Yet another MODS thread

Kirin

The entire mods tradeskill is a huge sink for credits and marks the way it is structured currently. 

In the past one month since the game has released, my character has managed to collect ~30 weapon mods. In this time, the progress towards any one mod is 5% meaning I need at least 20 more months to even come close to manufacturing a mod. This seems like a huge drain of money with a very long gestation period and a hurdle rate that most of the game won't have access to.

While I understand the need to long-term goals in developing goals, there has to be some interim progression otherwise it seems quite pointless.

Some recommendations

• Player Mod Usage: Restrict players to use only player-made mods. At this time, it almost seems a year of RL time before players can actually make mods making it better to use them than to sell them (unless it is for very high prices)
• Interim progression 1: Let modders make simple, complex, obfuscated and advanced mods if they have researched sufficient mods of a particular quality [not specific mod] you can make mods, provided you have the parts
• Interim progression 2: Let modders research a specific family of mod and let each count towards progression towards that family. As an example all Surger Mods would give you progression towards the family of Surger branded mods
• Touchstone skill: Perhaps, mastery in a particular mod could allow you to rename and brand mods and add stats rather. So you could have  Locke n Loaded Surger SMA (mental) if you master the particular mod completely 
• Drops: The variability in mod drops amongst players seems significant. There are players with no mod drops while there are others with many multiple drops for approximately the same number of kills. This represents a material difference in earnings due to mods. A potential solution could be a 'pity timer' used in some games where you get a mod for every 5k kills since your last drop irrespective with an increasing chance of a mod dropping as you approach the mark.  

More Ideas Welcome

<div><span>ID      <span> <span>Item                          <span> Progress     Parts       </span></span></span></span></div><div>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div>25       Surger SMA (Mental)            5%           1</div><div>26       Warzax 1 Impact                5%           0</div><div>27       Driver Three (Impact)          4%           1</div><div>30       Surger SMB (Kith)              5%           1</div><div>40       Melee Booster JB-2             5%           0</div><div>42       Driver Four (Mental)           4%           1</div><div>78       EM Booster JB-1                5%           10</div><div>84       Nascent PTX-WM-3 (Melee)       5%           10</div><div>103      Augmenter 2 (Melee)            4%           13</div><div>104      Augmenter 3 (Cellular)         4%           13</div><div>125      Tazi Electric II               5%           10</div><div>147      Surger SMC (Impact)            5%           10</div><div>163      Electric Booster JB-3          5%           10</div><div>167      Driver Three (Kith)            4%           13</div><div>178      Warzax 1 Ranged                5%           10</div><div>179      Surger SMA (Tech)              5%           10</div><div>184      Nascent PTX-WM-2 (Mental)      5%           10</div><div>185      Draining Booster JB-2          5%           10</div><div>191      Tazi EM III                    5%           10</div><div>192      Driver One (Tech)              4%           13</div><div>193      Driver Three (Mental)          4%           13</div><div>194      Kith Booster JB-3              5%           10</div><div>207      Warzax 2 Electric              5%           10</div><div>211      Xyca Cellular-1                5%           10</div><div>212      Tech Booster JB-3              5%           10</div><div>213      Surger SMC (Kith)              5%           10</div><div>214      Warzax 3 EM                    5%           10</div><div>216      Warzax 2 Kith                  5%           10</div><div>220      Tazi Tech II                   5%           10</div><div>221      Thermal Booster JB-2           5%           10</div><div>231      Nascent PTX-WM-1 (Impact)      5%           10</div>

Joscelin

Research on a long (daily) cooldown seems like it would be a cool way to see some steady movement without rushing it faster than the devs seem to want. Could also add some to hacking by letting you steal trade secrets or research by hacking certain terminals every so often.

Kirin

Joscelin said:

Research on a long (daily) cooldown seems like it would be a cool way to see some steady movement without rushing it faster than the devs seem to want. Could also add some to hacking by letting you steal trade secrets or research by hacking certain terminals every so often.

I generally do not like the idea of having dependencies between skills (meaning I shouldn't have to love hacking if I want to learn about mods). 
I am perfectly okay if hacking provided mods or small bit of experience in trade skills rarely as a reward.It shouldn't be the primary way of gaining a tradeskill

Joscelin

I certainly agree it shouldn’t be a primary way to advance a trade skill, but as a perk here or there I don’t think it would hurt.

kamyr

Allow each dropped mod to be copied X times by a modder.
Give the progress divided by X for each copying.
Give double the progress if the mod is eaten entirely for research.

3x copies and custom naming for mastered mods.

Kirin

Reviving this thread with a small upgrade suggested to mods.

