Aux Pwr on Stations

[MacThule]

Is it just me, or does this finally allow stations to tip the balance against ships?

With docked power finally terminated on most servers, ships now have to accept larger mass gains to safely exceed the power softcap using auxiliary power (mass of aux power + mass of advanced bulkheads around each aux power cell). This additional mass feeds into the thrust & jump formulas to create problems for ships trying to generate too much power.

This will not be the situation for stations. A station can reasonably install 20 or 30 AP cells, armor wrap them, and (finally) be tank as fuck compared to any titanic ship.

So am I missing something vital here? Because otherwise I'm about to develop a super-fortress prototype using AP to playtest on a busy MP server and see how it holds up and how many players have to team up and work together to take it down...

 

[nightrune]

Stations are still stationary balloons of highly volatile power at that point. They need to scale differently for them to be tanky.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I suppose you could dedicate an unreasonably high amount of power for shield recharge and capacity, and throw down comically thick armour for back up, though you'll still likely be at a disadvantage due to high easy it is to make op weapons. The lack of ion and other defensive effects will also hurt compared to a ship. You'll also always have the biggest disadvantage stations already have, you'll always be on the back foot. It's much easier to pre-prepare an invasion fleet for a station compared to a non-stationary enemy, where there are many more variables to deal with.

That said, it's a step in the right direction for stations. And assuming you have a decent defense fleet to compliment the station it may work.

 

[BDLS]

Yeah I honestly think stations could use some default buffs.
Like all the positive effects of ion, punch, and pierce without needing those systems installed.

 

[MacThule]

Stations are still stationary balloons of highly volatile power at that point. They need to scale differently for them to be tanky.

Yeah I honestly think stations could use some default buffs.
Like all the positive effects of ion, punch, and pierce without needing those systems installed.

I obviously agree with both of these and we've engaged in many pleas for various types of station buffs over time and those would still be good. What I'm looking at though, is that stations can actually win an arms race with a ship now - as absurd as the result may be.

I suppose you could dedicate an unreasonably high amount of power for shield recharge and capacity, and throw down comically thick armour for back up, though you'll still likely be at a disadvantage due to high easy it is to make op weapons.

This is what players already have been doing with ships - making absurdly huge super-titans. I guess what I'm seeing is that if you were to push the issue at this point, you can now overload a titanic station in a way that you can't effectively overload a titanic ship anymore. Multiple huge ships could take down a titanic station, but that would still be a first and require cooperation, not just a solo pilot in a doombrick.

As you say - a step in the right direction.

 

[Mordrin]

As long as cloaking + warheads (+ advanced buildmode) works they way it does now, stations will always be vulnerable. With very easy and cheap methods anyone can undock all turrets, and then it is just a matter of time and fire power to bring down the shields, or torch the faction module if it is reachable.

 

[NeonSturm]

Perhaps you should also be uncloaked/jammed against stations per default (you can only hide from ships).

 

[Dire Venom]

Perhaps you should also be uncloaked/jammed against stations per default (you can only hide from ships).

Being able to scout out a base from cloak is pretty nice though :3
I would be a big fan of giving them in-built jump inhibitors based on/related (say power output:?) so large ships can't just warp out immediately if things don't go their way

 

[Batavium]

Is it just me, or does this finally allow stations to tip the balance against ships?

Stations have always been better than ships. Stations have better firepower and shields then any ship could ever have. My Home Bases have always been designed to be massive ship killers. Beeing invulnarable helps with that offcourse. Though a guy like Komatodik will still simple park his ship next to it and laugh. On the Systemhack server before the reset i had set my Home Base unprotected. I added 100 million shields and 2 million shield regen. The faction module was just somewhere in the big mass of it. Nobody could take it down it just sat there for over 6 months. The turrets killed anyone that tried.
Only Norseengineer one of Systemhacks admins got in just before the reset using a torch. Only to die to the nuke using anti astronaut turret.

So am I missing something vital here?

Stations are not controlled by a human. It's a stationary target using often poor ai aim. It can't react to changing conditions or prioritise targets. People are very crafty to find and use a weak spot. That said Non Home Base stations should offcourse not be totaly impossible to take over. They are not a Home Base so someone beeing crafty or using brute force should be able to best it. Use cheap matts to build one like rock or asteroid blocks.

Aux power can be used on a station. Right now i have it on my Home Base. You only get the power regen of it. It can not be controlled because a station doesn't have a weapons bar. The structure menu also doesn't let you control it but it does list the total power regen it adds. For an invulnarable Home Base station "the aux power can't be blown up"having extra regen to enable rapide turret fire is pretty cool. On a Non Home Base you just have to be carefull where to place it.

Perhaps you should also be uncloaked/jammed against stations per default (you can only hide from ships).

Not default uncloak but a turret like structure that can use a scanner would be nice. This has been suggested many times though. The fact that the scan computer can't be logic controlled or used by the ai is a big problem.

I would be a big fan of giving them in-built jump inhibitors based on/related (say power output:?)

This is already a thing. Just dock a core with a jump inhibitor and as many modules as you wish and turn it on. It will stay on without you beeing in the core and even when your offline. No need to have it build into the station itself. I love how simple that works.

