Cargo balance and a request for a mod?

[ÐC]

For several reasons i think cargo space is not well balanced after early game. The amount of cargo you need without perma visiting a refinery is just annoying. There are some mods about cargo but they are far beyond balanced.

In my xp a mod which would reduce process power used by cargo blocks on amount like -25% to 50% would be fine starting at Trinium level.

Like :
Trinium -25% PP
Xanion - 33% PP +5% cargo
Ogonite : -40% PP +25% cargo
Avorion - 50% PP +10% cargo

For me personal that wouldn't feel like cheating and rewarding as well to use higher materials.

Any Feedback is welcum why this is a bad idea or why this would be to OP.
And can any mod guy do it if more than me think this would improve the game without plain cheating.

[rickcarson]

Cargo size is roughly a trade-off of 'flyability' vs 'utility'.

I think it's possible to have about 2.5k cargo in a size 5 ship and for it to still be relatively flyable. (There might be an NCI freighter that squeezes in 3k???)

By the time you're in 8 sockets you can get 10k cargo. 10k is more than enough for anything (within reason) outside the barrier.

You can probably beat those figures if you give up sufficient 'flyability' - and that's still playable on your 'non main' ships - the ones you send off on missions. Because although the missions are _extremely_ detailed simulations, I think they pretty much draw the line at caring whether your ship flies like a lead brick taped to an upside-down elephant or not.

Oops my bad it wasn't NCI it was IMC:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3163063634

Hmmm... actually I think I'm using the older version, which is in the last screenshot next to the improved one. Oh well.

One of the reasons I like the IMC freighters is because they lean heavily into iron and titanium, when I unlock a new material tier I can get the bigger ships immediately, and not have to mine a million trinium first.

Similarly there's this from Leucome:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1583624471

Which is a 10 socket ship which relies heavily on naonite ... but if you're in 10 socket ships and don't have 114k naonite to spare I submit that you 'built your economy wrong'.

Also the cargo pods on it are so 'suboptimal' it's not funny - but aesthetically they're designed to look like a modern container-ship and that's just great. As for handling it's superb (for a cargo brick). Very nimble.

----------

For a more red-dwarf aesthetic I like the RIA:

See for instance: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2236439468&searchtext=battleship

They're a little bit more 'brickesque' - but if you're going for a red dward aesthetic that's entirely on-brand.

[rickcarson]

For cargo, I've seen people build absolutely gorgeous designs ... with cargo bays that are large (but very thin) sheets, or they'll build a bunch of 64 1x1x1 cargo blocks in a 4x4x4 grid, instead of just building a 4x4x4 cargo block. Or worse they'll have a bunch of 1x1x1 cargo blocks arranged in a weird shape, next to some 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 blocks (etc.) so you can't even merge them.

It's like the soup nazi - no cargo for you!!!

--------

On the other hand there's some purists who insist that cargo should _only_ come in one perfectly cubical shape, and they're right that that _does_ absolutely maximise the cargo space ... but it doesn't make as much difference as they think it does. There's a bunch of other shapes (i.e. sausages) that are better for building good looking ships that are maybe 3-4% less 'efficient' than the perfect cube. Just don't slap a bunch of super thin cargo slabs on the side of the sausage to make it 'look round', they're not going to do anything. (and might as well have been generator blocks or integrity blocks or energy container blocks or thrusters (etc. etc.) instead).

[rickcarson]

Also, if it's bothering you that your main battleship cargo bay is constantly getting clogged up with little dribs and drabs of scrap metal that need refining, then either build bigger cargo blocks into your battleship (1k+ is not unreasonable in the 5-8 socket range), or get the Refinery subsystem mod, which will periodically refine small amounts from your cargo bay.

--------

If it's your miners and/or scavengers that you're complaining about their cargo size - use the map missions instead. They have refining side-trips pre-baked into the very detailed simulation.

About 10-15k cargo size is optimal for that, and that's doable around about the 8 socket limit.

If it's a problem earlier than that (for your mission ships) I'd question whether you've somehow 'lucked' into putting an exceedingly large number of resource gathering turrets on something with only a small number of sockets. (Somehow???)

[Blueberry Muffins!]

> Also, if it's bothering you that your main battleship cargo bay is constantly getting clogged up with little dribs and drabs of scrap metal that need refining,

I just shut off scrap and ore pickup in my personal ship, dealing with dribs and drabs is waayyyyy below the opportunity-cost floor, let alone fun.

[rickcarson]

Originally posted by Blueberry Muffins!:

> Also, if it's bothering you that your main battleship cargo bay is constantly getting clogged up with little dribs and drabs of scrap metal that need refining,

I just shut off scrap and ore pickup in my personal ship, dealing with dribs and drabs is waayyyyy below the opportunity-cost floor, let alone fun.

The other thing the refinery subsystem mod lets you do is management-free in-sector r-mining, which is something people sook a lot about missing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