Bring Back Ship/Structure HP

[Valiant70]

TL;DR: SHP is how you kill ships, but hitting the reactor kills it faster like a headshot. It'll be more fun than what we have now.

This is an idea for bringing back a ship-wide HP pool like we had before the power update, and turning reactor HP into a sort of "critical hit" system that could blow up your ship much faster with a precise (or lucky) shot to the reactor. There's not a lot of meta-reasoning here. This is just what I think would be fun to play and fight with.

Ship HP
Before the power update, ship HP seemed fine. There were a lot of problems with the game, but SHP wasn't one of them. It was an easy, intuitive way to decide when a ship went boom. It had the added advantage of giving a little HP in return for the extra weight of decoration blocks, which was just enough to make decoration less painful for casual PVPers.

Just as before, HP should reach 0 when about half the ship has been shredded, so you don't have to destroy every single block to kill the ship. Very massive ships need slightly less than half of their blocks destroyed, etc... you get the idea. Just bring back the pre-power2 mechanics for SHP.

Reactor HP
In this system, reactor HP is an alternative way to blow up a ship. Depending on the design, it might be easier. Run out of RHP, and the ship explodes even if the rest of is it intact.

• Reactor and chamber blocks add RHP to a ship.
  
• The stability percentage equals the percentage of RHP that must be depleted to blow up the ship. e.g. a 80% stable ship explodes when it reaches 20% reactor HP.
  
• Stabilizers do not contribute to RHP. They only influence stability percentage.
• Destroying stabilizers reduces the stability percentage.
• As with SHP, a reactor reaches 0 HP when around half of its blocks are destroyed, so even the most stable reactor doesn't need every single block destroyed to kill it.

 

[NeonSturm]

You like headshots?
You like an intuitive way?
I have a solution for you, way better than some "electromagnetic armor everywhere".


Each hull/armor/tank block lets all shots pass, but reduces their damage. (tank is short for advanced armor)
For 2x2x2=8 weapon blocks, you need 2x hull depth blocks. Simply as that. Weapon shape impact is discussed not here.
Penetration depth is the thing you want when building bigger guns.

The armor block itself counts then down from 7 or 15 (full hp) to 0 (disabled) - 3 or 4 bits required.
For 8x weapon blocks, you can make 2x hull/armor/tank blocks count down.
On all such damaged blocks, one charge is restored all 10 seconds.
Bigger guns may remove more charges if desired, but then via an impact-pattern on multiple blocks.

If a block reaches 0 (disabled) it can disappear, be restored by hull restoration systems (automatically or later), be restored by the sacret-fluid-matter stream of armor blocks straight from your inventory, or whatever else.
Default is a sane value and it is configurable to satisfy most peoples needs. Other options are for the other guys with their own config-mods.

Weapon blocks may cap out at 15 tank armor, 7 normal armor, 3 hull, 1 systems. Thus systems are disabled in one hit.


Now you can headshot blocks.
It is intuitive, because if you fire an assault riffle at a metal plate, you can punch a small hole in it but not big enough to get your projectile through. The next shot on the same spot will then have the energy to penetrate that weakened metal plate.
But if you hit the same plate a little to the left, you have to start again.

If you fire randomly around a rough spot, soon the greater area is weakened and you get some shots through.
This is emulated by missing blocks from previous shots in above example.


I think it is realistic. Realistic is intuitive.
Global hp is not intuitive. But I agree that when 1/4 or 1/2 of blocks are killed it's a mess which should be deleted or simple to loot.


If you want more depth to it, make weapons reaching only 15/10/5% original damage be completely blocked by tank/armor/hull.
Set shield to let 20% damage through - enable this as option.
Then enable autorepair of armor. Not hull, just armor and advanced tank armor. On every reboot.

Now you get ships which use hull, use tankblocks to shield important parts, use normal armor elsewhere (because weight) and some normal armor all around. Exactly what is desired.

 

[Valiant70]

You like headshots?
You like an intuitive way?
I have a solution for you, way better than some "electromagnetic armor everywhere".


Each hull/armor/tank block lets all shots pass, but reduces their damage. (tank is short for advanced armor)
For 2x2x2=8 weapon blocks, you need 2x hull depth blocks. Simply as that. Weapon shape impact is discussed not here.
Penetration depth is the thing you want when building bigger guns.

The armor block itself counts then down from 7 or 15 (full hp) to 0 (disabled) - 3 or 4 bits required.
For 8x weapon blocks, you can make 2x hull/armor/tank blocks count down.
On all such damaged blocks, one charge is restored all 10 seconds.
Bigger guns may remove more charges if desired, but then via an impact-pattern on multiple blocks.

