Comro's Combat Suggestarinos (not a manifesto)

[Comr4de]

Trigger warning: Animu and Mango

Before we start let's take the following assumptions as fact - if someone would like to debate/disprove them I'll change the list. I will note that all of these are observations of my own and the observations of those I have worked with/against in combat. I will also be basing most of my arguments/propositions on science-fiction elements that are appropriate so if you drop that "muh realism" bomb in here gggeet the fuck out

1. Shields offer virtually all the protection in any direction that is necessary for a ship. Thus they are the only line of defense.
2. Given the extreme ranges involved in space combat, the most effective weapons are lockon missiles (missile + beam/pulse slave)
   1. Another big issue is that issiles eat blocks for breakfast. (I'm gonna need schema or Calbiri to hop in here and explain how missile damage in detail before i offer a solution because I sure as shit don't remember the mechanics exactly, all I know is that the explosion is dissipated by void space)
3. Given the ineffectiveness of point defense AI, it is more economical to splurge on (you guessed it) shields.
4. Given that larger = better without exception, smaller ships are always at an extreme disadvantage (not useless, but still at a disadvantage)
   1. While a spacebike should not be capable of taking down a titan, or battleship, a cruiser or group of destroyers should stand a /decent/ chance against one.
5. Compared to the effectiveness of shields, hull/armor is useless.
6. Thrust capabilities of large (25,000 mass and greater) ships are not hindered at all. Meaning a titan, with enough thrusters, can accelerate as fast as a frigate, eliminating any maneuverability advantage.
7. Scanners are useless because decloaked/dejammed enemies can just re-enable these systems.
8. I'm not done here give me a second

Now that we've established those facts for the sake of dialogue, let's go ahead and address them one at a time.

1. Shields offer virtually all the protection in any direction that is necessary for a ship. Thus they are the only line of defense.

On paper and in action shields are probably the best form of defense. They absorb damage so that the ship doesn't have to. However, their execution is somewhat flawed. Shields right now are viewed as a separate HP pool from what will be ship HP. Congrats, you dropped shields, now you have to drop not-shields before the ship is dead. Whoooo.

I propose a change to the shield mechanics. I believe that bubble shields directional shielding and projectile deflection would help eliminate the current strength of shields in proportion to armor/weapons.

PERMIT ME A DEMONSTRATION

Spoiler: Shieldos in fiction

Legend of the Galactic Heroes

In this universe, strong shields are projected towards the front of the ship to dissipate the power of incoming weapons fire. On the sides, rear, and top/bottom sides, however, they are much weaker. A direct hit from outside of these areas would be capable of destroying a ship, or at least crippling them. It also gave maneuver warfare a purpose, rather than just fleets slugging away at each other.

Star Trek

More of a clichéd proof but I'm gonna run with it. Shields are projected in facings. If the forward facing takes too much heat, they can redirect power from other facings. But that's a bit more complex than what I'm suggesting.

THEORETICALLY Similar to how thrust will soon be divided between the six facings, Shield capacity should be divided between the six facings of the ship, using percentages to determine the shield value on each facing. Regeneration would be divided between shield regeneration and redistribution. The regeneration would actually repair the shield strength as they do now, and the redistribution would ensure that the division of shield strength stays at the settings indicated. For example, if you have 50,000 (50% of your strength) shields on the forward facing with 10,000 on the other five, and the forward face takes 25k damage, the shields would redistribute their strength so that the forward facing still has 50% of the total remaining shield strength. Rate of redistribution would determine how quickly the shield system would be able to react and redistribute that shield strength. It would be in the same GUI window as the shield distribution.

"Oh, but com, how do we know what the facings look like? You can't calculate that without affecting performance!"

^you asking that question, probably.

Ships and entities already have bounding boxes (as an admin, you can make them visible with F4). It would be as simple as determining from which face on the bounding box the projectile/beam entered.

