Destroy-able ship cores

[Ixalite]

I disagree with the ease of capturing ships defeated in combat. The player just jumps in the overheating core, and they now have total access to the damaged vessel.

My suggestion is this: Have a config option to remove "overheating" cores. When the core is hit, have it destroyed completely. This way, defeated ships can only be salvaged by salvage beams.

For capturing ships, I suggest that cores behave differently when damaged by personnel weapons. If you shoot a core with your hand weapon, it should just kill the player inside (or shut off the AI) leaving the ship totally intact. This would of course go hand-in-hand with the known idea of permitting hand weapons to ignore shields.

Spaceship tax:

 

[jzimmerman4]

This certainly sounds like it would make build blocking happen less and would make salvagers more useful. I like it a lot! +1

 

[Poofer]

This works only if the purpose is to not allow a player to control a ship. Right now if you despawn the core, you despawn everything.
If there was a way to despawn only the core and make the rest a "structure", i don't see why you couldn't plop a build block, get inside and put another core in it (as balance).

Also, why in the world would handgun fire ignore shields?
- If the shields only worked as a bubble and only protected the outside, sure... but you would need to bring down their shields and get inside before they went up, and you'd need to either take control of the ship or bring shields down again if you wanted to get out.
- if the shields continue to work as they do, there's simply no reason for handguns magically ignore shields.

 

[lazarus78]

Also, why in the world would handgun fire ignore shields?
- If the shields only worked as a bubble and only protected the outside, sure... but you would need to bring down their shields and get inside before they went up, and you'd need to either take control of the ship or bring shields down again if you wanted to get out.
- if the shields continue to work as they do, there's simply no reason for handguns magically ignore shields.

The handgun doesnt do enough damage to be an effective block destroyer, so there is little risk there. I think the idea is to make interior combat more viable by not having to worry about the ship's millions of shields vs your puny gun while on the inside.


I do hope the reliance on a physical core block is swiftly removed. It seems to be the root of many problems.

 

[CyberTao]

The handgun doesnt do enough damage to be an effective block destroyer, so there is little risk there.

The thing is the core has 20% armour, and Standard armour has 25%. There isn't much difference between legitimate boarding and greifing a ship when the owner is offline (I do consider it greifing when the intend is just to steal and build block a ship) by drilling your way through the side. You could do that with a ship yes, but an asternaut has the ability to grapple, meaning turrets could potentially never be a problem.

I'm of a believe that some blocks should be set or can be toggled to not be protected by shields at all, and then have their armour set so that you would need a rocket launcher to damage them. You'd then at least have to 'proper' way to board the ship.

 

[lazarus78]

The thing is the core has 20% armour, and Standard armour has 25%. There isn't much difference between legitimate boarding and greifing a ship when the owner is offline (I do consider it greifing when the intend is just to steal and build block a ship) by drilling your way through the side. You could do that with a ship yes, but an asternaut has the ability to grapple, meaning turrets could potentially never be a problem.

I'm of a believe that some blocks should be set or can be toggled to not be protected by shields at all, and then have their armour set so that you would need a rocket launcher to damage them. You'd then at least have to 'proper' way to board the ship.

Well if you leave your ship out in the open, thems the risk. But I get your point, which brings up another point of need, interior anti-personnel turrets. 1x1x2 objects that will protect the interior of ships from boarding parties.

 

[Monchoman45]

Right now if you despawn the core, you despawn everything.

I do hope the reliance on a physical core block is swiftly removed. It seems to be the root of many problems.

Dirty secret: the core block itself is not actually that important. Short of the pilot-the-ship thing, of course. We already have grids without cores: everything from stations to asteroids to planets.

The ship is not a core surrounded by blocks, the ship is a grid. The core is at the center, but only because the game put it there. It could have put a reactor there, or a thruster, or a rubber duck. You can totally take it out, you just wouldn't be able to fly the ship anymore.

Limitations on the core don't arise because there is a core, they arise because there is a grid. You can't move the core because you can't move 0,0,0. If you want to move 0,0,0, you have to instead move every single block. Imagine trying to move the spawn galaxy 3 systems to the left - you'd be moving a lot of stars. If you take away the core - or the spawn system - you still have a grid. If you want to move the grid, you have to move all the blocks.

 

[lazarus78]

Dirty secret: the core block itself is not actually that important. Short of the pilot-the-ship thing, of course. We already have grids without cores: everything from stations to asteroids to planets.

The ship is not a core surrounded by blocks, the ship is a grid. The core is at the center, but only because the game put it there. It could have put a reactor there, or a thruster, or a rubber duck. You can totally take it out, you just wouldn't be able to fly the ship anymore.

Limitations on the core don't arise because there is a core, they arise because there is a grid. You can't move the core because you can't move 0,0,0. If you want to move 0,0,0, you have to instead move every single block. Imagine trying to move the spawn galaxy 3 systems to the left - you'd be moving a lot of stars. If you take away the core - or the spawn system - you still have a grid. If you want to move the grid, you have to move all the blocks.

There is the main problem. Yes it could have put anything, but it doesnt. Astroids and stations don't have a "core" of any kind, which is what ships need. A center point, sure, but get rid of having a block tied to it. Moving the core shouldn't cause me to have to readjust the ENTIRE ship, it should be a simple matter of poping off the block and pasting it somewhere else. The grid doesn't NEED to be tied to a block, which is half the frustration with ship building.

 

[CyberTao]

the core block itself is not actually that important.

The core is where a lot of the calculating for a ship is done, center for rotation and all that. The core actually sits at 8, 8, 8 on the ship's grid as well, so it's not acting from the 0, 0, 0 point. If there was some form of simple math involved like -X, Y, Z to put it on 0, 0, 0, then moving the core would be a completely trivial thing I would think, you'd just have to adjust those values. Maybe they are working on that.

Stations are a tad different, they are aligned to sector coordinates, which is why they don't move at all. Asteroids are weird though, their core-less-ness was used as the base for breakoff, and broken off bits of a ship got turned into asteroids upon unloading iirc. It's like the ship core is required for the game to acknowledge that a ship is a ship right now.

 

[Ixalite]

This thread sure wandered about a bit!
I take it we are generally in favor of including an OPTION (not requirement) for the ship core to be destroyable?