In Developement Cockpits: Simple solution (remote core access)

[Valiant70]

This sooo needs to be a thing!

Like, right away.

 

[RoyalWolfe]

to help would it be OK if i linked this thread for one I'm posting about the currently development state of the game?

 

[Valiant70]

to help would it be OK if i linked this thread for one I'm posting about the currently development state of the game?

Go for it. It should draw more attention to this. This solution is so simple that there really aren't any foreseeable problems with it. We just need to get enough dev attention that they actually implement it in a reasonable amount of time instead of waiting another year.

 

[Etsija]

Yes, yes, this needs to be a thing. Please make it to be a thing. Right away.

 

[Valiant70]

I've been thinking about this again lately and wishing I could fly from my ship's spiffy bridge. Bench, what do you think of this?

 

[Bench]

It will happen, just don't know when.

 

[Viridis00]

I've been thinking recently about remote cockpit blocks and such. Some time in the future the game will move away from cores and into an HP system for ships. If we have a remote block like in the OP, and if our characters are visible and physically sitting in cockpits while the ships are flying, haven't we basically just created another core situation?

Arguably the player can't necessarily know where the enemy player will be on their ship if while piloting the enemy player's indicator is just hidden as a solution (I think that all enemy player's indicators should be hidden whenever, period), but how can we prevent the remote block and to a lesser degree the physical player from being another possible core drilling situation?

 

[Valiant70]

It will happen, just don't know when.

Thanks for letting us know! This honestly doesn't seem all that difficult from a coding perspective. There are classes in place that allow entering flight mode and shooting from weapon computers. All that's really needed (as far as I know) is one more computer class that extends the core's controls instead of just guns like the weapons computers, and one boolean variable in the ship class to tell it to reject multiple attempts to take control of it from other helm modules or the core.

I've been thinking recently about remote cockpit blocks and such. Some time in the future the game will move away from cores and into an HP system for ships. If we have a remote block like in the OP, and if our characters are visible and physically sitting in cockpits while the ships are flying, haven't we basically just created another core situation?

Arguably the player can't necessarily know where the enemy player will be on their ship if while piloting the enemy player's indicator is just hidden as a solution (I think that all enemy player's indicators should be hidden whenever, period), but how can we prevent the remote block and to a lesser degree the physical player from being another possible core drilling situation?

Honestly, wherever the player character is should be a target, both gameplay- and realism-wise. It's just the fact that right now, killing the character also destroys the ship, which doesn't make much sense. The ship and its pilot will ultimately be separate targets, although the ship must be damaged to reach the pilot. I agree that the player character should have his/her target reticule hidden for this reason.

 

[Viridis00]

Honestly, wherever the player character is should be a target, both gameplay- and realism-wise.

I can agree on that, but what will happen when, say someone takes out your remote block, but not our player character? If we simply just loose all control and go back to player view, that could be a solution and would give us a situation similar to cameras where we just have more control consoles around in case we loose the primary. Yeah, I like that idea actually.

The idea of sitting on the fancy exposed main bridge and having to retreat to an inner combat bridge when your shields drop is pretty tantalizing. Fighter pilots are pretty screwed though, despite the fact that even small frigates already chew through fighters with our current system. A small sacrifice I guess.

 

[Snk]

+1.

 

[DaedalusMachina]

I like the idea of a "helm" or "navigation console", and sittable chairs that work with your alignment to the ship, not the world and are clickable to work, not using "sit". Scrolling through the turrets, yes; docked ships, no. You should have to manually access docked ships. These consoles should also work on stations to scroll through any cameras you have set up through your station. And once you get REALLY cool, you'll get where you can activate visible consoles by looking at them through a camera.

 

[RoyalWolfe]

OK the control chairs idea has been around for some time, but so far this is the first time it was done with the current workings of the game in mind. I would like to give my two sense on exactly what that needs in order to work.

since it is also recognized it is also obvious that Scine agrees that it is the best solution. so having that been addressed, discussing exactly the why and hows of it is clearly the next step.

OK here it goes, first of all the control device, whatever name we give it that's it's definition description, being in most cases a block of some kind. This is widely agreed that it should be a new added block. also agreed it should allow the piloting of the craft it is attached to. I agree with this aspect of the idea. It should let us fly the vessel from wherever it is located, and as the original post says using the players actual head as the rendering point for the view. Using the new sit animation this is viable to do. To top it off this would let us be actually seen sitting either on or around this block while using it. i also think we should get to fly the ships from this block, however i have a twist that will help everyone. do not let it enter build mode. i have a good reason for this and if you read on it will be clear.

killing the core. Its not gonna happen.
As for the core which is always the problem that causes the most concern and eventually unnecessary, seriously let it go!! debate which has shelved this issue every single time it has come up. I finally have a solution which will likely give the absolute best compromise. lets let it remain as the driving entity for the craft, it isn't broken so it doesn't need to be changed. this is where my reason for excluding the build mode to the control device comes in. if you cant build from the control device, it will give both the core and build blocks a reason to still be useful which will shut the core haters up, and let the ones that like them keep their precious master controller.

