As everyone knows, the ship can be already upgraded, however, it, with a single exception, you only get more space. This means that quite a lot of possible services which could be added in order to improve the game (I guess it was obvious. Nobody would ever make a suggestion with the intent of worsening the game) could be simply given as part of said upgrades. Of course, it would be awkward to give a station or NPC to each process, so I simply thought that there is a simple way to do so: Upgrading the ship would also cause S.A.I.L to give more services. The possible ones (That I thought of) are: -Weapon 3D printing: The player would be able to, at a separate GUI from the usual 3D printing GUI, be able to scan randomly-generated weapons in order to be able to copy their types. As being able to clone a weapon would be only useful with 1-handed weapons, it would copy their types (Meaning that, if you, say, scanned a sniper rifle, you would be able to print other randomly-generated sniper rifles). The rarity would always be Common. The point of this is to compensate for the later planets´ difficulty to buy guns reliabily, and some types´ inability to be bought (Rocket Launchers, for example). Of course, you can get higher rarities, but that is a separate service. The drawback is that it would be more expensive to print guns than to buy them, to compensate for the fact that you can scan any type, with different types having different costs (For example, sniper rifles would be more expensive than shotguns, as, while both tend towards similar stats, the latter have a shorter range and are worse against hostile NPCs). It´s unlocked upon reaching Kestrel class (Meaning you should be at Titanium tier at that point), and the printed weapons´ level is increased independently from the ship´s, with it requiring separate upgrades obtained by either scanning already-scanned guns again using a higher tier (Which would only upgrade it´s model´s level), or giving a large (I guess 30-40 ingots-refined material/compound items, as, while it should be a large amount, it shouldn´t make the player spend a ridiculous time mining) amount of that tier´s material, with the later tiers requiring all 3 materials (Which would upgrade ALL weapon models). -Item look change: Unlocked once you can explore your own solar system. It is a purely cosmetic feature which allows the player to modify randomly-generated weapons´ names and look. Doesn´t alter stats, with it´s whole point being that, as both the sprites and names are randomly generated, it would be unlikely for every single possible name to be always liked, as happens to some sprites (After all, it wouldn´t fit for a very powerful gun to be named "Trashbarrel", and because a Needler named "Needle Gun" is rather lame) -Salvaging: It is unlocked after getting to Sparrow Class. It is the exact opposite to 3D printing, allowing you to turn items into pixels. Randomly-generated weapons, furniture and blueprints can be turned into pixels, with the former giving more based on rarity (But always less than the print/buy price), and the latter giving 70% of their printing cost. Also works on miscelaneous materials, such as Matter Blocks and Hardened Monster Plates. -Combining: It, on simple level, allows the player to use 4 randomly-generated weapons of the same rarity and Erchius Crystals (10*final rarity) into a single weapon of the rarity right above that of the initial weapons. The tier is the average of the used weapons. (Think of the grinder in Borderlands: The Pre-sequel) Both the ingredient and resulting weapons must be of the same kind (So, say, you can put 4 axes, but not 2 axes, a dagger and a Rust Sword). If scanned, you can also make copies of special weapons, such as Eyeaxes, Bonehammers..., but only through weapon merging. The balance relies on the fact that, under most situations, it would take less time to find the weapon you are trying to make, or to search for ingredient weapons rather than printing or buying them, as the amount of required weapons of a certain rarity exponentially increases with the difference between the initial and final tier (A single legendary weapon would require 16 uncommon weapons, and 64 common weapons, meaning that trying to make a legendary weapon by printing weapons or buying them would be so expensive that it´s more of a money sink, meaning that it is mostly intended to give excess weapons an use) Available upon reaching Falcon Class. -Disassembling (Not to be confused with salvaging). Unlocked at Eagle Class. It allows the player to disassemble weapons (Both crafted and randomly-generated) into parts and to reassemble them, allowing for customizable equipment. The latter has a 2000 pixel fee (So that you will only use this if you get a bunch of weapons that can be used to get a good customization result in order to prevent non-custom weapons from becoming little more than a source of parts). Parts: They are divided depending on wheter the weapon is a melee or ranged weapon. Only weapon parts of the same type can be combined into a single weapon (So you wouldn´t be able to, say, make a weapon with a shotgun barrel, a sniper rifle body and a needler stock). Melee weapons are divided in: Handle: Affects swing speed. Hilt (Renamed to "Bar" in axes and hammers): Affects special effect, if there is one; and swinging/stabbing area. Blade (Renamed to "hammerhead" in the case of hammers): Affects damage. Ranged weapons are divided in: Stock (Renamed to "Grip in all 1-handed guns except grenade launchers): Affects accuracy. Body: Affects energy consumption and fire rate. Barrel: Affects damage and special ability (Kind of projectile). It is worth noting that they don´t really provide base stats, but rather, they give stat proportions depending on their tier in order to prevent OP combinations (. For example, the energy consumption stat in gun bodies would be in EPD (Energy per damage) in order to prevent weapons which would otherwise be broken (Such as guns which both deal a lot of damage per shot and shoot quickly. In this case, the balancing factor would be that they would deplete the energy bar very quickly), while blades would measure their speed in D/S, meaning that harder-hitting melee weapons would always be slower than weapons with less damage per hit.
I definitely found it fairly annoying in some circumstances to never be able to find the rocket launcher I need.
That is in part the point of 3D printing guns: Having to search a lot of planets to find a certain gun gets old rather quickly and can make exploring seem more of a chore than it should.
good idea, I actually love this. should be making the starbound experience less of a drag and more of a joy. in short nifty and nice
