Weapon Emitter Blocks

[LunaIsBestPony]

Yes, yes, I know. Alterintel already talked about this, and I realize that

does not equal

But I'm certain that it's been noticed that really tiny turrets tend to vanish frequently when involved in a battle. Because of that, it's stupid to plonk your ship's primary weapons array onto something that gets destroyed when looked at funny.

Part of the reason the turrets seen above(Iowa-class battleship by the way, total beast) are so large is not only due in part to the loading mechanism, but because of how heavily armored it needed to be. Losing even one of those turrets is a massive loss in firepower for the vessel.

As such, even if you could make a superweapon the size of a biscuit, it'd be incredibly stupid to do so.

But Luna! You can just put the output behind the hull of the ship on a turret!

No. I still can't find a good reason that we should still be able to shoot through ourselves. (schem bls gibe failsafes to not shoot self)

Regardless, I also agree that turrets should have a minimum size to be able to work properly. To serve that purpose, I propose that we add a secondary function to power capacitors.

How it works is similar in concept to the relationship between computers and modules, with capacitors serving as a module to the emitter block "computer". Depending on a weapon's damage per second, more capacitor blocks would be required for the weapon to function.

For example: a weapon capable of dealing 1000 DPS would need 100 blocks to function. A weapon dealing 30 damage per second would only require one. Any less and you just don't need one because point defense turrets are fine being their current size.

A possibility for going over the required amount would be the ability of weapon-linked capacitors to "store" weapon energy between shots, thereby putting less strain on the ship's power grid if the weapons it's servicing are allowed to recharge between shots.

In regards to alpha weapons, they would be able to be mounted on turrets due to their DPS being fairly normal as a result of their usually massive reload times. (Remember, kids, DPS = damage divided by reload time)

Anyways, I'm sure you lot have arguments against this. Honestly, I'm willing to hear out any criticism (as long as it's not straight-up bait) because it only further improves the suggestion if it can be compensated for.

Edit 1: NeonSturm's suggestion to simply make the capacitor, well, a capacitor is a better idea than adding a new block. Also answered his question regarding alpha weapons.

 

[Jaaskinal]

Would this weapon capacitor block be exclusively a module, or a module/computer system?

 

[NeonSturm]

Questions which are unanswered for me:

1. Why not use the current power capacitors somehow slaved to weapon computers?
2. Or simpler: Why not make it a second function of weapon barrels?
3. How do you think about alpha-strike weapons in regard to block requirements?

you say that the ship's guns need to be large because of all the armour.
StarMade can say that cannons could only deal 5% of the turrets mass as DPS because of the "recoil" … because that would be the most accurate equivalent to what you want (if I understand you correctly).

 

[Malacodor]

Yes, yes, I know. Alterintel already talked about this, and I realize that

does not equal

But I'm certain that it's been noticed that really tiny turrets tend to vanish frequently when involved in a battle. Because of that, it's stupid to plonk your ship's primary weapons array onto something that gets destroyed when looked at funny.

Part of the reason the turrets seen above(Iowa-class battleship by the way, total beast) are so large is not only due in part to the loading mechanism, but because of how heavily armored it needed to be. Losing even one of those turrets is a massive loss in firepower for the vessel.

As such, even if you could make a superweapon the size of a biscuit, it'd be incredibly stupid to do so.

But Luna! You can just put the output behind the hull of the ship on a turret!

No. I still can't find a good reason that we should still be able to shoot through ourselves. (schem bls gibe failsafes to not shoot self)

Regardless, I also agree that turrets should have a minimum size to be able to work properly. To serve that purpose, I propose that we add the Weapon Capacitor block.

How it works is similar in concept to the relationship between computers and modules, with the weapon capacitor serving as the module to the emitter block "computer". Depending on a weapon's damage per second, more capacitor blocks would be required for the weapon to function.

For example: a weapon capable of dealing 1000 DPS would need 34 blocks to function. A weapon dealing 30 damage per second would only require one. Any less and you just don't need one because point defense turrets are fine being their current size.

A possibility for going over the required amount would be the ability of weapon capacitors to "store" weapon energy between shots, thereby putting less strain on the ship's power grid if the weapons it's servicing are allowed to recharge between shots.

Anyways, I'm sure you lot have arguments against this. Honestly, I'm willing to hear out any criticism (as long as it's not straight-up bait) because it only further improves the suggestion if it can be compensated for.

