Extending Ship Shields to Turrets- A Solution

[Nauvran]

has anyone thought of just tying the bonus shield amount given to turrets to the amount of turrets a ship has?

basically instead of adding new blocks or complex bubble shielding mechanics (its been said before that the game once had them but was totally broken) just have turrets get a percent of the parent ship's shields that gets divided by how many other turrets are connected.

say the bonus starts with 50% of the parent ship's shields and that bonus extends to 2 turrets. Add a third turret and the bonus drops to 35% for all 3 turrets. add another and the bonus drops even lower to 25% for the 4. Continuously adding more turrets just drops the bonus for all turrets till they all eventually get 0%.

Now mind you this is merely a bonus, this only adds to a turrets total shielding. when turrets have 0% bonus that only means that they've reverted back to their on board shield capacity.

This would make turret placement and type really matter while not totally penalizing players who choose to have a ton of turrets. It becomes a kind of meta game, do I have only 2 turrets with full shielding but limit my ability to take on multiple targets or have 10 and risk each one being blown up. It opens a whole new level of ship design.

it would also just make people build those gigantic turrets like the one Keptick got under Charon.
And then get them the 50% shield boost.

 

[Keptick]

I wanted to make a suggestion that is essentially the opposite of what you're suggesting. The smaller a turret is compared to the main ship the more shields it gets from the mother-ship. That way mega turrets wouldn't have any protection from the main ship but the tiny point defense turrets would. With what you're suggesting turrets like the one I have under the Charon would be pretty much indestructible (that'd be nice, lol). Jokes aside, I seriously think that it'd be OP.

I really wish that it could be like that. The only problem is that this really really hurts fighter play, since they don't really have any more targets to destroy. Well, not that fighter play is a thing in practice anyways :p

 

[Crimson-Artist]

it would also just make people build those gigantic turrets like the one Keptick got under Charon.
And then get them the 50% shield boost.

true, but then you'd only have two turrets. Add in that turrets will eventually have their turn speeds correspond with their dimensions and you have 2 bricks that move just as slow as you.

Also in order to get that much shielding bonus the ship would need to be that big. Besides if you were going to try to take on the Charon before you would've needed a ship of similar size and power. we can't all be x-wing heroes.
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I wanted to make a suggestion that is essentially the opposite of what you're suggesting. The smaller a turret is compared to the main ship the more shields it gets from the mother-ship. That way mega turrets wouldn't have any protection from the main ship but the tiny point defense turrets would. With what you're suggesting turrets like the one I have under the Charon would be pretty much indestructible (that'd be nice, lol). Jokes aside, I seriously think that it'd be OP.

I really wish that it could be like that. The only problem is that this really really hurts fighter play, since they don't really have any more targets to destroy. Well, not that fighter play is a thing in practice anyways :p

there would be a configurable option to change the bonus amount of course and turrets turning speed would need to correspond to their dimensions. But would 1 heavily shielded turret whose turn speed is just as slow as the titan its attached to be any more OP then a titan with a dozen super turrets of similar size/power that had no bonus?

 

[CyberTao]

true, but then you'd only have two turrets. Add in that turrets will eventually have their turn speeds correspond with their dimensions and you have 2 bricks that move just as slow as you.

Also in order to get that much shielding bonus the ship would need to be that big. Besides if you were going to try to take on the Charon before you would've needed a ship of similar size and power. we can't all be x-wing heroes.

I thought the main reason people wanted shared shields was to protect their smaller turrets en bulk. A pair of turrets is easy to replace, the biggest gripe is when 10 or so PD turrets get shot off and need replacing. Might just be me, but I think what you suggested is the opposite of what people want to some extent.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I thought the main reason people wanted shared shields was to protect their smaller turrets en bulk. A pair of turrets is easy to replace, the biggest gripe is when 10 or so PD turrets get shot off and need replacing. Might just be me, but I think what you suggested is the opposite of what people want to some extent.

to an extent but a system that extends a fixed amount of shielding to all turrets only piles on the current problem. Theres no down side to having a ship that has 100 turrets on it. If you give all of them extra shielding then you only make the already over powered even more so. someone who lines their ship with 100 AMS turrets to completely prevent any missile strikes on them would be made virtually unstoppable.

This system is meant to correspond with fleets and with schema's desire for ships to be more specialized. At worst things wouldn't be any worse than it is now. If anything this system would strengthen smaller ships.

Take me for example, I'm primarily a small ship builder. some of my smaller ships have 1 or 2 turrets on them. Now because of their size I'm only able to mount turrets of equal or smaller size. these turrets have shields ranging from 300-3,000, nothing spectacular and could be easily blown off. But if my parent ship has say 10,000 shields and I only have 1 turret attached, that turret will get 50% of my parent ship's shields. Boosting its shielding from say 300 to 5,300, a lot better but not ridiculous by any means. A decent sized missile would still take it out, but its overall survival chances arn't negatively effected.