"But com, what if a projectile hits the shield at an extreme angle?"
This is a valid point so I won't make fun of you. Notice how in the first picture the shields deflected the shot. I figure it would be a neat aesthetic affect at the very least to show the weapon blast bouncing off from an extreme angle. Of course, I'm sure someone will explain why this is impossible and I'll just have to cry. Whatever.


2.I don't really have any valid solutions to the block damage aspect without really knowing how it works right now.

HOWEVER.

Missiles have an incredibly tight turn radius, making them literally impossible to dodge. Coupled with their near-unmatched speed (with beam), they're a potent weapon that really makes all others useless in comparison.

Two solutions to this one.

• Increase missile turn radius to be proportional with the speed. If beam slave missiles are meant to be long-range weapons, there should be a chance to evade them at close range. That is not the case right now.
• Reduce missile speed at launch. Speed builds as it travels. So a close range launch of a lockon is pretty easily dodged, whereas a long-range shot is hauling serious ass.

3. Not much I can say here but split the AI between turret types. PD turrets should be more accurate than anti-ship turrets, it just makes more sense in terms of balance. AI is getting an overhaul (from what I have heard) so in the long term this is probably already on the agenda.


4. is partially addressed with 1. Weaker shield facings would give smaller craft a chance to be useful against the less protected flanks/rear facings of spacecraft.

Additionally, re-introducing diminishing returns with weapons along with increasing power costs would also be useful to limit "doom weapon arrays" on ships. Sure you can make a 50,000 block beam cannon. But it's gonna cost you a good chunk of power to fire and won't be as effective as multiple other blasts.

"Oh but com people will just make checkerboards again"
refer to jontron image above

This is already addressed with multiple arrays on a single computer costing more power.
Plus, people still use checkerboards. People are always going to do this shit. There is nothing you can do about it other than make it power prohibitive.


5. Like with shields, armor should have a chance to deflect damage at angles. If I have a shot come in at a 5 degree angle it would only make sense for it to have a chance to bounce.

I can't really address this with missairu until someone more knowledgeable about explosive damage behavior gets in here and clears up the confusion. Once that's done I have a pretty decent idea in mind to finetune the damage type and make armor worth a damn.


6. I'd like to say this will be addressed with the thrust changes so I honestly just put that in the list so that morons wouldn't call me out on forgetting it.


7. Cloak/Jam really do need a cooldown timer at the very least. 6 seconds at most, it's just more than the time required to achieve a missile lock.

 

[CyberTao]

• Given the extreme ranges involved in space combat, the most effective weapons are lockon missiles (missile + beam/pulse slave)
  1. Another big issue is that issiles eat blocks for breakfast. (I'm gonna need schema or Calbiri to hop in here and explain how missile damage in detail before i offer a solution because I sure as shit don't remember the mechanics exactly, all I know is that the explosion is dissipated by void space)

I'm pretty sure Missiles work in a "staging" system, Lancake said that the missile radius is divided by 6, and for the explosion to reach the next stage, the blocks of the previous stage must be destroyed. There was something wrong with the scaling of damage between the stages.

THEORETICALLY Similar to how thrust will soon be divided between the six facings, Shield capacity should be divided between the six facings of the ship, using percentages to determine the shield value on each facing.

Why not use a 'reinforce' system? Set up 6 sliders, with Default in each being Zero, increasing one would mean you'd have to lower others, and increasing it would add an "armour" effect. 100% of the shields focused forwards would have an armour bonus of say 100%, but every other face would take 50% more damage. The numbers I used were probably bad, but I can't really wrap my head around 6 sliders and balancing atm.

Reduce missile speed just a teensy weensy bit. On hypercore, the speed limit is 200. Beam missiles at full efficiency travel at 1190. Undodgable.

You can scale missile speeds in the config, missiles were balanced for the default speed of 75, so if you want to crank up the speed, you need to adjust the weapon speeds as well.

Additionally, re-introducing diminishing returns with weapons along with increasing power costs would also be useful to limit "doom weapon arrays" on ships. Sure you can make a 50,000 block beam cannon. But it's gonna cost you a good chunk of power to fire and won't be as effective as multiple other blasts.