In short, less damage per block, more unnecessary blocks to fiddle with, higher learning curve for newbs.

 

[sayerulz]

I would consider an all-round increase in power, power consumption, and cost of weapons blocks. Turrets and weapon systems could all around be smaller. A big gun should still need a big turret, but perhaps not AS big as we have now. Same goes for fixed weapons. In most scifi settings, only a few specialized ships have a weapon that takes up a third of it's mass, but in starmade, that's pretty standard for everything from fighters to titans.

 

[LunaIsBestPony]

Increased material cost for weapon blocks would create more difficulty for nubbers and not impose any kind of challenge for larger factions.

 

[alterintel]

Thanks @LunalsBestPony , for keeping the idea alive. Hopefully your idea get's more traction then mine

 

[Jake_Lancia]

I agree with this. Especially now I'm making a ship with partially embedded turrets, and they're impossible to make powerful without massive holes in the shop for them to move in which takes space from other systems. So yes, I approve.

(also I know it's a month since this thread was touched)

 

[Raisinbat]

I like big turrets and this block will kill them. What kind of idiot would make a 2k mass turret for their ship when you can have much smaller ones achieving the same result without the added cost of mass enhancers and the complexity of a turret joint digging into your ship? If you want small but powerful turrets, you already have overdrive effect.

Survivability is nonsense; every turret can be shot off; it's extremely rare for the turret to actually be destroyed unless it's super small, and armor is useless at protecting the dockers. Not only is it useless, it's heavy and ruins your ship's efficiency; placing it on something that's prone to falling off in combat is not a very good decision, and nobody uses defensive effects on turrets because the ai wont turn it on, logic cant turn it on and you're not going to run around your ship getting into every single turret to turn on effects every time the server restarts again making it less efficient.

It's a stupid idea just so you can make startrek replicas.

 

[Ithirahad]

It's a stupid idea just so you can make startrek replicas.

I have zero interest in making "startrek replicas," but as someone who has seen (and built) tons of ships that would look and work far better without massive turrets, I fully support this idea. The Star Trek ships would just be an added bonus.

 

[Raisinbat]

I have zero interest in making "startrek replicas," but as someone who has seen (and built) tons of ships that would look and work far better without massive turrets, I fully support this idea. The Star Trek ships would just be an added bonus.

If they look and work better without the turrets, the turrets are poorly designed. Maybe design the ship with turrets in mind from the start, instead of slapping them on later.

 

[Jake_Lancia]

If they look and work better without the turrets, the turrets are poorly designed. Maybe design the ship with turrets in mind from the start, instead of slapping them on later.

Some ships *can't* be made to look good with the current state of turrets. On replicas, turrets built in different ways could potentially again spoil the look.

Also this isn't going to 'kill' big turrets, you can still make those big turrets if you want, and on some ships would be more block efficient to do so.

 

[Spartan-228]

Not sure what the fuse is about. In my mined turrets work fine as is. Sure you can't make the tiny sci-fi weapons emplacemts. But large Iowa like battleship guns are easy and to be honest I seldom loos my bigger turrets in battle. Sure they will get damaged but if you make them right they will rarely get shot off.
Now I have thought about the star trek like weapons and I understand how hard it is to make low profile turrets that can actually do damage, with out using up large amounts of space under the hull. However that is one of those tradeoffs you have to work with.

 

[madman Captain]

I think about two ideas to "Balance" Turret-Size, -Power and -Durability

1. I think it would help even if I could secondary and tertiary effects systems in the tower base to outsource. I can not speak for everyone but in
my case is there enough space. That reduce the size that the Barrel needed

2. Give Rail Docker's and Rail turret Axis the same protection as have the cores. This prevents the tower is shot down immediately by a stupid lucky shot . in fact or in other words, it's own size determines how durable it is

 

[Malacodor]

I think about two ideas to "Balance" Turret-Size, -Power and -Durability

1. I think it would help even if I could secondary and tertiary effects systems in the tower base to outsource. I can not speak for everyone but in
my case is there enough space. That reduce the size that the Barrel needed

2. Give Rail Docker's and Rail turret Axis the same protection as have the cores. This prevents the tower is shot down immediately by a stupid lucky shot . in fact or in other words, it's own size determines how durable it is

Adding the possibility to place slave and effect modules in the turret base was suggested along with the current turret system, but linking groups across entities isn't possible and won't be without a major headache for schema.