If a block reaches 0 (disabled) it can disappear, be restored by hull restoration systems (automatically or later), be restored by the sacret-fluid-matter stream of armor blocks straight from your inventory, or whatever else.
Default is a sane value and it is configurable to satisfy most peoples needs. Other options are for the other guys with their own config-mods.

Weapon blocks may cap out at 15 tank armor, 7 normal armor, 3 hull, 1 systems. Thus systems are disabled in one hit.


Now you can headshot blocks.
It is intuitive, because if you fire an assault riffle at a metal plate, you can punch a small hole in it but not big enough to get your projectile through. The next shot on the same spot will then have the energy to penetrate that weakened metal plate.
But if you hit the same plate a little to the left, you have to start again.

If you fire randomly around a rough spot, soon the greater area is weakened and you get some shots through.
This is emulated by missing blocks from previous shots in above example.


I think it is realistic. Realistic is intuitive.
Global hp is not intuitive. But I agree that when 1/4 or 1/2 of blocks are killed it's a mess which should be deleted or simple to loot.


If you want more depth to it, make weapons reaching only 15/10/5% original damage be completely blocked by tank/armor/hull.
Set shield to let 20% damage through - enable this as option.
Then enable autorepair of armor. Not hull, just armor and advanced tank armor. On every reboot.

Now you get ships which use hull, use tankblocks to shield important parts, use normal armor elsewhere (because weight) and some normal armor all around. Exactly what is desired.

This... doesn't make any sense to me at all.

 

[Spartan-228]

TL;DR: SHP is how you kill ships, but hitting the reactor kills it faster like a headshot. It'll be more fun than what we have now.

This is an idea for bringing back a ship-wide HP pool like we had before the power update, and turning reactor HP into a sort of "critical hit" system that could blow up your ship much faster with a precise (or lucky) shot to the reactor. There's not a lot of meta-reasoning here. This is just what I think would be fun to play and fight with.

Ship HP
Before the power update, ship HP seemed fine. There were a lot of problems with the game, but SHP wasn't one of them. It was an easy, intuitive way to decide when a ship went boom. It had the added advantage of giving a little HP in return for the extra weight of decoration blocks, which was just enough to make decoration less painful for casual PVPers.

Just as before, HP should reach 0 when about half the ship has been shredded, so you don't have to destroy every single block to kill the ship. Very massive ships need slightly less than half of their blocks destroyed, etc... you get the idea. Just bring back the pre-power2 mechanics for SHP.

Reactor HP
In this system, reactor HP is an alternative way to blow up a ship. Depending on the design, it might be easier. Run out of RHP, and the ship explodes even if the rest of is it intact.

• Reactor and chamber blocks add RHP to a ship.
  
• The stability percentage equals the percentage of RHP that must be depleted to blow up the ship. e.g. a 80% stable ship explodes when it reaches 20% reactor HP.
  
• Stabilizers do not contribute to RHP. They only influence stability percentage.
• Destroying stabilizers reduces the stability percentage.
• As with SHP, a reactor reaches 0 HP when around half of its blocks are destroyed, so even the most stable reactor doesn't need every single block destroyed to kill it.

I like this idea, but at the same time with what we have now (at least in my experience) a ship is generally a mission kill long before the reactor goes critical.

 

[NeonSturm]

I like this idea, but at the same time with what we have now (at least in my experience) a ship is generally a mission kill long before the reactor goes critical.

50% longer/wider/higher ship is 335% as strong (same effectiveness per block assumed).
Assuming the attacker can choose to only attack appearingly-smaller targets, I say yes.

Unless competition rules apply - in which player and builder skill may matter.
...
Or mechanics are hampered with (once I had pyramid ship with ancient reactor L-lines at base and core at top and the AI mostly missed that tiny target when strafing left / right. Additionally I had visual cloak by using full-black blocks - appearing purple if you didn't overrride that blocks .png file from sunworld server). As example for mechanic hampering.

​

The Opening_Post says Reactor-HP (RHP), but when a reactor is hit it usually takes so much damage RHP would instantly drop.

It is a headshot, but how is it archived? By shooting a 1x1x3 unit inside a 3x3x9 hull. Being a 1/3 sized target.
Early you can not hit it, later you punch through until you get occassional hits at this 1/9 area but 1/1000 xHP target.
I see it like reducing SHP to 3/4 integrity and then random or instant headshot - depending on implementation.

Better Headshot-mechanics have the builder define weak spots like an armor plate on turret overlaps the hole in which that turret's base is placed. But due to square nature and rotation there is a gap. Perhaps on the rear side when the turret isn't targeting a stealth ship, because the builder wanted to save mass and didn't expect there to be needed as much armor.

