Overheated ships - Turn to derelict if not rebooted

Benevolent27 · Jan 24, 2017

The title says it all. One of the problems with overheated ships disappearing (not to mention the bugs that happen as a result, like ghost or indestructible turrets left behind..or navigation list problems..) is that suddenly all the attached entities start bouncing off each other causing lag. So why not just let the main body remain, and turn it derelict, so when salvaged it becomes scrap? It would make sense to me and would be practical too. At the very least, let this be a server.cfg option, so server owners could decide what they want for their server.

Thanks for your time!

Brokengauge · Jan 24, 2017

Benevolent27 said:
The title says it all. One of the problems with overheated ships disappearing (not to mention the bugs that happen as a result, like ghost or indestructible turrets left behind..or navigation list problems..) is that suddenly all the attached entities start bouncing off each other causing lag. So why not just let the main body remain, and turn it derelict, so when salvaged it becomes scrap? It would make sense to me and would be practical too. At the very least, let this be a server.cfg option, so server owners could decide what they want for their server.

Thanks for your time!

This is a good idea. While the core is overheating, you still have a chance to salvage the wreck as a functioning vessel. Take too long, and you miss that. But it still offers a reason to go hunting for disabled wrecks. Scrap is useful!

nogg · Jan 24, 2017

i like the idea, scrap is useful... at least in the early stages of the game. could the derelicts be changed to include a small percent chance of scavenging the original block? say a 10% chance of a block being usable still?

Benevolent27 · Jan 24, 2017

nogg said:
i like the idea, scrap is useful... at least in the early stages of the game. could the derelicts be changed to include a small percent chance of scavenging the original block? say a 10% chance of a block being usable still?

Though I don't disagree with your suggestion, the idea here is just to make a simple change that should be pretty easy for the dev's to implement. Once we get into things like percentages of blocks turning into other blocks, things begin to get a little more complicated for them. They'd need to create a new state for entities being in, like a sort of semi-derelict status.

Crusade · Jan 24, 2017

System blocks become scrap, hull only gives grey of whatever tier it is? I feel this would be a bit better of a balance, since scrap re-use is so inefficient.

RODLON · Jan 24, 2017

I think its a great idea but only for big ships (big being defined by something that makes sense). The small ships and turrets should just explode and be obliterated because an overheated core looks powerful enough to do so. If not, the space will become laggy with a lot of tiny scrap ships and scrap pirate ships that nobody would care to salvage.

Quote said:
i like the idea, scrap is useful... at least in the early stages of the game. could the derelicts be changed to include a small percent chance of scavenging the original block? say a 10% chance of a block being usable still?

Quote said:
System blocks become scrap, hull only gives grey of whatever tier it is? I feel this would be a bit better of a balance, since scrap re-use is so inefficient.

That's a completly different suggestion. The scrap system needs an overhaul. For example, all blocks should give back a small amount of the ores/shars they are made of plus some scrap.

AtraUnam · Jan 24, 2017

ALL my yes! only objects under 100 mass (changeable in the .cfg) should just evaporate; and a large percentage of the remains should turn to scrap, however some should still remain as systems (also configurable).

Nickizzy · Jan 24, 2017

AtraUnam said:
ALL my yes! only objects under 100 mass (changeable in the .cfg) should just evaporate; and a large percentage of the remains should turn to scrap, however some should still remain as systems (also configurable).

I have another CP thing for this:

When you salvage scraped entities(abandoned stations or derelict ships) each block you salvage has preset values for each base material, when mined you would get 80% of each resource, give or take 12.5%. But it would give it to you as scrap versions, with the same conversion rates we currently have.

Batavium · Jan 24, 2017

Turning overheated ships into Derelicts will break the database cleanup.

The game is already not very good at self clean. Because overheating only counts down as long as the sector the entity is in is loaded.

To combat this you can run the Admin command /despawn_all with a verb of the type of ships you want cleaned of the StarMade map.

This however also removes non overheated ships.

For a good healthy Pirate spawn the command is a must. Since there can only be so many Pirate waves. "set in server.cfg" Left over overheating Pirate ships or regular Pirates not in loaded sectors remain on the map. And count to the total of Pirate/Trade Guild waves aloud on the server. So depending on how busy the server is the database gets full.

Example:

/despawn_all MOB _unused true

Will remove all Pirate ships in not in contact with players or in unloaded sectors from the StarMade Map. This includes shot of entities such as turrets.

If you set all overheated ships either from players or the AI as derelict then the StarMade map will get polluted over time very quickly. Pressure from to much entities in a sector is bound to become a major problem.

jayman38 · Jan 24, 2017

I think that the final cleanup disappearance can be covered up with a nice explosion effect to show the ship detonating, like we see in movies. Derelicts would be a nice salvage mechanic, but cleanup is more important, and an explosion effect would make it so worth it. If you want to salvage the derelict before it explodes, you need to rake it with salvage beams before it finally overheats.

