There are rigs and implants that affect a group of modules that use the “electronics upgrades” skill. Two of these are the:
Zainou ‘Gypsy’ Electronics Upgrades EU-601 and variants
Small Liquid Cooled Electronics I and variants
This list may not be exhaustive but let’s look at the modules this skill affects:
Co-Processor I
Signal Amplifier I
Downstream of this we get at level 3 the “hacking” skill which leads in to the use of:
Data Analyzer I
Now perhaps I am just ignorant but considering how universally useful most other rigs are, affecting fundamental parts of your ship and enabling niche builds to unlock with higher CPU, higher PG, more tracking, more optimal or even just a humble increase to salvaging module success rate, it doesn’t seem sensible or useful to have these electronics upgrade skill rigs and implants. Co-processors generate cpu, data hackers would get at the very best a 21% reduction in cpu use (for a 6.25 cpu reduction) and signal amplifier II would drop by 6.04cpu. It’s not merely that the skill affects such a small pool of relatively inexpensive modules, it’s that there is already a rig out there called Small Processor Overclocking Unit I which adds CPU directly to the ship which is universally more useful and benefits all ships equally unlike our subject which affects only explorers and only certain modules that an explorer equips which they might not equip at all.
Therefore I propose that either the skill needs to change (which is probably asking for far too much) or the rigs and implants should change. Liquid cooled electronics as a rig could instead be adjusted to reduce heat damage or heat generated through overheating, as nothing else in the game affects this it would be totally unique and quickly become sought after. The electronics upgrades implants could lower the duration after decloaking that a ship cannot target something, placing it more in line with an already existing rig and also making it totally unique amongst implants for its effect.
Instead of these rigs and implants being so incredibly niche that they’re mostly ignored outright they can remain niche but have tangible effects for uncatered to playstyles with sensible impacts on specific situations. Not everyone is overheating all the time, maybe they are for PVP and maybe they are for abyssals, then these rigs make sense to purchase from an LP store. If you’re an explorer or a hunter then that marginal gain of 1s less lock delay is massive and matters, driving demand for these implants for wormhole dwellers and nullsec whale harpooners alike.
Those are just two suggestions of what could be done with these already existing items to make them more fun, more interesting and have more engagement with the game mechanics. What do you think and give some feedback with your original ideas, this is a discussion after all.
That would definitely something to think about when CCP finally removes learning implants and opens up these slots for more hardwiring spread (especially those from slot 6).
Why do they need to remove learning implants? Removing the skills made sense because those just got in the way of people training new weapons and ships.
Removing learning implants and attributes has been a semi-hot topic for at least 10 years (scrubs claim they dissuade people from PVPing because they don’t want to lose training time, and that they hold back newbies from catching up to older players, and other things). I am impartial to removing either (as I am an old player anyway), but it would really open up lots of slots to unbunch a number of overcrowded hardwiring slots.
attribute optimisation is something you only really do on an alt with a long, pre-determined training plan.
i remember as a newbro finding attributes confusing and annoying given the wide spread of skills you need to train up.
I think the last time I respecced my attributes would have to be at least 10 years ago. SP matters much more when you’re new and much less when you have 140mil sp. Is that an argument to get rid of attributes? Just like access to money and property in game or IRL, the more you have the easier it is to gain more. We have a guy in my corp whose character is just 18 months old (started april 2024) and he crossed the 100bil net value mark about 3 months ago just by association of having good mentoring and access to facilities that he could leverage to make money.
Attributes right now mostly just function as a tax on new player progression but it doesn’t necessarily have to if you educate yourself and apply yourself.