That would actually promote the use of fixed docked modules, since they could house their own power, would make broadsides more viable, since you could get more DPS and block breaking, but has the downside of each module needing it's own ships, allowing a smaller ship to hurt a titan.

7. Cloak/Jam really do need a cooldown timer at the very least. 6 seconds at most, it's just more than the time required to achieve a missile lock.

Agreed there. Just wanted to point that out.

 

[Comr4de]

I'm pretty sure Missiles work in a "staging" system, Lancake said that the missile radius is divided by 6, and for the explosion to reach the next stage, the blocks of the previous stage must be destroyed. There was something wrong with the scaling of damage between the stages.

I... still don't follow. Sorry.

You can scale missile speeds in the config, missiles were balanced for the default speed of 75, so if you want to crank up the speed, you need to adjust the weapon speeds as well.

Point to you. But with the default (I tested with that as well) beam missiles are still a bitch to drive even with 100% overdrive.
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Why not use a 'reinforce' system? Set up 6 sliders, with Default in each being Zero, increasing one would mean you'd have to lower others, and increasing it would add an "armour" effect. 100% of the shields focused forwards would have an armour bonus of say 100%, but every other face would take 50% more damage. The numbers I used were probably bad, but I can't really wrap my head around 6 sliders and balancing atm.

I mean it'd be the same thing as thrust. You'd have a pool to allocate to each facing, it isn't exactly rocket science. What you suggest would make ion effect obsolete.

 

[ltmauve]

I mean it'd be the same thing as thrust. You'd have a pool to allocate to each facing, it isn't exactly rocket science. What you suggest would make ion effect obsolete.

No it wouldn't. You're forgetting about drone swarms, which surround the target.

 

[Captain_Boroski]

Optionally, have two types of shields: Directional, more powerful but as said, not covering 100% of the ship. Then the traditional aka current one; covers entire ship but is weaker.

 

[CyberTao]

I mean it'd be the same thing as thrust. You'd have a pool to allocate to each facing, it isn't exactly rocket science. What you suggest would make ion effect obsolete.

The idea was instead of splitting up the shield capacity (would have to be recalculated every time you take damage or regenerate even a single shield point), you could just put a damage modifier onto the shield. Reinforcing a shield direction would make it stronger from that direction, but make it weaker in another (The total shield pool remains the same), which would encourage flanking and other such maneuvers to get into the shield's weaker points. Might also bring into play escort ships to support more specialized ships.

Perhaps the max you could set a shield is +50% reduction, meaning using Ion at 100% would bring your damage back to 100% (1/2 damage from shield buff, times the double shield damage from Ion). But bringing it up that high would have severe impact on the other sides. Alternatively, could leave everything at a 0% modifier to have what we have now.
I dunno, just a though I had.

Spoiler: Missile babble

The thing with missiles is they split up the damage into rings of sorts to reduce lag.
Stage one would be from the point of impact to a radius of 6 for example, and 100% of damage is spread over the blocks in that area.
Stage two would be a radius of 7 to 12, and spreads maybe 80% of the total missile damage over that area, but only if every block in stage one is destroyed (as an example).
But the % of damage applied to each stage is wrong or something, and more damage is being applied then the missile should have. Probably better to wait for someone else to explain it better.

 

[Planr]

I agree 115% with everything you said Comr4de, save for this one thing:

Thrust capabilities of large (25,000 mass and greater) ships are not hindered at all. Meaning a titan, with enough thrusters, can accelerate as fast as a frigate, eliminating any maneuverability advantage.

Thiiiis isn't quite true. The power drain on capitals ships for thrusters is enormous. It is extremely difficult, if not usually impossible, to reach a 1:1 thrust-mass ratio on a 25,000+ mass ships without a severe power drain. Smaller ships do not suffer from this. And you remember just as well as I do from our battle with Vox's deathcube that even his giant-as-crap ugly ship was extremely slow due to the power drawbacks for thrusters killing his power. Remember? When he attacked our planet it took him a long time to travel close to it due to his thrusters maxing out at 14 kph (if he put it any higher his power would have died).

