Ejection system - sometimes you just need to punch out.

[DrWhitePsyker]

I thought up of this idea during a fight with some pirates; I was losing hard and I needed to leave my dead-in-the-water ship. However, the second I stepped out, I was going to blasted to atoms by the pirates. I had no way to escape my metal tomb. As I sat there, listening to the pounding of AMC's against the remaining hull, I thought - I wish there was a way to eject the core and fly off. A sort of panic button, if you will.

Now, on larger ships, It might be viable to build a whole docked micro-ship in the styling of an escape pod but it's not so easily done on smaller ships.

So I submit to you - A suggestion for a small-scale ejection system: Escape-cores.

Simplistic, An escape-core would be a armored ship-core that can only be entered via a weapon bind and self destructs when exited. Plop it on your ship like a docked object and fly around with it. When things get too hairy, hit that weapon key and it'll switch to it and undock. Given that cores are speedy as it is, this will give you an much smaller, faster target to escape from those foes with, taking all your precious loot with you. Couple it with a little bit of the rocket trail effect and a initial boost in an upwards direction (relative to how you placed it) and it'll look like a proper punch-out system. Ace-combat, eat your heart out.

A more advance version could be a sort of 'warp out' system that drops you in a micro-ship/escape-core a sector or two away when triggered. Sure, you lose your ship but at least you made it out alive and you get a head start to escape in your little armored box.

To avoid abuse, they would have to be significantly more pricey than a normal core but thats the price you pay to save your stuff. Perhaps the core also has limited power capacity and, once the power is drained, it ejects you and destructs automatically. That would prevent players being able to run from every fight - a determined opponent could just follow the core.

BLEH, its just an idea. Any thoughts?

 

[therimmer96]

This is the same concept I posted a while back on the old site. so an inherited +1 :D

 

[rece ktore leczo]

I like the idea of escape system, but i'm not a fan of flying cores. They are convenient in use, that's obvious, but single blocks flying around look pretty weird. So IMO escape pods should be made of at least few blocks. And to be honest we can already make these.

Just make a docking space inside Your ship (so docked ship will be protected) with a small runway, dock there a little ship, made from few power gens, thrusters and maybe few shield generators, and when You want to escape Your ship, just press up/down arrow until You are inside of Your escape pod.
Pressing up/down arrows teleports between different entities docked to the ship (it works for the turrets, i'm not sure for docked ships) and once inside escape pod, undock and fly away.

 

[Dragleones]

I think we don't need such a system. Death in starmade is relativly forgiving, since it will only cost you a part of your credits and resets your position.
If we also have a system like that death is too easy to avoid and therefore way too forgiving.
In a game players usually adapt oneselves to the way death is handled. High death penaltys result in more passive gameplay, while easy avoidable death or low death penaltys result in more aggressive/risky gameplay.
I have no influence on the gameplay, therefore i only can speak for myself, but i think in the current system death is already pretty forgiving. (except the navigation part.... its horrible to find a certain planet/location again after you died unexpected... but thats another topic :<)
And we already have all tools we need to build such a system for ourselves (like docking spaces), which is what a sandbox game is in the end about.

 

[therimmer96]

It would be good for RP and hardcore servers, where death is not so forgiving

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

If docking areas could be set to lower minimum sizes, escape pods via docked ships would be entirely doable on even small ships. I'd prefer using the generalized system we currently have that's very flexible over a less flexible specialized system (which would be redundant even now for any big ship).

 

[Mr. V]

I really like this idea +1

I also agree with Nebulon - I think it might be better to implement it through a variation on the current docking system

Maybe a 3rd set of docking blocks/enhancers similar to the existing ones. This one would dock flush to the point of docking and would simply allow more than one ship to act as one. while docked they'd act exactly like a single ship (shared power, shields, thrust, etc). When separated you'd stay in one of them and continue to just pilot that section while the other section drifted off, now devoid of a pilot.

I think this would allow for escape pods while promoting creativity in terms of how it was implemented by different players. It'd probably also encourage people to find some other interesting things to do with an added system of docking as well....

 

[Fwyrl]

I really like this idea +1

I also agree with Nebulon - I think it might be better to implement it through a variation on the current docking system

Maybe a 3rd set of docking blocks/enhancers similar to the existing ones. This one would dock flush to the point of docking and would simply allow more than one ship to act as one. while docked they'd act exactly like a single ship (shared power, shields, thrust, etc). When separated you'd stay in one of them and continue to just pilot that section while the other section drifted off, now devoid of a pilot.

I think this would allow for escape pods while promoting creativity in terms of how it was implemented by different players. It'd probably also encourage people to find some other interesting things to do with an added system of docking as well....

I love that idea! you could do so much with that.


As for escape pods, it would be nice to be able to click-and-escape, so what I propose is something like the current docking system, except that when you eject the escape pod, it switches you to that core, instead of the ship you're on.

 

[DaedalusMachina]

Perhaps the "Eject Core" or "Shuttle Core" is a special core, cheaper than a ship core, but it has a severe limitation on what systems it can have onboard. Can only have ten blocks, can't operate any computers, etc.

Or, if you're into it. Fit a warhead on it, and fling that sucker as a mega missile.

 

[jayman38]

I think the next update or two will change the docking system. And it sounds like updates will come more regularly for a while. I recommend taking a wait-and-see approach for a couple of months, to see if a smaller minimum docking space makes an appearance.

On the other hand, I think emergency cores would be a great addition to the game. Yeah, they are smaller than an escape pod should be, but the blocks that make up everything are bigger than they should be, so I'd say it is fair.

I'm smiling, thinking of a large, crewable vessel, dead in space, and suddenly, 50 little blocks fly off of it in all directions, some of which hold the ship's surviving crew. The enemy freezes for a moment in panic, thinking it is one last missile strike.

 

[Keptick]

You could actually do that with a very small amount of logic and creativity:

1. Dock a core to your ship
2. Link the dock to a not gate
3. link the not gate to a beam computer
4. Place a single beam block behind the dock, make sure that the beam computer is properly oriented. Link the beam computer to that beam block.
5. Link the beam computer to a push computer and a single push block (to get 100% push effect on the beam).

Tadaaaa! To use it simply switch to it with the up arrow key and undock! When you undock the core the push beam will activate and instantly propel you at max speed. The whole contraption would take 6 blocks, including the dock. Pretty manageable even on small ships ^_^.

I realize that it's not as nice as what you're suggesting but it would still be better than nothing :P