Read by Council Boarding and Breaching Additions

[downedpilot]

Who here likes the Idea of jumping into a boarding vessel, breaking and entering into your enemy's vessel and destroying it from the inside out, or just flat out taking it over? Because I do. But there is one flaw that prevents me, and many others I know from doing such procedures, the fact that the only way we can breach our way into other people's ships is to use this torch tool that takes eons to cut through advanced armor, not to mention the complex interiors of some of the ships out there. But what if we had something different, we would keep the torch, but we would also have some other way to get into ships. The system that I call, the leech system.

This system would work off of two new computers, one weapon, and one module. Let's talk about the module first, The grappling hook.This system would work as a way for ships to attach to others in a similar fashion to docking, but it wouldn't require a docking point. The way I see the Grappling Hook working is that it would have a maximum of a 10 block range from the output point, making it so that you have to be close enough to the enemy to lack on, from there it puts your ship as close as it can to the block of the enemy ship that it hit for you to then take advantage of the new weapon. In addition to the short range, the system would be timed, and the more grappling hook modules that you have, the longer the hook will last. This system will also not work on ships with mass lower than the boarding ship itself, this would prevent anyone using capital ships with boarding systems to just grab other peoples ships all the time

Next up is the weapon, the drill. Try to envision this, you latch onto the other ship and then you are forced to sit there with your torch for hours trying to cut into the ship, when you could be using this new weapon, the drill. The drill would act similar to the torch in the sense that it would be low damage and pass through shields, but it would also take a lot of power in order to use. In addition to this, the Drill would also triple the rate that the Grappling hook loses its hold on the other ship but only when the drill is in use, meaning that if you wanted to use torches instead or finish drilling early, your boarding ship isn't going to detach on you very quickly. Also, in order to use the drill, you would also have to be Grappled, this would prevent people from making drill ships that just cut right into the armor of other ships and instead make the drill purely for boarding uses. (Just to clarify, the drill is not an astronaut item, but instead an on board system, like a cannon or damage beam) Unlike the torch however, the drill would actually deal enough damage to cut through hull and systems in a short amount of time, but it would also make a loud noise that the enemy could hear, a warning popup stating, "You are being boarded" and on top of all of this. In total, the drill provides a constant stream of damage to the blocks in front of it, making it easier to board, and allow the creation of boarding craft, but also be balanced out so that it isn't the one stop shop to killing ships.

I believe that this system would not only diversify combat in StarMade, but it would also allow new tactics to be used to spice up the gameplay. In any case, this is just a request and I am very thankful to whoever reads this much text, I hope you have a nice day.

 

[Jaaskinal]

The grappling hook shouldn't have a size limitation, it just wouldn't make sense, size limits are incredibly artificial. Other mechanics naturally make smaller ships better for approaching and latching onto larger ships: they're typically more maneuverable, they're easier to conceal with cloaking/jamming, and they're cheaper to make when you get fucked by swarmers.

 

[downedpilot]

The grappling hook shouldn't have a size limitation, it just wouldn't make sense, size limits are incredibly artificial. Other mechanics naturally make smaller ships better for approaching and latching onto larger ships: they're typically more maneuverable, they're easier to conceal with cloaking/jamming, and they're cheaper to make when you get fucked by swarmers.

I didn't mean a size limitation, if I did I meant a range limitation, this is to prevent capital ships from targeting smaller ones from miles away only to drill them to bits

 

[Jaaskinal]

This system will also not work on ships with mass lower than the boarding ship itself,

 

[downedpilot]

Again, I meant you can't grapple to ships that are smaller than your own

 

[Jaaskinal]

The grappling hook shouldn't have a size limitation, it just wouldn't make sense, size limits are incredibly artificial. Other mechanics naturally make smaller ships better for approaching and latching onto larger ships: they're typically more maneuverable, they're easier to conceal with cloaking/jamming, and they're cheaper to make when you get fucked by swarmers.

If you manage to get snuck up on by a titan in a fighter, you deserve to be annihilated.

 

[downedpilot]

If you manage to get snuck up on by a titan in a fighter, you deserve to be annihilated.

GG Well played, but still just to keep things balanced

 

[Monchoman45]

I think the biggest issue with this is that if you cut into a random point on the hull, you'll probably hit a system brick rather than interior, especially if it's a combat ship. The best places to board are the obvious ones - hangars and USDs - because you know they're connected to interior. Your biggest problem then is blast doors.

I think an explosive consumable would be fairly realistic. You grapple to the ship and bring breaching charges with you for blowing your way through blast doors.

Actually, I guess that's what warheads are. So maybe the ability to place warheads on other people's ships, and then blow them up with astronaut weapons.

 

[downedpilot]

I think the biggest issue with this is that if you cut into a random point on the hull, you'll probably hit a system brick rather than interior, especially if it's a combat ship. The best places to board are the obvious ones - hangars and USDs - because you know they're connected to interior. Your biggest problem then is blast doors.

I think an explosive consumable would be fairly realistic. You grapple to the ship and bring breaching charges with you for blowing your way through blast doors.

Actually, I guess that's what warheads are. So maybe the ability to place warheads on other people's ships, and then blow them up with astronaut weapons.

