It’s been some quite time now, I had been hoping to promote discussion on this topic but it seems that no one has had any additional ideas or input so I’ll go ahead and make a decision to avoid stagnation of the topic, and allow me to move on to things that depend on this topic’s full completion.
I have decided that the upgrade menu should open up as a pop-up window upon clicking the “Modify” option within the part context menu. This will allow players to be able to reference the parts list without needing to close and reopen the upgrades window.
Within the upgrade menu there will essentially be two types of upgrades. Upgrades that change the proportions of a part will be implemented as sliders, while upgrades that change the behavior will be selectable icons.
I personally believe and have decided that the previously proposed crossgrade sliders would look too messy, and be a hassle to implement in the presence of already existent normal sliders. If anyone disagrees please say so, I am willing to concede to popular opinion here.
Players will be able to select multiple upgrades as long as they do not conflict with others. When a selected upgrade conflicts with another, the conflicting upgrade will be greyed out until the perpetrating upgrade is removed. Players will be able to remove upgrades for a small cost of ATP. Slider upgrades should cost roughly the same as rigidity/fluidity changes in the membrane.
Modified parts will display a special icon that signified that the part has been customized, allowing players to quickly find parts they have changed.
This is now my present decision and plan on how we shall implement part upgrades in the future, if anyone disagrees please say so as I am always more than willing to discuss what should and needs to be changed.
Otherwise, from here on out I will now focus my efforts on planning out the types of upgrades that will be available to players, as well as the potential connections of this system to the unlocking system.