“Massive” (slow movement) and “hot” (faster overheat) environments are two separate things. “Massive” can be combined with “cold”.
On the contrary. “Always on” items are only purchased once, so they should naturally be more expensive. And these particular ones affect your galaxy exploration in a major way. I’d argue that at maximum upgrade levels, they’re even breaking it. You can upgrade them 75% of the way (which costs about 50% of the total cost) and still get most of the benefit, it’s not necessary to max them out.
There’s no point having a 7th and 8th upgrade level like that though… Perhaps reduce their upgrade cost increase by 25%? (or reduce the amount of upgrade levels)
I do not know why these upgrades are even purchaseable in the first place. This kind of tupgrade should be rewards for tiering up, rather than just another grindfest. It may actually even give an incentive for tiering up rather than grinding. Buying everything with keys does get incredibly repetitve after a while.
Yeah, no, I disagree. There could be a trade-offs approach, like your ship doesn’t heat as much, but enemies are healthier. That, combined with the visibility could actually engage the player in an interesting way instead of just a buff to the difficulty of a mission.