 

[Comr4de]

No it wouldn't. You're forgetting about drone swarms, which surround the target.

...Okay? I'm not following your logic here. Please flesh this out a little bit more.

Thiiiis isn't quite true. The power drain on capitals ships for thrusters is enormous. It is extremely difficult, if not usually impossible, to reach a 1:1 thrust-mass ratio on a 25,000+ mass ships without a severe power drain. Smaller ships do not suffer from this. And you remember just as well as I do from our battle with Vox's deathcube that even his giant-as-crap ugly ship was extremely slow due to the power drawbacks for thrusters killing his power. Remember? When he attacked our planet it took him a long time to travel close to it due to his thrusters maxing out at 14 kph (if he put it any higher his power would have died).

Conversely, bloodlance's ship was the size of two sunrises and still was able to outrun us. Ball is in your court.
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The idea was instead of splitting up the shield capacity (would have to be recalculated every time you take damage or regenerate even a single shield point), you could just put a damage modifier onto the shield. Reinforcing a shield direction would make it stronger from that direction, but make it weaker in another (The total shield pool remains the same), which would encourage flanking and other such maneuvers to get into the shield's weaker points. Might also bring into play escort ships to support more specialized ships.

Perhaps the max you could set a shield is +50% reduction, meaning using Ion at 100% would bring your damage back to 100% (1/2 damage from shield buff, times the double shield damage from Ion). But bringing it up that high would have severe impact on the other sides. Alternatively, could leave everything at a 0% modifier to have what we have now.
I dunno, just a though I had.

Oooookay Im following you now. Yeah this makes sense. The reason I went with the splitting the shields between facings is because Ion already gives a flat damage reduction rate, that on top of reinforcing certain facings would be rage-inducing. Because if you have full ion PLUS the reinforce rate, you're still getting a 60% plus whatever your reinforce, which would also mitigate the damage buff to the side armor. So it'd kinda mitigate the risk of reinforcing to that facing.

 

[Lancake]

The missile stage system is hard to explain and I don't fully understand the math behind it either. Because of performance reasons he had to make it a bit easier to calculate damage although this was made a long time ago. The system is old and I'm sure he can find lots of ways to improve on it so it is 100% accurate and has not a big performance hit.

A missile has a radius, let's say...72.
The game divides that by 6. Now you have 6 different damage stages with each of them radius 12.

Damage dealt to a target goes through each stage. it is spread out over a stage. Meaning that it is not simple something like: 1st block has 200 hp, I have 150 000 damage remaining, block is destroyed, I have 149 800 damage remaining, I'll check the next block,...
This is NOT how it works, that's only checked between stages.

In a stage you have for example 100 000 start damage and it just gets distributed over that stage, the center will receive 100 000 damage, the sphere around that will get 90 000, the one after that 80 000,... till it reaches the end of a stage. This leads to largely inaccurate hull destruction as you have noticed.

The damage remaining that passes through the next stage is "accurate" though. Large missiles, like a nuke will even with a low amount of damage often devastate the 1st stage which is a big 12 radius hole.

Note: I have not read your post, just commenting on the missile stage system.

 

[Comr4de]

The missile stage system is hard to explain and I don't fully understand the math behind it either. Because of performance reasons he had to make it a bit easier to calculate damage although this was made a long time ago. The system is old and I'm sure he can find lots of ways to improve on it so it is 100% accurate and has not a big performance hit.

A missile has a radius, let's say...72.
The game divides that by 6. Now you have 6 different damage stages with each of them radius 12.

Damage dealt to a target goes through each stage. it is spread out over a stage. Meaning that it is not simple something like: 1st block has 200 hp, I have 150 000 damage remaining, block is destroyed, I have 149 800 damage remaining, I'll check the next block,...
This is NOT how it works, that's only checked between stages.