On the other hand, you could use a remaining block percentage ratio to determine if the ship drops to derelict status or explodes. Example: If the number of hull/armor blocks to the number of system blocks is at a ratio of 3:1 or greater, then the ship goes to derelict mode, with the assumption that systems would normally explode on overheat, and if there are too many systems with too little structural/hull support, the whole ship explodes. On the other hand, with this ratio mechanic, if there remains sufficient structure (hull/armor), then there is a poof at overheat, but the derelict more-or-less remains intact, ready to be salvaged as scrap.

Nickizzy · Jan 25, 2017

jayman38 said:
I think that the final cleanup disappearance can be covered up with a nice explosion effect to show the ship detonating, like we see in movies. Derelicts would be a nice salvage mechanic, but cleanup is more important, and an explosion effect would make it so worth it. If you want to salvage the derelict before it explodes, you need to rake it with salvage beams before it finally overheats.

On the other hand, you could use a remaining block percentage ratio to determine if the ship drops to derelict status or explodes. Example: If the number of hull/armor blocks to the number of system blocks is at a ratio of 3:1 or greater, then the ship goes to derelict mode, with the assumption that systems would normally explode on overheat, and if there are too many systems with too little structural/hull support, the whole ship explodes. On the other hand, with this ratio mechanic, if there remains sufficient structure (hull/armor), then there is a poof at overheat, but the derelict more-or-less remains intact, ready to be salvaged as scrap.

Also having situation based derelicts. In a tiny little SP fight a 50 by 30 by 20 ship would still stay, but that ship would only add lag in major late game faction warfare. Titanic derelicts might stay for a while, before slowly taking sun damage(sun damage-like effects, the blocks would disappear only when unloaded and not break while the ship is loaded) until it's to small and gets detonated regularly.

Shaker · Jan 26, 2017

I like the idea, my server currently plays at a higher block count for ships than most servers, this would enable abit more RP with floating derilects to be scrapped laying around. Only problem is that its more stuff for the server to remember and players will have to clean up pirate/npc waves when they are done before heading back to base.

Currently most tend to not even use scrap, instead just throwing it into the void, so it would give it a use.

DoomCarrot · Jan 28, 2017

Yes please. I never really understood why the overheating and self-destruct feature is even in the game honestly.... I think direlect ships would be better in every way.

nightwalker_007 · Jan 30, 2017

The problem with this is that overheating ships being destroyed completely is basically a universe cleanup option. Having a bunch of floating derelict craft would dramatically fill up server space and increase server lag in areas.... This should be a server option, like break-away. It shouldn't be enabled by default.

Benevolent27 · Feb 4, 2017

nightwalker_007 said:
The problem with this is that overheating ships being destroyed completely is basically a universe cleanup option. Having a bunch of floating derelict craft would dramatically fill up server space and increase server lag in areas.... This should be a server option, like break-away. It shouldn't be enabled by default.

Why not just have better universe cleanup? Have the derelect ships disappear if they are not mined after a day or so. Right now, the "overheating ships" is a pretty terrible cleanup solution because it leaves all the turrets and docked entities behind. What I am suggesting is to make the entire entity derelict rather than having all the docked entities suddenly causing lag bombs and bugs on the server when they are detached. What the server does to clean up later is a different matter.

Here are the three possible config options I think that should be available to server admins:

OnOverheatEntitiesTurnDerelict=true/false
OnOverheatAllAttachedEntitiesAreAffected=true/false
TimeBeforeCleanUpOfLeftoverOverheatedEntities=[TimeInSeconds, -1 to disable]

So basically, the options here would be for the main entity to either do whatever the default is, which is simply disappear. Then there is a second option to have all attached entities suffer the same fate as the parent entity. So, if one server wants everything to behave the same way it does now and they deal with the lag bombs and left-over entities by running a "/despawn_all NPC_ unused true" command periodically to clean up all the left-over turrets and attached entities.. that's fine. If they want the entire ship, with all attached entities to disappear upon overheating.. They can do that too. Or if they are like me, they would want them to turn derelict and then be cleaned up after a day of non-use. The benefit of my preference is that I think it would be more realistic, would not cause horrible lag, and would take some of the world management hassle out of adminning.

-Moose- · Feb 4, 2017

Benevolent27 said:
Why not just have better universe cleanup? Have the derelect ships disappear if they are not mined after a day or so. Right now, the "overheating ships" is a pretty terrible cleanup solution because it leaves all the turrets and docked entities behind. What I am suggesting is to make the entire entity derelict rather than having all the docked entities suddenly causing lag bombs and bugs on the server when they are detached. What the server does to clean up later is a different matter.

Here are the three possible config options I think that should be available to server admins:

OnOverheatEntitiesTurnDerelict=true/false
OnOverheatAllAttachedEntitiesAreAffected=true/false
TimeBeforeCleanUpOfLeftoverOverheatedEntities=[TimeInSeconds, -1 to disable]

Not disagreeing with you but, only a day? What's the point then? In all the vastness of space available what are the odds another player is just going to stumble across the same ship?

Now I'm going to echo the concerns of others. I had a homebase next to the scavengers. They sent an attack fleet every 20 mins or so. Even if the smaller ships were destroyed I would still be left with one kukri ship (about 3.5k mass) every 20 minutes. How do you propose we deal with npc spam?