Most mods in the game are close to useless since they add very little unless you are willing to invest significantly into them.

For example: 
Augmenter series mods add +2 to +3 damage which is close to nothing. As a result there is no point in researching, mastering and developing these mods.

One of the ideas that came up to make them more appealing as an item to spur demand and make the skill more integral to the game is the following.

In addition to raw damage - perhaps mods can add other modifiers in the game

Warzax - raw damage output

Nascent - raw damage output

Xyca - raw damage output

Tazi - small chance to generate 20% extra junk.

Surger - small chance to trigger victoryrush by +3 seconds

Booster - small chance to pacify/ freeze a mob

Driver - small chance to cause a critical hit

Augmenter - small chance to insta-kill a mob of a lower level

Perhaps adding these small incremental modifiers will make them more appealing in the context of the game.

Zhulkarn

Similar can be said for the Armormodding skillset really. Mods providing more then their +X defense/offense is something that would definitely breath some life into the trade. 

After removal of level-locking and removal of redundancies, mods with additional properties or mods simply doing something else other then providing damage/reduction would be nifty.

For example, a mod that can be installed to the feet of the armor providing some kind of dash ability. Call it Lightning MK I. Losing charge each time used and it regains charge back over time. Or something that can be added to the torso which will provide very minor extra regeneration of resources or health. Maybe some mod that will reflect a portion of the damage back. You know, interesting things that will make people reach out to you to buy those stuff. Or simply just a flavor mod that will project a disco ball for all to see from your torso or leave a visage of yourself as you move for a limited amount of seconds. After all there are lots of slots on those armor pieces!

Also another idea would be that armor mods can work against PvE targets three-four times better then PvP targets. Such as if you get 3% resistance against a particular melee PvP attack it could provide 9-12% against a PvE attack. 

Research mechanics and shipments were definitely a decent step towards making mods possible to create in a good way that also supports the economy. Now we are on the step to make things interesting so people will come to us.

Flipilaria

I thought this thread was gonna be about the admins/moderators. Boy was I surprised!

gravithicc

How about if, for less material cost, the modder can directly work on a client's armor/weapon/ship to make the effective changes? Mods can remain as a physical storage of the modder's skill and labor, able to be traded and installed by the general public (think do-it-yourself modkits), and therefore more expensive to create.

When a modder directly works on an weapon/armor/ship, it will result in an installed "custom mod" that cannot be removed without destroying the custom mod.

Picram

Thread necromancy! Since a lot of stuff has happened to mods since then, here's how they work now. Each manufacturer has a series of mods, basically one for each level range (5-25, 25-45, 45-65, 65+ if memory serves) and damage type, with the effects being more pronounced on the lower level mods. Mods still have to be reverse engineered, but you gain research credits for the manufacturer whose mods you take apart, which can then be spent on every mod from that manufacturer that you have reverse engineered at least once. Mods are obtained by the still pretty rare drops from bashing, which may be improved via talent after MIL 75, although I can't say how strong that effect is, from the xenozoology bounty (once a day, and only if there is no other promotion), and via shipment, which is a skill in each modding ability that allows you to trade five of each resource (disheet, paristeel, transteel, hds astrium, rglass, nanoplastic) for one of ten random assortment of mods once per RL week (you only see how many from which manufacturer there will be in the shipment, not what is in there).

The issue that still stands is that due to the effects of mods being rather limited, there is no reason to ever research or craft mods from all but one or two manufacturers, which provide the largest bonuses - nobody would go for a mod that gives +2 damage when they can have +10. Similar to Kirin, I believe there should be a secondary effect for each mod, at least for those with weaker bonuses, so that there is actually a decision to be made whether I want to use the +10 damage mod and only get the raw damage, or maybe go with the +2 that has a secondary useful effect, maybe an increased crit chance. There's a whole lot of effects we could come up with here, from slightly increased drops to more bleeding to more damage on Tuesdays, pretty much everything goes.

However, taking Kirins suggestion a bit further: make mods highly customisable. Let's say a mod is a combination of, say, ten generic components, which could come from any of the manufacturers, but the effect would scale with the amount of parts from that manufacturer. For example... I would then have to decide, do I want my weapon mod to have 10 parts of the thermal damage mod? Or maybe ten parts of the crit chance mod, giving me 10% more crit chance (numbers are wild guesses), or maybe go somewhere middle of the road, with five parts damage and five parts crit chance? This could also become the last skill obtained when learning to mod. I believe this would have several effects - first off, make modding more versatile. Secondly, give all mod parts a chance to be used, and a reason to exist.