[Survey] VFE-Megacorp, a component dillema (Patreon)

Hello everyone. I have a quick survey for you which will help shape Vanilla Factions Expanded - Megacorps.

Currently, the game has following components:

Components - Miscellaneous gears, capacitors, circuit boards, tubes, wheels, sensors, wires, chips, processors, and other electronic and industrial parts. Necessary for assembling complex machines or electronics. Industrial machines use it.

Advanced components - Advanced computing and energy-directing machinery, miniaturized and hardened for the most demanding applications. Spacer-tech machines use it. You use it to craft powered armors etc. Currently, it's also used by Ultratech structures in Biotech DLC.

In Vanilla Factions Expanded - Mechanoids, we're also adding:

Mechanoid components - Very advanced processors and nano-calculators most often used in creation of mechanoid-tech on urbworld mechanoid swarm foundries. They are used specifically for automation structures as well as buildable droids.

The question is...

Should we add Ultratech components in Vanilla Factions Expanded - Ultratech?

Before you dive in to answer that, let me explain my reasoning and list out pros and cons I can see.

I'm always hesitant about adding new building materials. I think it's crucial that they have enough use. Adding a brand new component that's just usable in 5 recipes, I think, it a mistake. It means players rarely interact with it. Rarely craft it. Rarely need it. I wouldn't be coming to you with that question unless I knew that in this case, this is not an issue, as Ultratech adds at least 30 different buildings/weapons/armors that could use that component.

Furthermore, what I think I'd like to do, is patch existing ingame Ultratech structures to also use these components. This means that Biotech and Mechanoid tech items would require you to procure or craft ultratech components.

TO CLARIFY: We would only patch base game things that require advanced components and are marked as ultratech. If something doesn't use advanced components, it will not be patched. I was informed a lot of Biotech stuff requires only industrial components - we wouldn't be touching those!

We would potentially also patch existing ultratech objects in other VE mods, if there are any.

Lets investigate pros and cons now.

Pros:

• It's fitting that extremely advanced, peak-of-human-technology objects use a component that's more than 'advanced computing and energy-directing machinery'. It would be obtainable from traders, as well as craftable in late game.
• It would add extra layer of depth to the ultratech era, as you would require a new resource than just standard components you use throughout Industrial and Spacer era.
• It would allow us to better balance the speed at which you obtain ultratech things. Instead of requiring extraordinary amounts of advanced components, they'd require 1 or 2 ultratech components.
• Megacorps quite literally adds dozens of ways these components could be used. Furthermore, they would of course be purchasable not just from traders, but also from the megacorps store.
• I think it would be really cool.

As for the cons:

• It will upset the current flow of the game, particularly when it comes to requiring those ultratech components for Biotech related constructions - this means that your standard spacer components just won't do, which means you will need to buy ultratech components before you interact with Biotech content.
• It will add another craftable resource that you need to keep on top of in ultratech-stage of the game. Granted, at that point you will rarely use Industrial components.
• It could potentially block you from expanding too fast if you can't craft them, and crafting them would require some late game research project and special structures that come from the mod.