But then, RHP doesn't matter. A few Reactor blocks are killed and that's critical because you get less output.

 

[OfficialCoding]

50% longer/wider/higher ship is 335% as strong (same effectiveness per block assumed).
Assuming the attacker can choose to only attack appearingly-smaller targets, I say yes.

Unless competition rules apply - in which player and builder skill may matter.
...
Or mechanics are hampered with (once I had pyramid ship with ancient reactor L-lines at base and core at top and the AI mostly missed that tiny target when strafing left / right. Additionally I had visual cloak by using full-black blocks - appearing purple if you didn't overrride that blocks .png file from sunworld server). As example for mechanic hampering.

​

The Opening_Post says Reactor-HP (RHP), but when a reactor is hit it usually takes so much damage RHP would instantly drop.

It is a headshot, but how is it archived? By shooting a 1x1x3 unit inside a 3x3x9 hull. Being a 1/3 sized target.
Early you can not hit it, later you punch through until you get occassional hits at this 1/9 area but 1/1000 xHP target.
I see it like reducing SHP to 3/4 integrity and then random or instant headshot - depending on implementation.

Better Headshot-mechanics have the builder define weak spots like an armor plate on turret overlaps the hole in which that turret's base is placed. But due to square nature and rotation there is a gap. Perhaps on the rear side when the turret isn't targeting a stealth ship, because the builder wanted to save mass and didn't expect there to be needed as much armor.

But then, RHP doesn't matter. A few Reactor blocks are killed and that's critical because you get less output.

TL;DR.
[doublepost=1546519526,1546519412][/doublepost]

TL;DR: SHP is how you kill ships, but hitting the reactor kills it faster like a headshot. It'll be more fun than what we have now.

This is an idea for bringing back a ship-wide HP pool like we had before the power update, and turning reactor HP into a sort of "critical hit" system that could blow up your ship much faster with a precise (or lucky) shot to the reactor. There's not a lot of meta-reasoning here. This is just what I think would be fun to play and fight with.

Ship HP
Before the power update, ship HP seemed fine. There were a lot of problems with the game, but SHP wasn't one of them. It was an easy, intuitive way to decide when a ship went boom. It had the added advantage of giving a little HP in return for the extra weight of decoration blocks, which was just enough to make decoration less painful for casual PVPers.

Just as before, HP should reach 0 when about half the ship has been shredded, so you don't have to destroy every single block to kill the ship. Very massive ships need slightly less than half of their blocks destroyed, etc... you get the idea. Just bring back the pre-power2 mechanics for SHP.

Reactor HP
In this system, reactor HP is an alternative way to blow up a ship. Depending on the design, it might be easier. Run out of RHP, and the ship explodes even if the rest of is it intact.

• Reactor and chamber blocks add RHP to a ship.
  
• The stability percentage equals the percentage of RHP that must be depleted to blow up the ship. e.g. a 80% stable ship explodes when it reaches 20% reactor HP.
  
• Stabilizers do not contribute to RHP. They only influence stability percentage.
• Destroying stabilizers reduces the stability percentage.
• As with SHP, a reactor reaches 0 HP when around half of its blocks are destroyed, so even the most stable reactor doesn't need every single block destroyed to kill it.

I don't think they are bringing back SHP. reactor HP is the most logical system.

 

[aceface]

On one hand I like the idea of structure hp so that you do something and dont waste shots. On the other hand I like how it is now as you can firstly feel more safe when taking damage so shields are not the only line of defence and two makes precision hits very rewarding.

 

[kikaha]

I've been testing some of my ships repeatedely in combat recently and i had to stop and remove all the entities i had spawned because it took so looooong to overheat like only a single fighter (20x20x20 meters) ship or a bigger thing (300meters long) despite the fact than more then 3/4 of the ships were gone...

 

[Muffin_man17]

On one hand I like the idea of structure hp so that you do something and dont waste shots. On the other hand I like how it is now as you can firstly feel more safe when taking damage so shields are not the only line of defence and two makes precision hits very rewarding.

I agree with Aceface, as neat as it would be to have structure hp it would put everything back to how it was before where shields were everything and armor was at a disadvantage. Yet realistically you would think if you lost most of the ship that the ship would seize to function rather then being a skeleton with a live reactor and engines.

If there is only Rhp though then I feel like it will eventually revert back to when all that mattered was removing the enemy's ship core only now ships could equip scanning chambers to spot the enemy's ship reactor and only target that spot.