In a stage you have for example 100 000 start damage and it just gets distributed over that stage, the center will receive 100 000 damage, the sphere around that will get 90 000, the one after that 80 000,... till it reaches the end of a stage. This leads to largely inaccurate hull destruction as you have noticed.

The damage remaining that passes through the next stage is "accurate" though. Large missiles, like a nuke will even with a low amount of damage often devastate the 1st stage which is a big 12 radius hole.

Note: I have not read your post, just commenting on the missile stage system.

Thanks, this puts it in perspective. I'll figure out a way to bring it into balance with what I have.

 

[MeanIndividual]

I really get the feeling that LOTGH space combat is just musket firing lines in space. Ships line up face each other at effective range and just try and peg eachother.
By the looks of it with instant killing hits.

I alwayes loved the ridiculous attrition battles of warhammer 40k and even that one broad side scene in Star Wars. They don't just line up fleets, the drive into eachother wailing at one and other in every direction with turrets forward heavy weapons, and yes even broadsides.

Don't you dare drop the "Muh realism bomb" on me or you can: quote "gggeet the fuck out"

Anyway to stay on topic, I like the idea of directional shields.

 

[Lecic]

Additionally, re-introducing diminishing returns with weapons along with increasing power costs would also be useful to limit "doom weapon arrays" on ships. Sure you can make a 50,000 block beam cannon. But it's gonna cost you a good chunk of power to fire and won't be as effective as multiple other blasts.

"Oh but com people will just make checkerboards again"
refer to jontron image above

This is already addressed with multiple arrays on a single computer costing more power.
Plus, people still use checkerboards. People are always going to do this shit. There is nothing you can do about it other than make it power prohibitive.

Nice tactic, dismissing your opponents' arguments by saying they're being foolish and irrational. Have you considered a career in politics?

Checkerboards are less used than they used to be. That's in part because of hull breaking effects, which was one of checkerboards main advantages (ease at destroying massive amounts of blocks), as well as improvements to missiles and removing of diminishing returns.

If diminishing returns come back, increased power cost isn't going to be a solution. It wasn't a solution in the old days, and it won't be now, either.

The solution is simple. Give a weapon system a combined damage pool that's divided up among outputs based on the size. This prevents people from circumventing the diminishing returns by making shotguns like they used to.

I'm neutral or in agreement with everything else here.

 

[ltmauve]

..Okay? I'm not following your logic here. Please flesh this out a little bit more.

Woops. Ion effect protects the entire ship. CyberTao's suggestion would protect one part of the ship at the expense of another (though he already said that) And AI tends to circle around an enemy, so a drone swarm will surround the enemy, preventing them from beefing up one shield facing.

Optionally, have two types of shields: Directional, more powerful but as said, not covering 100% of the ship. Then the traditional aka current one; covers entire ship but is weaker.

Or just have the current shields, but increase the energy cost for using them. Combined with the pain-in-the-********* that gathering the resources is, that should shift focus more onto bubble shields.

 

[Comr4de]

Nice tactic, dismissing your opponents' arguments by saying they're being foolish and irrational. Have you considered a career in politics?

Love you too babe

I'm not dismissing them, I'm making fun of them while I respond to them. Completely different.

The solution is simple. Give a weapon system a combined damage pool that's divided up among outputs based on the size. This prevents people from circumventing the diminishing returns by making shotguns like they used to.

So a single array would fire from multiple outputs? Or am I reading this wrong?

Woops. Ion effect protects the entire ship. CyberTao's suggestion would protect one part of the ship at the expense of another (though he already said that) And AI tends to circle around an enemy, so a drone swarm will surround the enemy, preventing them from beefing up one shield facing.

