Stefan Stahl wrote:I think it's been said: Reasonable people agree with this.
As a secondary topic on the user experience side of this:
I feel like 'powercores' are not an intuitive entity to interact with. Ask 10 people that don't know the forums what a powercore is - I don't think they'll guess right.
Are you opposed to baking the powercores into the suits as a prefit item? That way this change becomes transparent to the players. Buy an advanced Amarr Assault suit, receive a medium suit called "Amarr Assault A/1" that has an advanced medium powercore prefit. This prefit powerfore can be hidden or visible. I think I prefer hidden for the user experience advantage - but if anyone finds a problem with that I wouldn't mind. I'm assuming here that all cool BPOs will become skin modules in the future, so you'll have a standard suit BPO to save ISK and a cool skin to put on your pro and advanced suits. That means hidden powercores cause no losses in vet-experience, but new players have one less concept to learn during the first two weeks.
Also, will you do the same to vehicles? I assume they have the same memory-consumption problem. Next up, tier- and skin-modules for weapons?
First I like to say that the best way to address the issue of players not knowing what is a CORE module is by implementing an effective tutorial system into the UI so newbros can understand them and veterans won't be jarred by it.
Secondly, I do not think the concept of the CORE module would ever work properly with vehicles mainly because vehicles are an entirely different beast altogether especially when you compare LAVs to HAVs to Dropships and then you have to account for AV players as well. Vehicles are not like suits. Suits don't go around bumping into other suits with REs strapped to their chests, they don't fly around (except as a result of an RE detonation), and they don't carry other suits on their shoulders.
People often use ISK cost as some sort of basis for balancing vehicles to AV but that is generally a mistake because vehicle-vs-AV balance was never meant to work like that. If a full squad of MLT AV players gang up on a PRO HAV and succeed with destroying it, then that is balanced so long as A) the PRO HAV is operated by a stupid driver and B) the MLT AV squad knows what they are doing because they are veterans.
But let's turn that around. Let's say that the MLT AV squad is full of incompetent blueberries while the PRO HAV is driven by a skilled veteran who knows what he is doing. the MLT squad gets slaughtered by the PRO player rides into the sunset laughing with 6 kills added to his KDR. Balanced.
Let's change it up some more. Let's say the AV squad is running with PRO gear this time and encounter a MLT HAV. If the PRO AV squad knows what they are doing while the MLT HAV driver is stupid, the squad gets a nice squishy kill. Balanced.
Turn the tables now. Let's say it's the MLT HAV driver who is the veteran and the PRO AV squad is full of idiots. He somehow gets out alive driving into the sunset once again with 2-3 kills added to his KDR while the PRO AV squad is left behind rekt having a bad day because of him. Balanced.
As you can see, player skill has to play a role in this as well.
EDIT: One more change...
Let's say both the AV squad and the HAV driver are matched in tier. PRO-vs-PRO. It's now down to who make a fatal mistake first.