I think it would be nice if you could spend rank up points on Scan, Cloak, Hull, and Shields. This would help the people who want to follow the small ship path.

+1

scan - Tactical Reconnisance Officer
cloak - Tactical Transmission Officer
hull - Mechanic
shield - Android Engineer

+ 3! I love that Idea, and I'm liking the naming for the positions, I'm thinking for cloak +2, scan +1 or +2, and hull +10, shield maybe +5 per rank point?

-1

Some stats have to have limitations. IF people could keep increasing scan then there would be no hope ever of putting cloak on planets. And ESPECIALLY hull. There's already artifacts that increase hull and sheilds.

ok so no hull and shields because artifacts can be used, but scan and cloak would be good. if your rank points are spent on them its not spent on deck space, and deck space is more efficient. this is to help the small ship build and to give another path to follow besides all deck spaces. i think if you calculate it out this is not as terrible as you might have first believed. you only get 5 rank points per level and they must be spread out over all the attributes. if you spent for instance 1 point on scan and 1 point on cloak per level at lvl 100 you would have depending on the ratio we will say, sticking with the average seen on other stats 2 for 1, a 200 scan and 200 cloak. now that is 200 deck spaces ( 100 scan, 100 cloak) used permanently for this. depending on your research that is about 1/3 less that a person using deck space per module. its would not be unfair it would help the small ship builds gain access to the you need a scan rating of xx to run this mission.

at level 143, my cloak and scan are both over 300 with zero researched modules installed. theres already enough stuff out there for S/C... -1 to the whole idea

Then why do we have attack, defense, research, and engineers rank points? Isn't there already enough things out there for that. I am try to keep my ship as small as possible. I currently see no way to compete or even at the very least defend against the high level players. If the only way to play is to spend all my rank points on deck space and then hope i can get a few planets that no one will hack and take from me so in 6 months i will have enough research to upgrade. Only then to find the higher level players are now x 5 ahead of where i was then because they can keep the good planets. It then gives me the impression i can never compete and will always be at this point. The small ship bonus makes playing the game possible for new players, in my estimation this does not threaten the seats of power, the old players will still be the superpowers, but maybe just maybe the new players wont have to endure months or a life time a farming because we did not find the game when it was first introduce. At the moment the most chosen way to play is all decks along with planets you think no one will take from you. I am only asking for this idea to be considered. If Dan feels this would break the game then its understood it can not be used. I believe i have said all that is needed and have made my point. Thank you everyone who has given there opinion. Improvements can not be made without discussion and ideas. Have a great day.

i think what darth is saying is when you get to level 150 or so you start to get captured prisoners regularly. at rank 175 my coleader is getting 3-4 prisoners and 1-2 ship bots A DAY. thats 11-16 rank points right there. and im sure the really high level guys are pulling in even more. the cloak is a good idea. i dont see why the hull and shields are not good ideas, i think its a gread addition, but the bonus to scan could hurt in the long run.

What's his AP/hour. Never-mind that. Regardless of his AP/hour I highly doubt anyone can get that. At 1.8k AP/hour I get 1 rescue or ship bot every 2-3 days, even with a week break between them.

on average i get atleast one rescued prisoner or ship-bot per day

Going from there to 3-4 rescued prisoners and 1-2 ship bots per day is quite a stretch. Quite.

No it isn't. He's not talking about just arties, he's talking about mobs too. Perhaps you guys should try getting to end game and see what it's like before you try redesigning the game. Once you've gotten to this point your not actually looking to add decks to your ship, you looking into add crew. You can add infinite attack and defense and energy to your ship already after you've maxed all research. This allows you to customize your ship. But do this for cloak and scan, and you'll have someone who can find any planet no matter how much cloak it has, and immune to hacking, cloak would make you able to hack just about anyone and crit hack them to death. By keeping these stats out of it, it allows dan to keep them under control and fine tune them as neccissary.

Interesting idea. Thanks for submitting. I respectfully disagree with spending rank points this way though.

First, what becomes of up keep costs? I suppose you could say you are having to feed your crew instead of repair modules, but still, the small ship seems to come out easy on that.

Second, the small ship already has bonuses, like the afore mentioned hit / damage cap which helps against the high ranks. Not trying to swing on Dan's nut sack, but again I have to say, he did a tremendous job balancing this game. If you want the small ship, it should cost you larger gear.