The reason I went with the splitting the shields between facings is because Ion already gives a flat damage reduction rate, that on top of reinforcing certain facings would be rage-inducing. Because if you have full ion PLUS the reinforce rate, you're still getting a 60% plus whatever your reinforce, which would also mitigate the damage buff to the side armor. So it'd kinda mitigate the risk of reinforcing to that facing.

I feel like Ion's big schtick is damage reduction, I'm hesitant to stack other damage reduction effects on top of it, as 60% is already a pretty major damage reduction.

 

[ltmauve]

I feel like Ion's big schtick is damage reduction, I'm hesitant to stack other damage reduction effects on top of it, as 60% is already a pretty major damage reduction.

I suppose so. I was considering that damage reduction could help against high-alpha attacks, but then realized that there's no way to see them coming.

Anyway, rather than track the bounding box entry of the projectile, perhaps we could use the angle of the face that gets hit determines which shield facing(s) take the damage?

 

[Comr4de]

I suppose so. I was considering that damage reduction could help against high-alpha attacks, but then realized that there's no way to see them coming.

Anyway, rather than track the bounding box entry of the projectile, perhaps we could use the angle of the face that gets hit determines which shield facing(s) take the damage?

In a perfect world yes, however I figured bounding box would be a lot easier for someone at schine to get behind.

 

[Lecic]

Love you too babe

<3

So a single array would fire from multiple outputs? Or am I reading this wrong?

I don't think I explained this very well the first time.

So, let's say a single computer is linked up to 2 outputs. One has 4 blocks and the other has 6. This is a total of 10 blocks (thanks basic math)

With diminishing returns as they used to work, the 4 block one would have higher damage-per-module than the 6 block one.

With my proposed system, the total blocks hooked up the computer are counted (10) and the diminishing returns apply to those 10 blocks as if they were a single output. Then, that damage is split up depending on the amount of blocks for each output. So, with our example weapon, we end up with a 40%/60% total damage split.

This allows for weapons to have diminishing returns WITHOUT giving a boost to waffle-iron ships.

 

[kiddan]

Missiles have an incredibly tight turn radius, making them literally impossible to dodge.

One word: Hitboxes. Make a bunch of turrets to shoot them down. If it takes a while to shoot them down with turrets activate a passive overdrive effect and back up while they shoot. This might have already been thought about though, seeing you did say "literally impossible".

 

[Comr4de]

<3



I don't think I explained this very well the first time.

So, let's say a single computer is linked up to 2 outputs. One has 4 blocks and the other has 6. This is a total of 10 blocks (thanks basic math)

With diminishing returns as they used to work, the 4 block one would have higher damage-per-module than the 6 block one.

With my proposed system, the total blocks hooked up the computer are counted (10) and the diminishing returns apply to those 10 blocks as if they were a single output. Then, that damage is split up depending on the amount of blocks for each output. So, with our example weapon, we end up with a 40%/60% total damage split.

This allows for weapons to have diminishing returns WITHOUT giving a boost to waffle-iron ships.

OKAY that makes sense and I like it
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One word: Hitboxes. Make a bunch of turrets to shoot them down. If it takes a while to shoot them down with turrets activate a passive overdrive effect and back up while they shoot. This might have already been thought about though, seeing you did say "literally impossible".

This will buy time but it's still not very effective since AI can't lead on missiles worth a damn

 

[ltmauve]

In a perfect world yes, however I figured bounding box would be a lot easier for someone at schine to get behind.

But that actually seems harder to do than the faces, because the projectile is striking the faces when calcuating the shields. To calculate the shields based on hitboxes would be pretty glitchy, I feel.

I know Calbiri has mentioned wanting to do seperate shield pools on a ship (For distributing in different ways) And anyway, face-based shielding will require something like that anyway, for shaped blocks. (Which would draw from two different shield facing) Which should just split the damage between the pools based on the relative amount in each pool.
Example: A 30dmg shot hits a wedge (front-top) Top has 6k shields left, front has 12k left. The front will take 30dmg * 12k shields /(12k + 6k shields) or 20dmg. The top takes 30dmg - 20dmg = 10dmg.