Also this new compromise also presents the option to do more with them anyway. we could have new types of core entities. like ground vehicle cores which act, according to specific psychics. like for example letting us build cars tanks and other things that don't take orbit if we fly them off the edge of a planet plate. which i know would greatly help the games longevity.

 

[IsApro2000]

95% yes. it would make it possible to place it on a even more defended spot and would make hijacking a ship possible since you only have to kill the one sitting in the helm, not in the core.

But for small ships it would mean one extra thing to build, and sometimes you want your ship to be as small as possible.

 

[mrsinister]

and yes! Much better explained than my chair idea. I fully support this.

 

[KiloZulu]

Short story:

A couple new players joined the server I played on, and I flew to the starting sector to welcome them. They didn't respond to any of my attempts at communicating via chat, as I would later learn that they were from a foreign country. I got to the starting area and found them working near the shop on their starter ships. They spacewalked over to my ship and soon found the entrance, where I had helpfully installed permission blocks. I met them at the doorway as they entered. They immediately started shooting at me!

Using my designer's knowledge of the ship, I was able to run away and get to the core before they could kill me. Once in the core, they could no longer shoot me as an individual. I moved the ship, realizing that they hadn't aligned themselves to it, and essentially kicked them out into space. I then declared war on the faction they had created and happily watched my ship turrets obliterate them.

Moral of the story: captain chairs would be really cool, but ship cores ain't all bad.

 

[Valiant70]

Short story:

A couple new players joined the server I played on, and I flew to the starting sector to welcome them. They didn't respond to any of my attempts at communicating via chat, as I would later learn that they were from a foreign country. I got to the starting area and found them working near the shop on their starter ships. They spacewalked over to my ship and soon found the entrance, where I had helpfully installed permission blocks. I met them at the doorway as they entered. They immediately started shooting at me!

Using my designer's knowledge of the ship, I was able to run away and get to the core before they could kill me. Once in the core, they could no longer shoot me as an individual. I moved the ship, realizing that they hadn't aligned themselves to it, and essentially kicked them out into space. I then declared war on the faction they had created and happily watched my ship turrets obliterate them.

Moral of the story: captain chairs would be really cool, but ship cores ain't all bad.

Moral of the story: logically you should have been toast unless you could beat them in a gunfight with your personal weapons, but you got away by exploiting unfinished game features and physics tunneling. :P

 

[Circuitbomb]

I love the idea, but I'd much prefer that it wasn't forced. I imagine many people are perfectly fine with commanding their ship from the core, after all not all ships/entities have or need bridges, or cockpits for that matter. As for the core being the weakest point, why not have some kind of hard point block where you would need n blocks based on mass that would require destruction before a core would be destructable? For example if your mass <= 2000 you could only use 1 hard point block, > 2000 <= 4000 2 blocks etc......

 

[deathsoul097]

I wonder if a similar function could be implemented to control turrets (And possibly fighters) from inside a ship, allowing us to be more immersive and allow cooperative control of a ship, that would mean if a turret was destroyed, you could simply move over to another station, and rejoin the fight, rather than die. Another use of the marker beam maybe, linking a "Helm module" to a bobby on the turret barrel, or the barrel's core. Carriers would probably be much more useful for a small faction, acting as a nomadic mobile station base, rather than a permanent homebase. Maybe when your in build mode, we either have multiple helms, or can use a ship menu to designate what the Chair would be used to control?

I think i ran away with myself there, but im just trying to contribute more ideas/posibilities to the discussion. :D

 

[Snk]

I love the idea, but I'd much prefer that it wasn't forced. I imagine many people are perfectly fine with commanding their ship from the core, after all not all ships/entities have or need bridges, or cockpits for that matter. As for the core being the weakest point, why not have some kind of hard point block where you would need n blocks based on mass that would require destruction before a core would be destructable? For example if your mass <= 2000 you could only use 1 hard point block, > 2000 <= 4000 2 blocks etc......

Na. Cores should be removed and not optional.

 

[Valiant70]

Ultimately, I would like to see cores done away with. Instead, you'd start a ship with a random block like you do with stations, then place a helm module, which would be one block just like a core.

Before: you need one block to control the ship. It is immovable and the ship must be built around it.
After: You need one block to control the ship. You can add and remove such blocks at will and have more than one.

Most sci-fi ships will lose their ability to operate if the bridge is hit and the command crew dies. Some have auxiliary control centers in other locations on the ship for emergencies like that so remaining crew can make a last-ditch effort to win or escape. Pilot gets hit? The ship is partly intact, but no longer operable.