DOCKED HULL MUST BE FIXED.

[Lancake]

This is an easy fix, no? 100% sharing for docked entities, 75% for turrets. That encourages modular building, removed the penalties for, say, moving hangar doors over plexdoors, keeps turrets as weak spots, and fixes docked hull.

What about docking something to a turret and wrapping around it?
Does the wrapped structure inherit 100% of everything below?

If it does, then your 75% of the turret doesn't matter since it never gits hit till the shield is down (and then shield sharing is useless).

If it doesn't inherit 100% from below, but 100% of the 75% it is docked to, you get weird results for anything but this example.
Such as the barrel of a turret getting 75% (docked to rail axis) of 75% (turret base) so it only gets 56.25% shield sharing. And it becomes worse when you dock a turret to a turret to a turret. At some point shield sharing on the top most turrets will approach 0%.

Tons of possibilities, even if most of them appear silly to you, people will use them and if we allow it, abuse it.

 

[lupoCani]

In fact, I've put quite some thought into these specifics.

Schema explained the algorithm for shield sharing when it was first implemented- when a docked entity is hit (the damagee), the damage is taken by the lowest entity below the damagee in the tree with shields still above the threshold.

Adding the docked-100%, turret-75%-mechanic, we should simply need to redefine the 'threshold' as 75% for all entities with at least one turret dock between it and the damagee, and 100% for all entities with zero turret docks between it and the damagee.

Thus, considering your examples-

An entity static-docked to a turret (gun) inherits 100% from the gun, 75% from the base, and 75% from the mothership. That is, so long as the mothership is above 25%, it takes all the damage for the static-docked-to-turret entity. If the mothership drops below 25%, the turret base takes all the damage so long as it is above 25%. If the mothership and the turret base both drop below 25%, the turret gun protects its static-docked entity so long as it's above 0%.

Furthemore, since shield sharing (even now) works by locating a specific entity, based on static thresholds, and redirecting all of the damage there, there is no need to worry about multiplying percentages. A mothership will protect all child entities so long as it's above 25%, and all entities without a turret dock in between so long as it's above 0%.

I consider myself the last person to dismiss an exploit as silly. We have seen StarMade players do far sillier things in pushing their designs to their very limit. However, I have honestly failed to find any useful exploits in this system.

Except, perhaps, turret-docked armor. The horror.

 

[ohartenstein23]

Setting a difference in shield threshold between rail basic-docked entities and rail turret axis-docked entities will still not solve the issue of tanking with docked hull as an 'exploit;' the rail basic will just be swapped for rail turret axis blocks to use the 75% threshold instead of the 100% threshold. My suggestion would be to merge the shields of any turret-docked entity with the next non-turret up the chain, but I have the feeling this could be exploited somehow by putting an extra docker in the chain to separate mother ship shields from turret shields.

 

[Lecic]

This is an easy fix, no? 100% sharing for docked entities, 75% for turrets. That encourages modular building, removed the penalties for, say, moving hangar doors over plexdoors, keeps turrets as weak spots, and fixes docked hull.

And how do you determine the difference between a turret and a docked entity? What prevents me from making a docked hull that's just docked to a turret dock? AI? What prevents me from just having the AI block off? Would you have shield sharing be 100% until I turned my AI on, at which point it's 75%? What stops me from having a docked "turret" hull that has some blocks holding it in place so it can't turn? Lag issues, perhaps? Ok, then what stops me from making my ship a sphere and having a glass turret sphere that can freely spin around the entire ship?

Just have 100% shield sharing and end docked hull already.

 

[lupoCani]

I have stated already that using turret docks as static docks were something thing I didn't think of. And, for the record, I did extensively clarify the definition of a turret as something docked to a particular entity via at least one turret dock - though I do recognize that this definition is vulnerable to exploitation, and if this cannot be repaired, the idea is moot for addressing the docked hull problem.

100% shield sharing... In the long term, I am very much for it.

Turrets as weak spots never did appeal to me, seeing as they are very secondary - a fighter squadron may be able to cripple a larger ship's turret batteries, but this will mostly hinder said ship's ability to combat those same fighters, not cripple it against its main opponent. It has always seemed to me that weak spot mechanics should revolve around the central functions of a ship - targeting particular systems or locations. And in fairness, we'll be getting more of this with Systems 2.0. I have several ideas for how to expand on this too, none of which are immediately pertinent here. But until then, I recognize Schine's ideal of turrets as weak spots, and will attempt to put forth suggestions in cooperation with this.