Read by Council Warheads - One more setting

[Benevolent27]

Hello, well right now warheads pose a problem to offline bases because a cloaked ship can easily knock defense turrets off. Even new players can easily create a ship to do this.

As a solution to this problem, but also to give options which I believe would fit in well, I suggest increasing the options of damage values that can be set for warheads. Presently there are only two values, damage to astronauts and damage to everything else. Why not allow warheads to three options, damage to astronauts, damage to bases, and damage to ships? Though other solutions to warheads may be introduced down the road, this would help in the meantime. Plus it'd be useful to have down the road anyhow, right?

 

[Dr. Whammy]

You could always dock to a home base. Although, I agree that it's pretty lame to attack someone when they're offline. That would be cowardly. ...Monty Burns cowardly!

This is a valid concern but rather than further complicate warheads, why not introduce an "offline protection" similar to home base protection that works by making all station, planets and their docked entities invulnerable when all members of that faction are offline? That way, you can go have a real life and online players have to be patient and wait for you to log on in order to attack you.

What do you think?

 

[Madman198237]

But the exploitability..... It's a very neat idea, but if the faction can just say "Everybody off, they're attacking again".....makes warfare somewhat lame.

That said, it's a good enough system, and the community ought to discourage combat-logging like that.


I've not yet had a chance to play MP, but it seems like a notification that part of your faction's infrastructure is under attack would be nice. I don't think there is one, but I don't know.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

How about a 10-30 minute time limit (or server config) that must expire before offline protection kicks in?

Such a thing would do the following:
- disincentivize people from combat logging just to avoid losing a fight.
- give enemies a fair opportunity to launch an attack while not letting them fully exploit your offline status
- if they can't muster the firepower needed to take out your base within the time limit, they'd have to wait until you log back on in order to finish the job.

What do you think?

 

[Dire Venom]

But the exploitability..... It's a very neat idea, but if the faction can just say "Everybody off, they're attacking again".....makes warfare somewhat lame.

That said, it's a good enough system, and the community ought to discourage combat-logging like that.


I've not yet had a chance to play MP, but it seems like a notification that part of your faction's infrastructure is under attack would be nice. I don't think there is one, but I don't know.

It could be given a timer, e.g if faction has one or more members on within the past (hour for example) rather than a toggle whenever everyones off

 

[Erth Paradine]

Too bad we don't have the concept of shield bubbles, where everything has to stay a certain distance away before getting close to structure... *shrugs*

But wait...there's more!

As for the cowards:

• Being able to place blocks in violation of block placement rules has been reported as a bug. Hopefully Schine agrees, and addresses this topic as an exploit, or maybe gives us something like a build inhibitor block.
• As for the rest, how about a station shield countdown timer of 24 hours, once shields have hit...oh...how about 25%? That's should be more than enough time for any active faction to either flee, or launch a fair PVP defense/response.

 

[Madman198237]

Station shield countdown? What do you mean? Indestructible station for 24 hours?

 

[Erth Paradine]

Station shield countdown? What do you mean? Indestructible station for 24 hours?

That's what I'm thinking.

 

[Madman198237]

But then a faction who's taking out enemy stations has to attack, wait twenty-four hours before coming back online and proceeding to attack the station....which could easily have been disassembled and shipped out by an enterprising faction member with a stealth ship and a lot of time on his/her hands. Or even improved.

 

[Erth Paradine]

But then a faction who's taking out enemy stations has to attack, wait twenty-four hours before coming back online and proceeding to attack the station....which could easily have been disassembled and shipped out by an enterprising faction member with a stealth ship and a lot of time on his/her hands. Or even improved.

Correct. Right now, an attacker basically waits until their enemy has gone out for the day, and then robs them blind. How is this different from a sucker punch: a coward's move.

What's the problem with a fair chance to defend/flee?

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I still think my 10-30 minute rule makes more sense.

Make them vulnerable while online then give a short time limit where they are vulnerable after they log off. When the time limit is up, the base and all docked entities becomes invincible. If you can't get the job done in the first 30 minutes, you don't need to be chipping away at someone else's hard work while they're sleeping.

This idea stops combat loggers who want an easy out when they get the butts kicked and stops and cowards who attack while you're offline.

 

[kiddan]

Here's a bit of a different idea: Why not have warheads require to be armed to become explosive? You could arm warheads via the hotbar or logic signals. If any warheads on a ship are armed cloaking and jamming doesn't work, hence fixing this problem without using offline handicap buffs.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Yeah.

But then you might not have all these cool stealth bombers with logic torpedo weapons anymore.

...Unless torpedoes docked to the stealth bomber remain cloaked, while it's cloaked. Then the torpedoes uncloak (without uncloaking the bomber) when launched. Adding an activation module adjacent to the rail docker then slaving and a NOT signal to it could send a logic signal to arm the warhead when the torpedo is undocked.

 

[Bladeriker]

This seems to be a repeat of another thread regarding a very similar premise.

Given that warheads do next to pathetic damage (default settings), coupled with being docked to a faction HQ prevents this from ever becoming an issue in the first place.

Logged out protection is not a bad idea, but exploitable by both parties.
There are ways to prevent original issue such as.

1. Building stations near allied stations where the weapons systems can hit targets attacking either station.
2. Maybe a new fleet mechanic involving active detection and defense operations.
   
3. Implementing Minefields. (Another use for warheads)
4. Active scanning systems. (may have to see about building this one)
5. Trigger blocks that activate for ships/cores.

The issue with PvP in any game, is that when a player logs out in a place that is not safe or secure there is always going to be the chance for loss of in game resources. That is the nature of PvP.

 

[Madman198237]

Logged out protect is a neat idea. Perhaps give it only 10 minutes, which should make it harder for any faction to assemble and destroy a station within that time limit, provided that they haven't already started.

I like the idea of arming warheads (And different warhead states regardless) and de-cloaking/unjamming the vessel. Makes it harder (But not impossible) to cattle-prod a station with an undetectable murder-machine, but a stealth bomber is still okay.

Maybe a mechanisms that allows for more rapid re-cloaking after limited-offense maneuvers. As in, undocking something momentarily drops your cloak, but it recharges faster than it would if you were to shoot or get shot.