slot them as devices. Just pointing out that it would probably be good for the pocketbook to make this change. It would also make players like me who have already filled your pocketbook quite happy too knowing that their old investments are still seeing returns.
So that's my idea. In general, I feel as though device slots aren't being used enough and the game isn't offering many options in terms of what to put in there. Now, if there was suddenly some competition for space like: "OOOOH, do I put Kinetic Amplifiers in or should I slot that console?" That starts to get interesting. I'm a high performance player and I'm telling you I don't use my device slots all too too much. This is an area of shipbuilding which can definitely be improved upon.
And for those who like to TLDR:
Universal consoles that come from specific ships should be able to equip those consoles as devices on the respective ship.
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