Downgrades create a new upgrade slot

[Lurkily]

So downgrades, they can be useful.  They can get your particles to the ground so they can eat downward, they can widen the spray of projectiles so your aim needn't be so precise, they can even help you propel your ship with recoil in a pinch.

But they have one thing in common.  They create a specialized, tactical weapon, one more useful in a narrow scope, and less useful for a broad range of things.  They always diminish a weapon as they specialize it.

So why not add an upgrade slot for every downgrade?  Or for the first, third, fifth, etc slots, or whatever you want to do.  The point is that making a highly specialized weapon can require downgrades that prevent you from using upgrades which would also be useful in that role.  Because you've diminished its behavior to suit one purpose, you can't best suit that purpose.

So I think that adding a downgrade should add one more slot for a weapons mod.  That is all.

[Markus]

Interesting idea. As you said, "downgrades" can be used in a useful way, so that why we consider them as useful as "up-upgrades"  We might add more upgrade-slots in the future, so this might be an interesting mechanic on how to use those additional slots.

[Lurkily]

The thing is; they don't necessarily become BETTER.  They become more targeted.  It's been my philosophy in game design to always make a paid upgrade an actual improvement - that you get something when you spend.

Right now, to make a terrain-eating sprayer as I described, you actually make a better terrain-eater with digging, ROF, and other upgrades; the set of downgrades I described are mostly a behavioral preference, but with the exception of gravity's (limited) benefit, don't really enhance function.

Have you ever played Fallout/Fallout2?  (3&4 change the mechanics of what I'm about to describe slightly.)  They had traits and perks.  Traits were chosen at the start of a game; you only had two, but they were given away free.  They had benefits and drawbacks.  They weren't BETTER, but used to tailor the game to your style.  It could make it easier for you to play, but it might be possible to play more effectively without that trait, or a different trait.

Perks, on the other hand, were undeniably better.  You were better.  Faster. Stronger. Sneakier.  They cost you progression, you got one every couple of levels you gained, and outside some perks gained via quests, you couldn't get more any other way; they were valuable and powerful.

That's where I see upgrades and downgrades right now.  Downgrades can focus a weapon to task and suit it to a particular thing, but they aren't the same thing, and shouldn't require the same sacrifice, as upgrades.