 

[madman Captain]

Adding the possibility to place slave and effect modules in the turret base was suggested along with the current turret system, but linking groups across entities isn't possible and won't be without a major headache for schema.

Other idea linking Slaves with the turret Axis to trasmit the Buffs in the higher entity .

 

[Ithirahad]

Adding the possibility to place slave and effect modules in the turret base was suggested along with the current turret system, but linking groups across entities isn't possible and won't be without a major headache for schema.

I don't really understand why... In the end, all the weapons end up doing when determining damage for firing is counting up linked modules. If all else fails, there can be some sort of "docked weapon relay" block, that you link to weapon/effect computers on the main entity, which does this job by proxy and sends the data* up through the docking chain.

*...which would just consist of two or three ints for block count and two or three bytes for module type (Which might be overkill; perhaps just use some sort of 3- or 4-bit chunk of data for the module type, seeing as there aren't 256 different types of weapon or effect system and there won't ever be)

 

[Edymnion]

If they look and work better without the turrets, the turrets are poorly designed. Maybe design the ship with turrets in mind from the start, instead of slapping them on later.

Now this I just find boarderline offensive, really.

When somebody says "I can't build the ship I want due to arbitrary mechanical restrictions" and your answer is basically "Your design is stupid, you should build around the limitation" then that isn't helping anything.

Designing around a flaw isn't good design, its compromise to get things to work given present reality. The goal should be to get as close to a system where anything you can imagine you can build as we possibly can. Not telling people that entire design philosophies are "wrong".

 

[Malacodor]

I don't really understand why...

Nor do I. All I can tell you is that it isn't trivial. I suggest you make a suggestion thread and hope for the best.

 

[Raisinbat]

Now this I just find boarderline offensive, really.

When somebody says "I can't build the ship I want due to arbitrary mechanical restrictions" and your answer is basically "Your design is stupid, you should build around the limitation" then that isn't helping anything.

When someone says "I can't build the ship I want because they're mechanically senseless and i value efficiency" and your answer is basically "I can't build those ships so they should be removed" then that isn't helping anything.

We want different things and there's a conflict of interest here. If you get what you want, a lot of my dreams get crushed, whereas nothing is stopping you from making the ships that look however you want, they're just relatively weak.

Designing around a flaw isn't good design, its compromise to get things to work given present reality.

Design without limitation isn't design at all, you're just drawing then. Nothing stops you from making a ship in starmade that looks however you want, but building with only cosmetics in mind you'll always get a weaker ship than someone that prioritizes mechanics.

If we were talking about overly complicated stuff that really is flawed design, like docked hulls or armor being useless, i'd agree, but larger turrets being stronger than small ones is a retarded thing to complain about.

If your problem has more to do with tiny turrets having zero effect in combat then i can kind of agree, but better weapon scaling and defense interaction would be a much better solution to this; like having smaller weapons with much higher damage output but greatly reduced range.

The goal should be to get as close to a system where anything you can imagine you can build as we possibly can. Not telling people that entire design philosophies are "wrong".

Spoiler: Trigger Warning

FUCK THIS BULLSHIT

Okay then, here's my design philosophy:

• Make ship of wood
• only weapon is damage pulse
• 1 thruster per ship is enough

And this is supposed to be viable? Fuck your stupid philosophy, if all designs are equal there's no reason for diversity and everything becomes stagnant, that's the fucking problem you dont get. People build ships, stations, whatevers, because they are USEFUL. When there are no limitations to anything, nothing is useful and nothing gets made. If we needed fuel to travel you'd see people make tankers, fuel depots refineries etc. but because they're not, they don't get made. There's still millions of "potential" tankers and other shit floating around your imagination, but what good are they when they don't make it into the game???

If all you do is making cosmetic crap than it stops being a game and we're left with a 3D deviantart gallery (albeit with fever sonic recolors) instead of a game that's fun to play.

And fuck freedumb while i'm at it, it's what killed No man's sky. Can go wherever you want and do whatever you want but no reason for doing it so you don't.

Here are my ships that your changes will kill (ugly and/or unfinished i know):

You keep talking about making more ships possible, but these ships can't exist with your stupid block. Sure you can still build them but they become grossly ineffective because turrets are massive weakpoints, so why would you?

TL;DR

Fuck your freedumb

Big guns 5 lyfe