Sleeper Service wrote:The dummy possibilities where already discussed a while ago. Power requirements look crap on the UI. The suggested workaround is overall much less elegant than having the trade goods as augs. And as already stated I like think the scarcity the current system creates is actually a nice addition to the gameplay. And yes, no item can be taken away from the player (beside that hard coded exception of the stasis pod in the crystal unlock event.)
I just wanted to say that I am sorry for bringing this topic up again.
You explained to me your reasons why you believed trade goods should not be made into dummy weapons and I accepted your explanation. I did not want to talk about that again, only the possibility of adding an event after the store. I see a bunch of people talking a out the trade system now which was not my intention. So here I'll try to summarize it for them.
One of these days if someone else wants to rewrite every trade event and rebalance the trade system as a result then we will see how a trade system using weapons actually works. But it would take at least a whole day just to get it working and then you'd have to deal with polishing it... I don't think we can force Sleeper to do that.
For those new to this conversation the main issue is that you can not remove augments with events (requiring an honor system) and you need to have weapons equipped to actually use them in blue options. (Meaning that every time you went to sell them you'd have to equip them first. I thought I had resolved the 2nd issue before by figuring out a way to let the player equip the items "when" the get to the store rather than before and then sell them, but that had its other issues which I'll discuss later. I brought this topic back up to discuss the first issue. Punishing the player for not selling the goods (which isn't really necessary unless you're a cheating bastard).
Having trade goods as dummy weapons also has its own limitations and weirdness of course. Like being able to equip trade goods that do nothing to fight the enemy LoL. Or not being able to equip them if you're playing as a custom ship that has no weapons system. Or the player not understanding exactly what they were supposed to do at a store in order to sell those goods.
I just couldn't wrap my head around these issues with the current system. That trade goods take up augment slots when you can have an empty cargo hold to put them in. (it just doesn't seem right even though a trade ship would have less military capabilities I suppose.). That you should probably have a cargo teleporter to be an effective trade ship (-1 augment slot) and if you want to be a manufacturing ship you need the Manufacturing augment (-1 slot), leaving you with room to carry only one trade good. Plus there are so many other good augments that you can use in CE that you'd be missing out on when playing a trade ship.
I don't think, from a balance stand point, that being able to put trade goods in the cargo hold would be bad. A true trade ship should be carrying multiple goods. You could just lower the scrap gain a bit for each and then you would have to be actively participating in trade more. Having a bunch of goods in your cargo hold also has its own trade off because you would not be able to carry any extra weapons you received. (Which could usually give you more scrap consistently.
It is those other issues then that really make it difficult to say that one method is better than the other. Considering the current system is so solidly in place that encourages us to just leave it as it is and not mess with it. The classic saying "If it ain't broke. Don't fix it!"
We can't have everything we want... It's the same way currently with the Internal Generator augment and playing as any faction specific ship. You would have to sell your special augment to be able to use 2 combat Augs. Can't seem to find a way around this one either. Like you said the Captains Edition does not attempt to make every possibility a reality.
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So I'm kind of putting to bed the idea of dummy weapons being used for trade goods. These are the only suggestions I have to polish up the current system.
-Some kind of explanation as to why trade goods take up an augment slot
-And the "obsoletion" of the honor system by adding the events I suggested (of course that would take an unpractical amount of effort though)
I don't think you'd be opposed to adding those events right Sleeper? It just would take forever. From my experience this is what would be necessary: 1.) the creation of new or duplicate stations or ships. 2.) the redoing of all the store events for each sector. 3.) the creation of a new event for each trade good to be called whenever the blue option is chosen to sell.
As far as having multiple of the same trade good that is unlikely that that would happen, but I suppose they could just say they want it ALL. And then you'd have to give it all to them. I suppose if you thought it was unfair your could betray them...
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To leave this off on a different note. I can see maybe some interesting possibilities for blue option only events, just keep in mind that the only limitation is the alternative must be that the event could end where the blue option begins and maybe you'll get some ideas. If that's all you take ways from this then at least that's a good thing.
I wasn't planning on sleeping tonight anyway...