If I wanted to mount a bigger turret and thus get a larger bonus I would first need a larger ship. however the larger I get the harder it becomes to track targets because of the turn speed thus I need more turrets. now here is where my system starts to come in to play. Do I keep my turret count to a minimum to have just 2 high shielding turrets and make up the rest with my piloting skill or do I add more turrets so I dont have to concentrate that hard but risk losing them.

The system is designed to reward smart/specialized ship designs and curb all in one mega ships that can do everything while not forcing them out of existence. if someone wanted to line their ship with 100 AMS turrets they still could but they would receive no super shielding and become a liability. And smart pilots could exploit that liability in order to win.

 

[CyberTao]

to an extent but a system that extends a fixed amount of shielding to all turrets only piles on the current problem. Theres no down side to having a ship that has 100 turrets on it. If you give all of them extra shielding then you only make the already over powered even more so. someone who lines their ship with 100 AMS turrets to completely prevent any missile strikes on them would be made virtually unstoppable.

This system is meant to correspond with fleets and with schema's desire for ships to be more specialized. At worst things wouldn't be any worse than it is now. If anything this system would strengthen smaller ships.

Take me for example, I'm primarily a small ship builder. some of my smaller ships have 1 or 2 turrets on them. Now because of their size I'm only able to mount turrets of equal or smaller size. these turrets have shields ranging from 300-3,000, nothing spectacular and could be easily blown off. But if my parent ship has say 10,000 shields and I only have 1 turret attached, that turret will get 50% of my parent ship's shields. Boosting its shielding from say 300 to 5,300, a lot better but not ridiculous by any means. A decent sized missile would still take it out, but its overall survival chances arn't negatively effected.

If I wanted to mount a bigger turret and thus get a larger bonus I would first need a larger ship. however the larger I get the harder it becomes to track targets because of the turn speed thus I need more turrets. now here is where my system starts to come in to play. Do I keep my turret count to a minimum to have just 2 high shielding turrets and make up the rest with my piloting skill or do I add more turrets so I dont have to concentrate that hard but risk losing them.

The system is designed to reward smart/specialized ship designs and curb all in one mega ships that can do everything while not forcing them out of existence. if someone wanted to line their ship with 100 AMS turrets they still could but they would receive no super shielding and become a liability. And smart pilots could exploit that liability in order to win.

There is a key exploit you may have missed, your system only accounts for turrets docked to the main ship, but does not count for the turrets docked to ships docked to the main ship. With some proper design, you could easily build a plate which would house a dozen or so small turrets to embed in your ship, and still make use of the 2 turret maximum to get 50% bonus shields. You could have your Strong large turrets and small weak turrets.

You could say that even fixed docking could add to the 'turret' count then, but then it's still not hard to have 1 large fixed dock that extends to both sides of your ship, giving you plenty of room for turrets while only using 1 'turret'.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

There is a key exploit you may have missed, your system only accounts for turrets docked to the main ship, but does not count for the turrets docked to ships docked to the main ship. With some proper design, you could easily build a plate which would house a dozen or so small turrets to embed in your ship, and still make use of the 2 turret maximum to get 50% bonus shields. You could have your Strong large turrets and small weak turrets.

You could say that even fixed docking could add to the 'turret' count then, but then it's still not hard to have 1 large fixed dock that extends to both sides of your ship, giving you plenty of room for turrets while only using 1 'turret'.

well thats easily fixed. Just make it so turrets of docked ships deactivate.

I always thought it extremely odd that the turrets of docked ships remained active and it massively exploitable since you could just dock capital ships with powerful turrets to home bases and have them be invincible. Completely negating the need for station turrets and removing any kind of danger of being caught off guard.

 

[CyberTao]

well thats easily fixed. Just make it so turrets of docked ships deactivate.

I always thought it extremely odd that the turrets of docked ships remained active and it massively exploitable since you could just dock capital ships with powerful turrets to home bases and have them be invincible. Completely negating the need for station turrets and removing any kind of danger of being caught off guard.

Because fuck modular ships? No thanks. A turret is a turret, it's the same whether it's on a ship or a station, makes perfect sense to me, just like how a naval ship irl can still fire while in a dock. Probably not suppose to, but they can.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Because fuck modular ships? No thanks. A turret is a turret, it's the same whether it's on a ship or a station, makes perfect sense to me, just like how a naval ship irl can still fire while in a dock. Probably not suppose to, but they can.

And I suppose a dreadnought moored at dock irl becomes completely impervious to all forms of damage?

 

[CyberTao]

And I suppose a dreadnought moored at dock irl becomes completely impervious to all forms of damage?

I personally argue that homebases shouldn't extend protection to fixed docked at all, but it is needed ingame because honestly, the community doesn't seem mature enough to leave stuff alone when they really should. That said, if people made proper docks and proper base defenses, it wouldn't be much of a problem at all.

That argument better fits homebases not being invincible rather then deactivating turrets, but that is getting off topic.

You said something about Schema's desire to have specialized ships as part of your reasoning, but I found that more options for creative building/ships to be something else he aims for. Modular ships is one of them, albeit a lesser used style, I don't know why he would sacrifice part of one thing for another, instead of trying to figure out how to keep both.

