Since combat ships have more hardpoints compared to specialized ships, how will non-combat ships stay relevant to the modularity stretch goal?asked by TheWhiteKnight
TL;DRNon-combat ships stay relevant because hardpoints cover all ship components, not just weapons, so specialized ships have at least as many itemports and can swap out as much functionality as combat ships.
Well, mainly because the hardpoints aren't necessarily related to modules that you can switch in and out. So, hardpoints in general that we've been talking about – actually, there was a design post about itemports, right? So everything in the ship is actually attached to an itemport:– Thrusters– Radar– Ship's computer– Fuel tank– Powerplant– Turrets– Weapons– Missiles– ArmourSo, all of those are actually items that plug into the ship and they require their own level of power, they emit heat, they may require data – all these different pipes that hook into each other. The functionality comes with the item, so to speak, so the hull itself... if you took the thrusters, the powerplant, and all these things out it would just be a floating hull – it wouldn't be able to do anything. That's kind of the modular system we have for the ships. We're only really publicizing the hardpoints related to the weapons because that's what people care about. In reality we have a lot more hardpoints and other hardpoints would entail... like a hardpoint where you can switch the crew module out for a science module or something like that.So, to think that a more specialized ship has less hardpoints is actually incorrect, it probably has at least as many – they just happen to be attaching extra things. For instance, a good example would be the Orion which we just had and was in a previously question. You can see on the outside of it there are all these containers, right, well each container – which is a fairly big container (6 m x 4 m x 2 m) – attaches to an itemport... that's more itemports than any one of our combat ships have had. So, there's plenty of option to expand – you may not realize it from the website because that's using outdated data that over time we will change. But also it's kind of hard because it's not standardized... one ship could have 100 different itemports and one ship could have 30 itemports and it sort of all depends on the itemports that are specific to their particular uses which could be anything – like mounting a cargo module or mounting a gun.I would say that non-combat ships will definitely stay relevant and will be able to change out and do things, functionality wise, at least as much as a combat ship and maybe even more so.