Ammunition: War-Time Economics.

[this3ndup]

As Fitorion noted, there is a certain inherent cost to warfare if "ammunition" (i.e. lasers) and defensive countermeasures require energy, as long as said energy requires a finite resource to generate it.

 

If you need fissile material for your reactor, for example, your ability to expend energy in warfare will have to be weighed against the availability of said material. The prospect of expending limited fissile material and possibly even losing it in combat along with your ship would be a check against uncalculated aggression.

 

Other sources of power could be available, but not sufficient to actively power energy weapons and defenses without heavy batteries/capacitors, making it difficult to incorporate these systems into inefficient (e.g. heavily armed and armored) vessels.

 

This also means stationary defenses could always be more efficient than offensive weapons platforms (as they could field heavier weapons without the consumption of fissile material due to the absence of size and weight as a limiting factor), helping to inherently balance PvP against well designed and established facilities.

[Darius Sanguna]

"loot" part was for CaptainTwerkmotor, he came up with the PK and pack-mentality thing, two posts before mine.

Here it is:

 

 

WWarden

Well, they are considering it. If they want the game to be working with subscription, I can't see it having survivail. It will make PK for food a part of the game. And nobody wants that shit. PvP ? Sure. But pack-mentality for survival will turn people off the game.

 

[vylqun]

ok, so u weren't the one with the food, will take that back then, the rest of my post is still valid tho.

[Anaximander]

Well, if ships have physical storage, or at least "loot crate" storage, and ships can be destroyed and salvaged, it's safe to assume that players are going to be treated like thus. The game has no "legendary items" logic behind it, or "soulbound" items. Your guns and gear are made by players, so if you get killed and looted, you can always rebound back from it. And having a lootable system in check would make the game's [player-made cities and homebase logic quite sound, as you can't be travelling packed to the brim with items in your inventory. Which circles back to what I was saying. Make AMMO count in your inventory. Make it a compromise even when it comes to upgrading your gear, some players acting like impromptu medics by carrying extra medical items, so the "soldiers" can carry more ammo on their person. Sure, the game doesn't go for an FPS model of combat, but having weapons ammunition would certainly give birth to tactics and lgoistics. Otherwise it will be just a click-fest tab-target, but with ammunition being depletable, it would make up for that. And I would take depletable ammunition for a tab-targeting game, isntead of "endless ammo coming out of my ass" logic like WoW.