It seems to me that one of the biggest headaches that EV has left us with comes from measuring outfit masses by the ton, and not allowing fractions. Everything must weigh either nothing at all, or at least a ton. This is particularly a problem for weapons which use ammo, though it's actually a problem for all kinds of equipment.

All engine upgrades weigh the same, a pursuit missile weighs exactly the same as a defense pod; a blaze turret weighs exactly the same as a phase turret... outfitting a ship would be more interesting if there were slight differences. Not so much that the ships become able to carry more equipment - just enough that the choices available become a little better balanced.

It occurred to me that it might be possible to increase the 'resolution' of the game by multiplying the numeric values for 'space' available within a ship and 'space taken up' by an item by about a hundred. Then start making changes... each needle missile could be given a mass of perhaps 2, and the weight of a hunter missile could be made different to that of a Voinian rocket, ie. one could be 180 new units, and the other could be 175.

Anticipated problems:

• There might be an upper integer limit in the EV engine which would make it impossibe to store the large numbers which would be necessary to describe ships with large amounts of equipment space.

• The units seen when looking at ship info would be wrong. Not a lot I can do about that.

• Any plug-in you used in conjunction with this modification would offer absurdly small weapons, and any ships it introduced would have insufficient capacity... this wouldn't be a problem if the re-scaled plug was a TC, though.

• Conclusion: Please, Ambrosia, can we have greater 'resolution' available in equipping and outfitting aspects of future additions to the EV(O) stable? Kilos instead of tonnes, perhaps?

As always, your comments on this idea would be appreciated.

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I recall from somewhere that you will, in EVN, be able to use strings or string#s to modify text that was, in EV/O, hard-coded into the game. This would presumably include the mass designation strings, so you could have kilos if you wanted them. Personally, I'd vote for cubic meters. And I would be very surprised if there was a limit on outfit space short of maxint, which still leaves plenty of room for your scaled up outfit sizes - though it might make something like a planetary ion cannon a bit tricky.

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(This message has been edited by Wyvern (edited 02-12-2001).)