This week’s devlog concludes the series about the upcoming rating changes.
You can find the full issue of the development log here.
Kudos to listening to players pointing out that activity is important,
but was the best solution there really to split up the two important ratings onto two different panels? That feels like a downgrade from the current overview usability.
With a ship like that already flying and a new one (OK 2 actual) allmost ready
I of course like the fact, that ship material and esp. reactor make a difference.
Those changes are already on the test server ?
→ Edit: I have read the devlog in total. Question is answered there…
Edit2: @Counterpoint
I dont see a difference on BLUE or Testflight between PRUN and testserver ?
The changes to ship parts are not active yet ?
Not quite yet, they were tested locally and spreadsheeted out but have yet to be implemented officially.
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Rather exciting some ship parts are getting looked at for the next update!
Did some theory-crafting regarding whipple shields and the change would need to be substantial gargantuan to make them worth using. So much so that the recipe output for BWH and AWH would likely need to be increased in addition to increasing reduction %s.
Tested in systems with micro meteorite densities of 0.0 (Hortus), 2.5 (Antares III), and 5.0 (FK-037) in pure STL flights from the inner most planet to the farthest planet/gas giant. Shields were not worth using at any point because 1) shields need repair and 2) costed too much to produce.
(Images for each flight available upon request. The Antares III system is less than half the size of the other two systems)
In theory, a shield with 100% reduction within a maximum micro-meter density system (level 5.0) would need to cost under ~4,230 per unit to break even. That cost gets substantially smaller as micro-meteor density decreases or the ship leaves the system to visit a CX or another system with lower density.
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Will we be seeing any changes to Self-Repair Drones?
They don’t offer a very compelling payback period. (assuming you can find one)
Also since the recipes for the large and small drones are so similar, it’s worth mentioning that RDL and RDS could be condensed into one item without too much of a downside.
Assuming this item had the same cost as a RDS, you could just have mounting a large drone system on a ship require two of the item. It’d make upgrading from a large to a small system easier too.
An alternative way to make shields more worthwhile, is to increase the overall cost of repairs, by adding other materials to the repair bill.
For instance, I know the idea is to make BGS/AGS more attractive, not less, but this pass on ship balancing would be the ideal time to make ships with seats consume JUI as a repair commodity. Just so we have the opportunity to pass that clip from The Expanse around more 
Hell, why not make ships consume the appropriate capacitors for their FTL engines and emitters, and new fuel pumps and/or combustion chambers for their STL engines? The starter ship contains 3 CBS and 3 CBM, so requiring a new capacitor every 10% of damage would be pretty reasonable, equally a new CHA every 25%. The only problem with CHA/NOZ/BFP is that they require engineers to produce; while that’s fine for this universe, in future it might be necessary to make the starter ship use FSE (hence LFP) which can be built with SET-only, like capacitors).
Looks like first step is to require SSC