The issue with warheads is that they are really gimmicky to use in actual combat, you always will end up doing more damage to yourself when you use them, or they will just be completely ineffective, and as with the drilling issue, I think it kinda adds an extra element of combat trying to find the thinnest hull to break and enter your enemy's ship

 

[Monchoman45]

The issue with warheads is that they are really gimmicky to use in actual combat, you always will end up doing more damage to yourself when you use them, or they will just be completely ineffective, and as with the drilling issue, I think it kinda adds an extra element of combat trying to find the thinnest hull to break and enter your enemy's ship

A simple patch to warheads doesn't seem that far fetched. Or maybe a separate block that destroys a 3x3x3 cube around itself.

Trying to find the thinnest hull would be an extra element, but if your drill has a fixed range, it has limited use. If you have to fly around to a bunch of different spots before you actually cut into interior, at some point it would have been faster to just blow the ship up - especially when you consider that every person you have on your boarding party is someone who isn't flying a ship.

 

[Megacrafter127]

You grapple to the ship and bring breaching charges with you for blowing your way through blast doors.

How about that 'explosive' isn't a block that is placed, but instead a consumable tool, that causes a block it is used on to explode with a small radius? That tool could then theoretically also be limited to not damage armor, unless on docked entities(to still be able to breach rail-doors)

 

[Monchoman45]

How about that 'explosive' isn't a block that is placed, but instead a consumable tool, that causes a block it is used on to explode with a small radius? That tool could then theoretically also be limited to not damage armor, unless on docked entities(to still be able to breach rail-doors)

That's more or less what I'm thinking. I feel like restricting what it can blow up is a bad idea; with a small enough radius you aren't really damaging the actual ship, just cutting your way though. I think making them take up a lot of inventory space is a better idea, so that you can only carry a handful and you have to choose where you want to use them.

I also think astronaut weapons should have a large volume; if you're carrying around an assault rifle, you're probably not going to be building anything. Plus, that would further limit your ability to blow through doors.

 

[Megacrafter127]

That's more or less what I'm thinking. I feel like restricting what it can blow up is a bad idea; with a small enough radius you aren't really damaging the actual ship, just cutting your way though. I think making them take up a lot of inventory space is a better idea, so that you can only carry a handful and you have to choose where you want to use them.

I also think astronaut weapons should have a large volume; if you're carrying around an assault rifle, you're probably not going to be building anything. Plus, that would further limit your ability to blow through doors.

The way you described it it sounded like a block you placed on the enemy ship, which is something that could easily be abused.
As for limiting what it can destroy...I was considering the case, where someone makes a demolition ship, which is basically a boarding ship, but with a large storage full of demolition charges. That someone then puts everywhere on the ship.
The cutting torch is as slow as it is for a reason, as far as I know.

 

[Monchoman45]

The way you described it it sounded like a block you placed on the enemy ship, which is something that could easily be abused.
As for limiting what it can destroy...I was considering the case, where someone makes a demolition ship, which is basically a boarding ship, but with a large storage full of demolition charges. That someone then puts everywhere on the ship.
The cutting torch is as slow as it is for a reason, as far as I know.

It doesn't seem practical to do that - if you want to blow up the ship, you'd be better off piloting a ship with guns than flying around in astronaut mode placing charges one at a time.

 

[Megacrafter127]

It doesn't seem practical to do that - if you want to blow up the ship, you'd be better off piloting a ship with guns than flying around in astronaut mode placing charges one at a time.

Unless you don't have enough guns to penetrate the ship's shields :P

 

[Lecic]

If the drill can only go 5 blocks, people are just going to have 10 block thick doors.

Boarding will not be able to work properly until we have offensive teleporters, crew quarters, and crew, to prevent people from just making their ships interior full of damage pulse and interior turrets to kill any boarders.

 

[Madman198237]

Yeah, boarding's a mess. Very nice idea, however.

 

[MacThule]

I'm excited to get NPC rines on my ship that I can order (with like an inner ship remote) to board a target ship after laying into its hull with a missile or something. Drive by boarding.

 

[downedpilot]

Yeah, boarding's a mess. Very nice idea, however.

Thank you
[DOUBLEPOST=1459206234,1459205826][/DOUBLEPOST]

A simple patch to warheads doesn't seem that far fetched. Or maybe a separate block that destroys a 3x3x3 cube around itself.

Trying to find the thinnest hull would be an extra element, but if your drill has a fixed range, it has limited use. If you have to fly around to a bunch of different spots before you actually cut into interior, at some point it would have been faster to just blow the ship up - especially when you consider that every person you have on your boarding party is someone who isn't flying a ship.

With that and all of the other arguments in mind, I changed the post to remove the range limit on the drill. The only reason I wanted a range limit is because with my other suggesstion, "Cloaking should be an effect" the main counterargument was that the system would be too op, so I wanted to make it seem balanced so that this request might be accepted. Nevertheless, Schine will do what they want with the game, and they haven't messed up yet, so Im excited for whatever they have planned

 

[Madman198237]

I think that changing warheads is an excellent breaching tactic, although a separate explosive weapon utilizing something like a HEAT effect for directional destruction would be very effective for boarding....not to mention better than the present, suicidal method of detonating extremely lethal bombs....in front of your own face.