Positional locking/All-surface dockers

[Space Shaman]

These are intended be ways of making boarding parties more feasible.

Positional locking:
This would be a system where a ship can rotate and move in the same way an aligned player does relative to another ship.
An easy way to limit and balance this would be to require the "aligning" ship to be light enough to move along rails on the larger ship, (possibly not counting mass enhancers).

I could see this being a function of a "piloting computer" similar to a Bobby AI.

This could also work with the formation mechanics that fleets use.


All-surface dockers:
This is essentially the same idea as above, except this would require the contact (or perhaps a <1m distance) of a rail docker like block. It should require a moderate amount of power to remain attached.
While docked, the ship would stay still as all docked entities.

Remember this scene anyone?

 

[Lone_Puppy]

It exists in fleet mechanics so should be possible. Maybe in AI update.

 

[NightFury76]

just change the pull beam affect to compare mass.

if you are smaller than the object you are shooting with your pull beam then you are pulled towards it.
though you can overcome this pulling effect by your own thrusters

 

[jayman38]

I was hoping that Schine was still planning a magnetic docker to allow ship-to-ship "alignment".

 

[Nickizzy]

It's a better version of the slime block idea. Only problem is spikes ships.

 

[Space Shaman]

just change the pull beam affect to compare mass.

if you are smaller than the object you are shooting with your pull beam then you are pulled towards it.
though you can overcome this pulling effect by your own thrusters

Though that would achieve a similar effect, you'd just be following the other ship. The idea is that you can look out your drop door and still see the same part of the other ship at the same part of your view.
[doublepost=1475989979,1475989917][/doublepost]

It's a better version of the slime block idea. Only problem is spikes ships.

What do you mean by spikes ships?

 

[nightrune]

I made a thread similar to this, but its more general.

Read by Council - Deployables, Boarding, and Entity Vehicles

 

[Nickizzy]

What do you mean by spikes ships?

You know, the ones that just are a bunch of spikes ^^^^^^^. You can't land a ship on that. People already use it against missiles sometimes.

 

[Space Shaman]

You know, the ones that just are a bunch of spikes ^^^^^^^. You can't land a ship on that. People already use it against missiles sometimes.

That's not really a flaw in the concept as it is a counter strategy. If I were worried about other people trying to board my ship, I'd do that. Or have an anti astronaut pulse turret.

 

[Nickizzy]

That's not really a flaw in the concept as it is a counter strategy. If I were worried about other people trying to board my ship, I'd do that. Or have an anti astronaut pulse turret.

But it would be a complete counter. Unless you could just stick to them. Then they would act as cover! This is gonna be great.

 

[Space Shaman]

But it would be a complete counter. Unless you could just stick to them. Then they would act as cover! This is gonna be great.

also i think what you're calling spikes ships are just efficient ships with no design put in, or hull
[doublepost=1476071398,1476071367][/doublepost]the spikes you mean are power reactors right?

 

[Nickizzy]

also i think what you're calling spikes ships are just efficient ships with no design put in, or hull
[doublepost=1476071398,1476071367][/doublepost]the spikes you mean are power reactors right?

He He... No. I need to explain myself. I'm talking about the way people sometimes counter missiles. They make a bunch of lines of armor outside the normal hull, so when missiles hit they detonate on the outer lines they don't take chunks out of the regular hull, just make a dent in the "fur" of the ship. Makes it thicker, but a lot less blocks and AHP lost. Also a lot harder to land a ship on telephone poles than flat ground.

 

[Ithirahad]

The telephone poles could backfire, if someone manages to stick their ship on top of them. Anyone trying to hop out the airlock and shoot at the boarders would find himself rather... deprived of good firing angles.

 

[spaceEngineer]

So the mechanics would be what? I get the idea not the implementation. So there will be a new block that can dock to any flat surface, and it would require that the docked ship would have to have mass enhancers depending on its own mass in order to successfully dock. what would stop a big ship from using a single pole structure with one of the blocks to dock to something?

I love the idea I think the mechanics would need some refining if i understand this right.

 

[Space Shaman]

So the mechanics would be what? I get the idea not the implementation. So there will be a new block that can dock to any flat surface, and it would require that the docked ship would have to have mass enhancers depending on its own mass in order to successfully dock. what would stop a big ship from using a single pole structure with one of the blocks to dock to something?

The way mass enhancers work is they make the main structure heavier essentially so that bigger things can dock to them, not the other way around. The way i've described it above, you'd need a much lighter ship than the main structure. And remember, these would require power.
[doublepost=1476165593,1476165262][/doublepost]Magnetic dockers:
Perhaps by docking in this way, turrets would ignore you as they would any other docked entity, unless they were a turret specifically set to "clingers" or something.

I wonder how you could make tracking devices with this? Perhaps a special wireless display module with [system] and [sector] tags.

 

[Nickizzy]

Magnetic dockers:
Perhaps by docking in this way, turrets would ignore you as they would any other docked entity, unless they were a turret specifically set to "clingers" or something.

I wonder how you could make tracking devices with this? Perhaps a special wireless display modul

Maybe you would need to do "selected target" the boarding vessel. Give commanders a thing to do.

And the turrets firing at that entity would sometimes miss and hit the boarded ship, dealing damage, so you would need to watch out when shooting at when you try to stop the boarders.

 

[spaceEngineer]

that bigger things can dock to them, not the other way around.

right i know how mass enhancers work just seems strange that a system on the ship would allow a ship to dock without permission.

 

[Lukwan]

This is an interesting suggestion.

First, I recommend that any mention of docking be removed from this idea. Lock-on or molecular-bonding...whatever but this is not a docking-chain and should avoid the confusion. There are no links between entities, no power or shield sharing etc.

Second; why? This could help make boarding a lot easier and an attached ship itself is a tracking beacon.

Third: Counters. This parasite-ship must have a way of being detected by the ship it is attached to (scanners?). It must still appear on the targeting sensors of other ships and be a valid target, attract heat-seekers etc.

Fourth: risk. The hitch-hiker ship must have no faction-block or the bond will not take. Rider is vulnerable to take over itself.

______________________________________________________
JFF (Just For Fun):

1)Make the bond fragile so it's not easy to maintain. More surface contact = better bond (defensive greeblies. Bond is lost if the bigger ship exceeds the top-speed of the hitchhiker or roll-off during high-speed maneuvering (test to keep the bond) to allow 'bucking' off a rider.

2) Shield interference: Once attached the shields of the hitch-hiker are dropped. (Balance element needed for this not to become OP)

 

[Nickizzy]

This parasite-ship must have a way of being detected by the ship it is attached to (scanners?). It must still appear on the targeting sensors of other ships and be a valid target, attract heat-seekers etc.

Make it count as a regular ship, however turrets wouldn't regularly fire on it. You would need to select target it.

 

[Ithirahad]

1)Make the bond fragile so it's not easy to maintain. More surface contact = better bond (defensive greeblies. Bond is lost if the bigger ship exceeds the top-speed of the hitchhiker or roll-off during high-speed maneuvering (test to keep the bond) to allow 'bucking' off a rider.

Not sure about this (the calculations involved would be strange) but the larger the boarding ship is compared to the ship it's grappling to, the easier it should be to shake it off.