I remember Cal saying something about looking into having some systems 'bleed' into turrets at some point (Like how turrets can feed on the power, except applying to other systems), so I'm more in a mindset of wait-and-see what they come up with, cause I found that sometimes they've had the same arguments before us, and came up with a better solution in the end.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I personally argue that homebases shouldn't extend protection to fixed docked at all, but it is needed ingame because honestly, the community doesn't seem mature enough to leave stuff alone when they really should. That said, if people made proper docks and proper base defenses, it wouldn't be much of a problem at all.

That argument better fits homebases not being invincible rather then deactivating turrets, but that is getting off topic.

You said something about Schema's desire to have specialized ships as part of your reasoning, but I found that more options for creative building/ships to be something else he aims for. Modular ships is one of them, albeit a lesser used style, I don't know why he would sacrifice part of one thing for another, instead of trying to figure out how to keep both.

I remember Cal saying something about looking into having some systems 'bleed' into turrets at some point (Like how turrets can feed on the power, except applying to other systems), so I'm more in a mindset of wait-and-see what they come up with, cause I found that sometimes they've had the same arguments before us, and came up with a better solution in the end.

then its very likely they already have a solution for this problem and either one of us/both could be both wrong.

I do admit i didn't think about modular ships but then again as you've cited it is very under used and normally when something isn't used often theres usually a reason for it. I'm not trying to rag on modular ships (i myself once had the idea that fighters should be able to dock on to things and morph into a kind of turret in another game) its just that in starmade the way they tend to be used almost borders on exploitative ("almost" being the key word here).

maybe we could have docked ships have their own bonus shielding line with different bonus ratios so they don't cut into the turret bonuses. so ships that have external docking ports don't get penalized.

But ignoring my idea of deactivating turrets, If someone were do just what you said they would still need to dock tons of massive dummy ships that would have only 2 tiny turrets attached to it. in order for them to effectively give a massive shielding bonus they would have to be huge. and if you wanted to cover your ship in these you'd need to donate more space to docking enhancers. that means a bigger overall parent ship dimensions. and since we're starting to see docked entities contribute to overall mass of the parent ship (as well as the increased importance of mass in general) it would still conform to the idea that you need to build it bigger in order to exploit this system. And honesty if you need to go through the trouble of stacking ships upon ships upon ships in order to win forever why are you even playing?

I don't doubt my system has flaws, Im just saying that some one would have to go through some pretty massive efforts just to exploit it.
in doing so make it more trouble then its worth.

 

[CyberTao]

And honesty if you need to go through the trouble of stacking ships upon ships upon ships in order to win forever why are you even playing?

Some people are desperate to have any advantage, hence doomcubes. docking enhances aren't actually all that limiting if you think about it, since you only need 1 block for +2 docking box dimensions, I actually once made use of that while playing with broadside concepts, ending up with a ship that was 3x bigger than the one it was docked to.

Combat is more or less too close-quarters for me and my mindset I guess. I don't expect large turrets to engage anything with a thousand or so meters, so the turn rate 'balance' is more of a design thing. A buff to sniper ships, though maybe I am thinking too hard on it.

I personally don't see why people don't like modular ships, since in that building style, you basically get 'sub-systems' which can be taken down by smaller ships, meaning that a ship can be crippled, but not killed, by a swarm of smaller ships, which is what I thought people wanted? Also creates a pseudo-custom ship system, swap out X module for Y on a ship you bought from a shipyard. I dunno, it's a concept I really like and would hate to see it stomped on more than it is (Damn you, fixed docking directions!).

People don't use modular ships because they are "weaker" defensively, but offensively they have an advantage most times, especially when using module weapons (which not many people do). I think the NFD Arclight uses a variant of my missile module prototype. People just build them wrong, and think they are useless.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Some people are desperate to have any advantage, hence doomcubes. docking enhances aren't actually all that limiting if you think about it, since you only need 1 block for +2 docking box dimensions, I actually once made use of that while playing with broadside concepts, ending up with a ship that was 3x bigger than the one it was docked to.

Doom cubers will always build doom cubes. the only thing we should be concerned with is wether a system change would make doom cubes easier and more desirable to make over an awesome well designed ship.

I personally don't see why people don't like modular ships, since in that building style, you basically get 'sub-systems' which can be taken down by smaller ships, meaning that a ship can be crippled, but not killed, by a swarm of smaller ships, which is what I thought people wanted? Also creates a pseudo-custom ship system, swap out X module for Y on a ship you bought from a shipyard. I dunno, it's a concept I really like and would hate to see it stomped on more than it is (Damn you, fixed docking directions!).

People don't use modular ships because they are "weaker" defensively, but offensively they have an advantage most times, especially when using module weapons (which not many people do). I think the NFD Arclight uses a variant of my missile module prototype. People just build them wrong, and think they are useless.

i have a few modular weapon systems. I call them Auto cannons. They have a lot of applications however without shielding sharing they do seem like expendable supplementary weapons. wether or not they remain that way I really hope gets answered soon. I love that concept too