Determine silhouette of ship to use in various calculations

[apelsinsaft]

This is a suggestion i've touched on a couple times that i figured i might as well condense into a thread.

Lets begin by assuming that we have built a ship. Lets assume now the computer places a camera at different angles around the ship we built and takes pictures. Then it takes all the silhouettes of the ship that it just got and adds up their total surface area. This can be used like an aggregate score to determine how easy the ship is to hit with weapons fire. Lets call this score our ships "Signature Radius", because that worked for EvE. The signature radius of our ship can be used in a wide variety of different things.

• Determining how easy the ship is to hit when solving player-less AI fights
• Creating a baseline for how much power a ship can output with its power blocks, to avoid the need for stabilizers and other complications while avoiding XYZ dimension minmaxing
• Various things regarding electronic warfare/cloak&jam/scanning
• Classifications of ships for RP

It's maybe a little head scratcher to implement something this, but it could potentially simplify a lot of features down the line. Can anybody think of other uses for this kind of ship signature radius score?

 

[Daeridanii]

In general, I like the idea; even if it is a little rough around the edges.

Creating a baseline for how much power a ship can output with its power blocks, to avoid the need for stabilizers and other complications while avoiding XYZ dimension minmaxing

I appreciate the need for simplicity, but this seems to be overdoing it a little. I think that working on the power system itself is better than adding restrictions such as this.
Otherwise, I think that this is definitely work looking at.

 

[apelsinsaft]

I think that working on the power system itself is better than adding restrictions such as this.

Take it only as a baseline, it doesn't necessarily have to mean "ok your ship has a signature radius of 1000 so you get 1000 power", but rather it could be used for example like "ok your ship has a signature radius of 1000, so every power block after 1000 makes the entire reactor more volatile or gives you X penalty somewhere" or something like that.

Actually, that leads me into another idea. What if, once you're past the "max amount" of power, you get to CHOOSE which penalty you want your ship systems to receive? Either it could work with adjacency, so for example if your reactor is closest to your thrusters, the penalty would go to your total thrust efficiency. Or there could be another freakin menu (god bless) where you can assign the different ratios of penalty for different systems. The possibilities for self-punishment are endless.

 

[Dire Venom]

Intersting concept.
I'm not sure how much or what impact it would have, but it's certiantly something different.
It did remind me of another idea I saw floating about a while ago,
With when a Blueprint of a ship is made, additional data is generated. Just like how ships are low-rendered at a distance, a set of graphics for full rotation of a model of the ship at the point of saving would be added to the blue print.
When the ship is selected by a player, in the top of their UI they get a rendition such as this:


NDS - Tier 1 Light Defence Platform by Guthris on Sketchfab

Loaded from the the blueprint, with the direction it is facing dependent on the ships actual facing direction, while changing if the actual target moves.
Like in elite dangerous, where they have a basic ship modal on your UI when locked on:

The modal would already be pre-rendered, simple and not update unless the blueprint of the entity was changed.
E.g a modal like this rotating with the target in your UI:

Because it is not displaying the actual ship, just a pre-rendered set of graphics it wouldn't be resource intentsive.
If it makes the modals simple enough then I don't think there would be any issue of the modal not changing as the ship took damage.
It could even get red highlights if it is getting shot their etc.