SEV question - new design tech levels?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Plus, queues start empty.

[PvK]

What Kamog said. Also, mods may have more interesting decisions about which version to use than are in the default tech tree... unless the UI remains with this limitation.

Also it is an issue that you can get around it by wasting your time making designs to upgrade from. Any time a UI doesn't let you do something easily, but does let you do something that can be advantageous, but only if you waste a lot of time doing something tedious, is a headache.

PvK

[Kana]

The problem here is the level system for techs...basically you turning your +1 APB into a +2 APB, and once you have it, there is no need to go back...I'm wondering how many mods will remove the levels all together...I'm seriously considering it...

[StarShadow]

Except there are several people who say that they really would like to have the ability to go back. So I'd say the need to go back, does exist.

[Kana]

Preaching to the choir...

[StarShadow]

Lol..I was just saying. It didn't look, to me, that you were 'for' the ability to 'go back'.

[AgentZero]

It'd be especially handy for multiplayer where you sometimes end up building lots of ships to trade, but don't want them to have the highest tech, or even if you're just building scouts that you know have a good chance of winding up captured, you don't want to give your enemies free tech.

The thing is, the way the tech works in SE5, each tech level doesn't have it's own entry, there's just the one entry for a certain field (ie: Meson Blasters) and then a formula describes what happens as you increase in tech.
In SE4, you had seperate entries for each tech level, so each level of tech could be seen as a seperate object, so in SE4, you had 10 different Meson Blasters, each with it's own stats, whereas in SE5 you have 1 Meson Blaster with stats that vary according to your tech level.

So, while it'd sure be nice to use older tech, it's probably not feasible in SE5.

Edit: Unless there was an option in the design screen that said 'Use Current Tech' or 'Use Tech X Generations Old' where X is a user definable number. Then a formula could be applied to the current techs to 'reverse' them to the level you desired. Of course, it'd be kinda clunky if you wanted to use engines that were 5 techs old, APBs that were 10, shields that were 7 etc., but it's the only way I can think of doing it.

[Slick]

AZ: I dunno. The game works fine with older techs that are already in use. I can't see why it would be harder than adding a selector for component level.

I'd like to be able to compare different levels of component also so that I can see what I'm getting for my research. Right now it's hard to tell if you are getting deminishing returns; especially if you haven't used the last version anywhere.

[Fyron]

A mod where you could have such interesting choices could also have two or three separate component lines, geared towards these different choices, right?

You could also reduce or eliminate cost increases, to ameliorate the need to make cheaper ships for maintenance purposes. Start the initial levels at a higher cost, reduce the absurd 100 levels of everything to more sane numbers...

Useful or no, I don't know that you will be able to convince Aaron to allow obsolete levels to be used at this point.

[Kana]

True, but I'm easily sure that the level thing can be moded in or out as needed...its just a formula...right?