Benevolent27 · Feb 5, 2017

-Moose- said:
Not disagreeing with you but, only a day? What's the point then? In all the vastness of space available what are the odds another player is just going to stumble across the same ship?

Now I'm going to echo the concerns of others. I had a homebase next to the scavengers. They sent an attack fleet every 20 mins or so. Even if the smaller ships were destroyed I would still be left with one kukri ship (about 3.5k mass) every 20 minutes. How do you propose we deal with npc spam?

This is a suggestion about overheated ships turning to derelict. An overhaul of the NPC spam when they war is a different issue altogether. But regarding the 1 day figure of cleaning up ships that have already overheated.. I would use that figure because this is cleanup of ships that have already overheated. Server stability is more important than maybe one day someone stumbling across some damaged, derelict ships that they can get a little scrap from. Ships that are in "overheating" status would be unaffected by this, so if a big battle had happened and the ships were left overheating, then players could possibly stumble across these ships and then mine them before they overheat. But, in any case, the reason servers have to do server resets is because the world file becomes too large and too slow, as it gets gunked up with entities. The more automatic cleanup of unimportant entities occurs, the faster servers will run and the less often they will need to do world resets. There is always a balance to be struck though, so I would set ours at 1 day clean-up time for overheated entities (rather than have the overheated entities disappear immediately, which is the behavior right now).

Now, regarding the NPC issue with the way they spam attack, I'd recommend your admins change the NPC settings to limit the amount of ships the NPC factions send per wave and possibly setting to declare peace faster. This is a topic for another thread though. I'd recommend opening a general chat post about it where you can discuss NPC settings and how to limit this kind of NPC ship spam. We've been struggling with the NPC factions over on Light Vs Dark too, but we're slowly getting the hang of them and getting them better balanced. Due to the massive spam coming from the NPC factions, I have a script in place that resets the NPC faction relation status to factions on our server every 10 minutes. This has helped a bit. Some of the problems cannot be solved though, because of the way the warring mechanic works. The NPC faction wars you, then they send ships at you, which causes a battle.. Since they were attacked, they hate you more.. so they send more ships.. then they hate you more.. And so they never send a peace offering unless everyone in your faction logs off for a long period of time, allowing the threat level to slowly die down. The dev's need to rework the way NPC factions war a bit to give better control to admins and make the default settings a little less aggressive (Perhaps allowing for a "MaxTimeAtWar" figure, which would have a peace offering sent after war has occurred for a set number of seconds). They also need to include some more guidance in their faction configs to better describe what each setting does, because right now we've just been having to try setting different settings.. see what happens.. when that failed.. try more.. Rinse cycle, repeat. We shouldn't need to have a script running that resets war declarations of NPC factions every 10 minutes.

akimzav · Feb 6, 2017

Why isn't it in the game yet, this is so far the most logical and balanced feature i've seen here on the suggestion forum.

Gasboy · Feb 6, 2017

akimzav said:
Why isn't it in the game yet, this is so far the most logical and balanced feature i've seen here on the suggestion forum.

Do you believe that the devs are sitting around waiting to jump all over suggestions and that they don't have anything to do so it would get priority?

And just because you think it's a great idea, there could be reasons why it isn't.

One counter to this would be simply to have the overheat 'vanish' also take associated and attached docked entities with it. So that turrets, docked and undocked, get cleaned up too.

I personally believe that overheated ships/stations should just pop when their time expires.

akimzav · Feb 7, 2017

Gasboy said:
Do you believe that the devs are sitting around waiting to jump all over suggestions and that they don't have anything to do so it would get priority?

This place is a suggestion forum, where players make suggestions, discuss them, and evaluate the usefulness of suggestions. Why is that a problem for you?

Gasboy said:
I personally believe that overheated ships/stations should just pop when their time expires.

That's your opinion.

akimzav said:
Why isn't it in the game yet, this is so far the most logical and balanced feature i've seen here on the suggestion forum.

And this is mine.

If to take only objective factors,
the pros of the mechanic suggested in this thread are: increased immersion, better economy and resource management (also including an appearance of new possible role for players), some tactical aspects.
The cons are mostly technical: increased (compared to now) lag (which can not be more than in battle), space trash loading the server (only if someone is nearby, and this is going to be temporary, as large ships would attract salvagers, who would quickly harvest them), some other tactical aspects.

The nature of the proposed mechanic is such that it can be fairly easy implemented (indeed, we have conversion from derelict to owned stations already).

Due to the fact that server load can be large, and also to satisfy those, who don't want matter preservation law to be a thing on their server, Benevolent27 mentioned that it should be a separate config line to toggle remaining debris on/off.

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Overheated ships - Turn to derelict if not rebooted

Benevolent27

Join the Dark Side

Brokengauge

nogg

Benevolent27

Join the Dark Side

Crusade

RODLON

AtraUnam

Maiden of crashes

Nickizzy

Batavium

jayman38

Precentor-Primus, pro-tempore

Nickizzy

Shaker

DoomCarrot

nightwalker_007

Benevolent27

Join the Dark Side

-Moose-

Benevolent27

Join the Dark Side

akimzav

Gasboy

BLRP

akimzav