 

[EricBlank]

In terms of stealth warhead attacks, the stealth/sensory mechanics need a lot of work. I'm willing to bet it's on the to-do list already and the devs have formulated at least some sort of plan, but haven't gotten there yet. We probably won't get it too soon.

As auxiliary reactors on stations go; in your homebase they're awesome, obviously. In a less protected structure definitely a vulnerability. Can't expect a station you leave to be totally invincible, no matter how many blocks you toss on it the math says somebody can toss more on their impossibly enormous barely-mobile pseudo-station titan. But this does mean you can power 36mil e/sec consuming shield rechargers and hundreds of millions of points worth of capacity. Warheads will still take their sweet time getting in there, if you've bundled the reactor structures up in the core nice and tight with several different armor bulkheads between each other and the outside world.

 

[BDLS]

Stations have always been better than ships. Stations have better firepower and shields then any ship could ever have. My Home Bases have always been designed to be massive ship killers

The point is to make non-homebase stations worth a crap and tough to take on. They're too expensive in material cost for a normal-powered static entity, also they suffer weaknesses vs cloakers & warheads as was previously mentioned.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I think something stations could do with is for passive effects to be allowed for stations. Warheads are rendered practically useless against a passive backed advanced armour set up. Likewise, we need the AI to be able to use scanners.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Yeah I honestly think stations could use some default buffs.
Like all the positive effects of ion, punch, and pierce without needing those systems installed.

How about they take the same route as aux power? Leave defensive ion, punch, pirce, etc, always on by default? That way, you can make the base as tanky as a ship; even if you're not around.

Schine are you reading this?

 

[AtraUnam]

I agree with Whammy, don't give them passives for free but any passives they do have are on by default.

 

[Madman198237]

I like the idea of always-active passive effects, but perhaps also consider discounted passives? As in, 1/2 cost (In # of blocks) for a station to get the maximum benefit compared to a ship? Because seriously, stations are massively underpowered right now.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

The reasons why stations are under-powered are because they're immobile and because turret AI isn't very bright. Maybe we should increase the power softcap on stations/planets and change the passives to always-on to offset these weaknesses. Failing that, make the turret AI smarter than its current incarnation.

I'm thinking a base with 50-100 million shield capacity and 5 million shield regen per second + ion passive might be able to take enough punishment to double as a second home base against most small to medium sized aggressors. Smarter turrets may ward off the bigger fish that might otherwise take a bite.

Also, can we PLEASE make it so that shields are shared across all 12 planet plates on a planet? Who the hell thought it was a good idea to have to shield them all separately?

 

[MacThule]

I like the idea of always-active passive effects, but perhaps also consider discounted passives? As in, 1/2 cost (In # of blocks) for a station to get the maximum benefit compared to a ship? Because seriously, stations are massively underpowered right now.

Discount passives is the same as station passive buffs, and I think that is the way to go. I'd love to see the ability to activate (switch on/off at cost of FP while active, perhaps) not only station passives, but even outright buffs that make stations stronger without demanding they be massively bigger. +25% shield regen/block would be great, for example. +15% weapon damage for all turrets. Passives effects for sure. And I still think they should be able to spawn in combat ships for support from a list of BPs added to say a shipyard on the station... much the way pirate stations do.

 

[Panpiper]

And I still think they should be able to spawn in combat ships for support from a list of BPs added to say a shipyard on the station... much the way pirate stations do.

I do NOT think player owned stations should spawn in ships from blueprints, which would amount to getting defending ships for free. (What is to stop me from populating such a list with nothing but titans?) However they 'should' be able to spawn in ships from a fleet reserve perhaps. These would be ships players actually build with blocks, be that by hand, spawned by filled in blueprints or by shipyard. The key is that they be built from actual resources gathered. They can then be sent to the fleet reserve, which effectively despawns them, until they are respawned in the defense of a faction asset.

The quantity of ships that spawn should depend on both the relative importance of the asset being defended, ideally perhaps a setting controlled by the owning player/faction, and on the quantity of ships in the fleet reserve. This way one does not necessarily have to have massive fleets patrolling everywhere, but there is a good probability of having some spawn anywhere they are needed.

 

[MacThule]

(What is to stop me from populating such a list with nothing but titans?)

Well, clearly that who would implement such a feature without it being dependent upon available resources within station storage? Apologies for failure to wall of text the details of how such a concept CAN work.

Sorry - the concept has been brainstormed before. I didn't feel like re-treading wheels.

 

[StarWars1981]

I agree on the always-on passives, and on the planet shield stuff above.
However, for building tough stations .... option 1, build them bigger; option 2, build them smarter; option 3, go to town on both. Build a MASSIVE cube with turrets clustered on the corners and then set in concentric rings (square faces of about 500x500 blocks) going towards center. Massive numbers of short-ranged weapons (i.e. beam-cannon) for engaging incoming torpedoes, some PDTs, but crap tons of shielding and power gen of both types. Cover aux power in multiple 5-layer bulkheads of AA. Maybe more.
2. Add in fleet ... because the other guy is just gonna avoid this server-breaking object anyways.
3. Kill his base and ... cry because he turtles again and you can't finish it.