Upgrades should always improve the ship! (Burst is a bit broken)

When you say continue grinding, you are referring to endless mode? I guess that could be a problem... I'm not generally in favor of arbitrary caps, but maybe just say the each item can only receive a max of 6 (just a first guess) upgrades? That prevents the player from ever getting locked out of their options, and also curbs the weapons power in endless mode. This way the player can still experiment with strange upgrade combos, but they ultimately do have to make choices.

I think he means circling a map and permitting a factory to build while you cruise around.

If a player REALLY wants to sped that much time accumulating literally thousands of upgrade modules, you don't think we should let them? It isn't a multiplayer or competitive game, where ensuring that players had differing capabilities would be crucial to gameplay. If a player decides they want to play one game for weeks to accomplish things that only they really understand, I say, let them.

If someone is dead-set upon upgrading everything to it's maximum potential, right now, it's within reach even with only three levels to play in. Projectile cannons start at 8, and I believe upgrade cost multiplies by 0.5 per upgrade? Upgrading a projectile cannon to its' maximum potential now requires a total of 56 upgrade modules. Energy cannons which start at (I think?) 6 per upgrade require 42. On both of these, fire rate is the best upgrade, and damage/range are the only other upgrade that isn't counter-productive.

If all upgrades are beneficial, (even if balanced by other setbacks,) for a fleet of projectile cannons you're paying around 252 upgrade modules per gun for a minimunm of 4 guns, with a minimum cost of 1008 and a maximum of 3276 upgrade modules required per fleet, excluding fighter bays and small guns. I know you're usually going to include a shieldbreaker, but this is a cost-analysis, not a gammeplay guide.

Just because the weapon's peak potential is always the same, doesn't make the process of reaching it a formula. No choice is a right or wrong choice, (except the very last upgrade,) because you always have to trade off against not gaining other benefits and the rising costs of upgrades. It might be formulaic in terms of player interaction if upgrade modules were easy to obtain, and no thought had to be spent in the process of upgrading each gun to its maximum, but this isn't the case.

I'm gonna be honest a moment here. Burst is just cool. I wish I could use burst on all my weapons. I use it even on weapons where it's sometimes counterproductive. Because intense volleys of bullets are just cool.

I just wish it was a viable upgrade. That's about 65% of my passion for this subject, in this game.

My absolute favorite weapon system is the trolgar flak cannon, just because it is one of the few weapons for which burst is a strong upgrade.

I don't know. Hopefully Bugbyte can find some way to go about the issue that will please everyone.

Burst is cool. I feel like it should probably replace the crazy fire rate of the projectile cannon and energy cannon. I just feel like there's no way 5 projectile cannons can shoot that fast for that long. Either they're using pieces of the ship, or they're having ammunition warped into the ship, but there's something not right about that rof for that long amount of time ?

And yes I meant waiting for the factories to build ships for you to pick off so you can indefinitely gain upgrade points.

Honestly, rather than burst replacing refire rate as the main upgrade, I'd rather see refire scaled back on both energy cannon and projectile cannon. Either lower the numbers, or bring in other drawbacks. Just as the penalties of burst make it a counterproductive choice, the benefit of refire rate make it an obvious choice. It's not a strategic choice, because it's a correct decision - same problem in reverse.

My ideal would be for all upgrades to be more or less equally viable, balanced as well as possible. You could take burst, slowing your rate of fire and accepting other penalties for withering volley-fire, or you could take refire rate, and maintain a stream of fire. But my opinion is that development should attempt to make neither option superior. Each should be viable, and players can use any upgrade strategy, viably, to suit their play style.

Some exceptions are permissible - hull damage upgrades should be more potent than shield damage upgrades, on anti-hull weapons. Other times, a weapon will be suited to a certain play style that limits the use of other upgrades - range upgrades on inaccurate weapons, for instance. These things are a natural result of game mechanics, though, and the player is gaining benefit from his upgrades, even if the mechanics don't reward him as well for it, in certain cases. It's not a result of a development choice to make an upgrade weak, but teh result of the weapon's function.

I think the escalation of cost already severely hampers minmaxing single weapons, powerfully encouraging upgrading many weapons instead of one at a time. I think fully upgrading even heavy guns alone is a feat that only the severely dedicated player will seriously consider, let alone achieve.

P.S. - forgive me if I'm harping on and on. I'm getting sick, and my thought processes are a little jumbled right now. I'm not sure right now if the horse I'm kicking is already dead or not.

PS - I checked in-game. The increase to upgrade cost is the upgrade cost * 1.7, with some rounding involved. This will increase my rough cost estimates of fully upgrading a weapon, and both the minimum and maximum cost for upgrading an entire fleet's big guns.