Read by Council Destruction of damaged undocked entities

[Mr.Steam]

I was testing out some fighter designs that contained several moving parts like folding wings, landing gear etc. I hit a wing rail docker and the wing shook around for a while trying to break loose. It caused moderate lag on my computer and didn't stop until I hit it a bunch more times allowing it to break free.

I suggest that if a docked entity becomes damaged in combat and becomes undocked, rather than let it bounce around and lag, allow a couple collision checks then completely destroy the undocked entity. If it immediately breaks free after being hit, that is fine then let it float free, but if it collides a few times because it is entangled with something then destroy it. This will prevent sliding doors or landing gears or some other internal entity that is stuck from constantly causing lag.

 

[Malacodor]

Or do a check if the undocked entity could move in any of the coordinate directions, and if not just leave it in the main ship's reference frame (like a space bar aligned astronaut) and don't do any collision checks. Repeat after more blocks are destroyed. If it CAN move, but still gets stuck, then do what OP suggests.

 

[nightrune]

This is a pretty big issue. If you have docked reactors its pretty horrible as well.

 

[DrTarDIS]

so... turn collision damage on?

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Collision Damage alone won't help, as that then just obliterates even more of the ship, potentially even more catastrophically than losing the docked entity alone would cause.

More important on that front, Collision Damage is a server setting, so it naturally varies by server. Some don't have it enabled, some do.

The suggestion would have to effect servers that don't use collision damage, while doing nothing on those in which it is enabled

 

[DrTarDIS]

Collision Damage alone won't help, as that then just obliterates even more of the ship, potentially even more catastrophically than losing the docked entity alone would cause.

More important on that front, Collision Damage is a server setting, so it naturally varies by server. Some don't have it enabled, some do.

The suggestion would have to effect servers that don't use collision damage, while doing nothing on those in which it is enabled

I get that, but I'm picturing a large drone or captain's yacht "deleting itself" because the main ship got "anomalous rotational delta" somewhere around the undocking. Things like that make it sound like "more pain than gain" to me.

I was also pointing out that collision damage exists as a "fix" already, even if you(/admin/server/playerbase) find "colliding stuff in my precious ship" to be horrifying. I find "deleting stuff at random" horrifying for similar reasons.

 

[Mr.Steam]

The undocked entity would only be destroyed if it was undocked due to the rail or rail docker getting destroyed from weapons fire. It wouldn't be destroyed just because you tried to undock it and ended up colliding with the parent entity. If your docked "captains yacht" was damaged enough in combat to destroy the rail docker then it probably wasn't salvagable anyway.

There may be better solutions to this problem but I do know that colliding entites cause quite a bit of lag on my computer and a solution is needed. It really discourages me from having a bunch of docked entites (like sliding doors) on my ship.

 

[jayman38]

I suggest a quick bounding box check. If the damaged entity is outside, on its own, it won't get erased and will float off like normal. But if it's in the host ship's bounding box, whoosh, gone. (Of course, in the finished game, you'll add particle-based sparks and things to suggest that the internal docked entity exploded catastrophically.) I like this solution. Like, a lot. I'm going to give this suggestion a Valentine's Day card.

 

[DrTarDIS]

I suggest a quick bounding box check....if it's in the host ship's bounding box, whoosh, gone.

...so internal hangars are a "no"...drone magazines also no...

Just gonna reiterate not a fan of this. Scary.

now "teleporting to nearest onoccupied segment of sector." that I could get behind

 

[jayman38]

...so internal hangars are a "no"...drone magazines also no...

Just gonna reiterate not a fan of this. Scary.

now "teleporting to nearest onoccupied segment of sector." that I could get behind

The undocked entity would only be destroyed if it was undocked due to the rail or rail docker getting destroyed from weapons fire. It wouldn't be destroyed just because you tried to undock it and ended up colliding with the parent entity. If your docked "captains yacht" was damaged enough in combat to destroy the rail docker then it probably wasn't salvagable anyway.

Massive sub-entities still need to be removed if they are knocked loose, to avoid lag spikes.

However, your suggestion of teleporting undamaged sub-entities (or even the entire mid-level entity on which the other sub-entities hang) to a nearby unoccupied area is a valuable addition to this suggestion thread. Nice idea. It would be a little jarring and unrealistic, but the heart of this suggestion seems to be to remove those lag spikes, not just wipe out subsystems.

 

[nightrune]

I wonder it would be less jarring if its collision was just turned off on the parent until it was free.