Player Equipment Inventory?

[GrandpaTrout]

This is a forward looking question for Traffic and later releases. How would you like your player equipment inventory to operate?

Players haul around cargo as pods. That is one of the cool things about Torn Stars. And some liked it so much they coded pod spewing from stations as an add on.

The players inventory of equipment is not cargo pods. It is stored in a “magical” location that travels with the player and can be used anywhere at any time. Kind of like a player in Half Life that can carry 8 weapons at the same time.

This topic is to discuss if you like the way it works now. Or if you would prefer something more “realistic”. For this discussion, lets assume a new load out GUI exists.

Here are a few alternate ideas to the current magical inventory:

Idea 1: Player equipment exists as mini pods. You must transport them for rearming and repair. The player will form stashes of equipment at friendly stations, player owned mines, or where the player has wingmen to guard the equipment. Equipment must be near the player to mount it on a ship. As your equipment exists in the world, it can be stolen by NPC ships. As NPC equipment would also exist in the world, you could steal it. This is the most “realistic”. Raiding into enemy territory requires keeping a stash of supplies. If your supply ship gets blown, your in trouble.

Idea 2: Player equipment is kept as cargo pods, but at load out time, you can use any equipment that is stored in the same system. If you want to use your equipment in a new system you have to carry it. Because LDS drives are so fast, we just make the assumption that you can run out and grab any item you want to mount on your ship. Rather than always having to fly back to the stash, you can loadout anywhere. More convienient, less realistic.

Picture this scenario: You jump into a system and arrive with a damaged capsule drive. Now what?
Do you use your magical inventory to replace the damaged drive?
Do you curse the fact that your spare part is in another system?
Do you curse the fact that you did not physically carry the drive part?

The cool thing about the last two cases, is that you must hunt down a new part. Either by purchasing or stealing. And that makes for new challenges and stories. In this example, the two are not much different.

I am sure more ideas will come up.

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