There probably should be something more then just Rhp but Shp doesn't feel like the right solution.

 

[aceface]

If there is only Rhp though then I feel like it will eventually revert back to when all that mattered was removing the enemy's ship core only now ships could equip scanning chambers to spot the enemy's ship reactor and only target that spot.

One thing I liked about the core thing is it realistically made sense in that you take out the cockpit you take out the pilot. But with it not being so vulnerable gives you more freedom which is nice. I think reactor hp because compared to cores you need to do substantially more damage to the ship to take it out, especially if a ship has a lot of chambers (they count too towards hp).

 

[Valiant70]

One thing I liked about the core thing is it realistically made sense in that you take out the cockpit you take out the pilot. But with it not being so vulnerable gives you more freedom which is nice. I think reactor hp because compared to cores you need to do substantially more damage to the ship to take it out, especially if a ship has a lot of chambers (they count too towards hp).

My experience with reactor HP has been that is has the opposite issue that coreing did. It is very difficult to actually kill a ship under the RHP system. It's weird and annoying to have shredded fragments of ships flying around bumping into things, especially if they're still under AI control and trying in vain to fight. For example, you might see a single engine nacelle, a half-killed chunk of reactor, and a floating core flying around. If it's under AI control, it may ram you and cause lag.

There's another advantage to the SHP system that needs to be brought back in some manner under the new system:

It had the added advantage of giving a little HP in return for the extra weight of decoration blocks, which was just enough to make decoration less painful for casual PVPers.

The added HP was small, but it added up in some builds. This did not allow decorated ships to fight meta ships, but it mattered in battles between decorated ships. SHP made the difference between "minimal decorations" and "a few more decorations" trivial, and that was a large quality-of-life improvement on casual-PVP or PVPRP servers.

 

[NeonSturm]

I can imagine shield techniques similar to human bodies.

We have bone grown in a way that stoming a foot on ground is not as damaging while swinging a metal bar horizontally gainst a leg usually is.
Both forces equal, only attack vectors differ.

Usually you have several layers to it; Atoms try to remain intact.
Dedicated molecules may break only on high forces, uncommon in life. Plastics break. It depends which you use.
Greater structures behave depending on micro-structure.
The microstructure prevents or assists certain actions at macro-scale.
If an action is prevented but enforced with enough power, the weakest part breaks.

For a ships shields, this means:
The hull may consist of armor plates optimized for projecting a shield.
Hull block count in a straight line supports armor, displayed as tooltip at screen centre while building.
Armor/Advanced-Armor might also "use the other half of shields".


In fact, there could be an "inner shield" and an "outer shield".
The outer shield is dedicated to weapon fire, taking only 30-70% damage.
The inner shield suffers more or might not be dense enough to absorb heavy damage completely (one strong hit fire weapon), but only over time (some minor bullets finding their way through armor plates).

The ship is designed that most weapon fire is absorbed. Especially when the enemy uses fat projectiles, multiple angles of fire from different weapons and diverse weapon types.
But perhaps the ship has some spot which says something along: "if the enemy has a weapon which is ion, beam, coloured red, or has cannon-secondary, he may position himself to get a shot through this ventilation exhaust pipe without hitting the walls of it, streight into the middle of the ship." This ventilation pipe would be armored too, but not as strong as the frontal hull plate absorbing asteroid-blows at ram-speeds.

Edit for Valiant70

I am a fan of auto-repair armor. Space-age has nanobots or use gelatine-fluids between 2 metal plates as armor which can easily be maintained by a repair R2D2 bot.
And some peoples which want less boxy shapes have found more genue ways of archiving same, don't have to be named, just assume it exists.

But systems is another topic. Having robots producing systems is fearsome
-> killer drones built by automated evil shipyard enter your nightmares, then your realm.
Armor is considered space-keeping and systems space-spanning.


The best way to emulate it is, having armor setup so that shots might have an easier way through at a specific angle usually prevented to be hit by ship maneuvers before and while shields drop.

The armor uses a global shipHP-value which defines how much blockHP% apply before a shot bypasses that armor block, counting the whole as if 10% thinner.

 

[aceface]

My experience with reactor HP has been that is has the opposite issue that coreing did. It is very difficult to actually kill a ship under the RHP system. It's weird and annoying to have shredded fragments of ships flying around bumping into things, especially if they're still under AI control and trying in vain to fight. For example, you might see a single engine nacelle, a half-killed chunk of reactor, and a floating core flying around. If it's under AI control, it may ram you and cause lag.

Yeah I've had that experience too. It depends how well the reactor is guarded, some it goes really fast. A scanner makes it also really easy.