I don't think you're overcomplicating shields and power (too much), just dimensions. I am worried about giving large debuffs to power and shields. I also don't really understand why you think the current system is bad - it's simple enough to work in almost any application, and doesn't limit creativity. You can shield fighters, titans and planets all with the same system, and yet it's still pretty balanced. That sounds good to me. Maybe power should be rebalanced, but then again, I would rather power work in long lines simply because it doesn't take a lot of space, but still scales upward with the ship size. I also know that the Super Schine Team has said they want to buff shields so that battles actually take strategy rather than a few seconds of intense cannon fire followed by core drilling. As for despising box dimensions, that's because they're inaccurate measurements of a ship. This shield change would also encourage
more Noob Cubes, since anything that relies on boxdims encourages cubification.
And if you're complaining about large ships not attracting asteroids, you should be playing Space Engineers. Planets aren't more than a couple kilometers in diameter. You can travel between planets in minutes, not days. It's a little late to try to add large-body realism.
And I feel compelled to point out that M/V =/= V.
A few equations:
Assuming M = 300,
V >= 300 (volume can't be greater than mass)
D = M/V (definition of density)
D <= 1 (According to step 2 above)
If we say V = 400,
D = 300/400 = 900/1200 = 3000000/4000000 = 3/4 (All these ships would be equal according to the density system.)
But you're right, we're getting off topic. I just don't understand how you can use density for any decent calculations.
Cool3303 that's not a bad idea, but it might be trying to add too many things at once, IDK. It's definitely important to have infinite scalability, although I don't see how it would be too much of a problem with your system. The only problem is that there are so many systems to keep track of, and DPS can be harder to calculate than it seems initially. What about turrets and docked ships? Or cloaking/jamming?
If you can figure out some way to take everything into account and still have it stay balanced and simple enough to understand, I'll be happy. But keep in mind, docking requires some basic knowledge of the ship's size to keep away from ugly clipping. You could make it something like the idea this handsome genius came up with:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/docking-clamps.1262/
or make it dimension-based, or something else, but it has to avoid clipping.
This post is way too long. TL;DR: Keep it simple, scalable and balanced. And cool looking. That's important.
