ok, so i dunno if anyone else noticed, but for me dan did take our request seriously and changed the refresh rate from every hour, to once every other hour giving us enough time to hit a halc, wait an hour, hit a kv, and then disable the target without the window refreshing, which i very much appreciate.

BUT after reading a question in the beginners hub about thrusters affecting how long a player is within range of an enemy i think is an interesting idea.

Pretty much, remove the 2 hour refresh rate, and have the players thruster tech determine how long they are able to be engaged. What i mean by this is say i have 4 decent thrusters. Quantum overlay engines 3. and i get engaged by another player that also has 4 quantum overlay engines 3. What would then happen is from the first offensive action he performs against me, be it a hack, artifact use, or even a tap from his cannons, a timer would then begin counting down, exactly like on npcs, for how much longer i would be available to be attacked before i disappeared. Because this other player has the exact same amount and type of thrusters as me, i would be available for 24 hours. however, if he had something like transentropy drive mk3, then i would be on his tab for 36 hours. but if he had spacial thrusters 3 then id be only available for 12 hours.

pretty much the base stat of each thruster would be 30 minutes. if you have 4 of them then you get approx 2 hours per mark, for a total of 6 hours for having a full tier of maximum thrusters ahead of your enemy. however, this stat is reversed if you have the opposite tier of thrusters to your enemy, giving you a maximum of 48 hours on their tab which would be capped so as not to allow multi window exploits.

now, before people say thats unfair, usual restrictions will still apply. that is, if you close the window your targets in, you lose them. if they take no offensive action against you they will still drop off your tab. et cetera... this would just replace the forced refresh rate that happens every 2 hours, instead of refreshing when the timer runs out it would display the enemy is no longer within range window.

this would allow players to actually have their thruster modules serve a purpose other than just being confusing and thinking they can only have 4 defense modules up as many people believe. it would have direct application to pvp.

but for those who dont have 3k decks and are using dampeners?

i dont have 3k decks and im still using both dampeners and thrusters. and the very first actual tier of defense are thrusters. the maneuvering thrusters i believe.

nope, theyre dampeners, the autopilot consoles

the reason i said first actual tier of defense is because autopilot consols are default defenses and then autopilot consols mk2 were added as the very first research option. i think these were added as an afterthought along with proximity sensors and a few other things in order to make the game a bit more friendly to small ships who want to go all deck.

anyway, maneuvering thrusters are the first defense that dosnt include the default defense with its minor upgrade.

I like this idea, but maybe adding all defense into the equation would be best? I mean if you ship has better defenses, of course it could make a get away better anyways

well, i dunno if dampeners really help with running away. they definitly make your ship more maneuverable. theyre like high tech ballast systems for space ships if i remember the wiki correctly. but how many times have you heard someone say 'fire up the jump/warp drives so we can get outa here!'? thats why i had said initially only the thrusters would affect the timer... but npc thrusters definitly could affect it aswell. it would make the choice about switching from the complex dark thruster to the dark phase engine a bit more difficult.

just 4defenses modules? -1 -1 -1

need 16 weapons and 16 defenses modules

um... only the 4 thrusters would affect this, but you can still have 4 thrusters and 4 dampeners. right now theres no difference between the two. at least this way itll give a function to differentiate between the two.