[Capacitors] sound like the next evolution beyond just overheating?
TL;DRCapacitors are meant to limit everyday weapon and thruster use under player control, with overheating becoming a consequence of deliberate overclocking, arriving over several patches alongside flight changes and missile operator mode.
Yes. So the problem with overheating at the moment is that the player doesn't get a lot of information about it, right? So what we actually want to achieve in the long term is that overheating is more a consequence of strongly overclocking your ship and being careless with it. So heat on the weapons or on the thrusters won't be the immediate thing that is limiting your performance. It will be the capacitor gameplay. So effectively, if you have an energy weapon and you tape down your fire button, your gun will be empty and cannot fire after X bullets, and then it needs to recharge. And the way it recharges and how fast it's going to be, that's all under player control and will, again, require some decisions from the player.
So capacitors are for the normal, everyday use to enforce tactics and thoughtful consideration. And overheating is for the people who choose to abuse their components and max them out.
Max them out and then risk higher maintenance costs on the ships and so on.
Yeah, like you said a while back, this is not the final step. So it's like a three-pronged attack on the vehicle experience. So we have the flight changes that have come in 3.10, we'll have the missile operator mode, and then we have all these capacitor things. And they're all coming over upcoming patches. There was just no way we could deliver it all in one patch, in one drop. So we've had to spread it out over a few. When those three things are in together, that's when the fruits of our labor, so to speak, should be there.
And until then, some design decisions might not make sense for the player, but it will all come together. Hopefully in a couple of releases.