Get Rid of Ship Cores

[Valiant70]

Ship cores were okay for early alpha, as simple solution to:

1. Provide center of mass/rotation
2. Kill the ship
3. Control the ship
   
4. Link stuff to give the pilot control
5. Make it obvious that the entity is a ship
6. (do stuff under the hood?)

There have been many, many suggestions for moving the ship core because the immutable block is a pain. Why do we need this block? What part of Starmade's ship code is so tied to a single, immutable block, and why was it done this way?

The core is no longer needed to provide center of mass or to kill the ship, so two of five gameplay functions are gone. (Thank you, Schema!!!) Looking at the HUD marker color is easier than looking for a ship core, so that's out too.

The remaining functions are controlling the ship, linking systems to pilot controls, and non-gameplay functions. Helm consoles or "control chairs" have been a desired feature for a long time. A system for control consoles is slated to come out with the NPC crew update. I think these will make the most sense if they are de-centralized groups linked to specific consoles. Being able to control one system from multiple consoles would be nice, but doing so should only require some sort of optional hub computer, not an immutable block.

Once that is done, the only purpose of ship cores will be non-gameplay or "under-the-hood" functions, which should be relocated from a block to a data structure with no physical representation.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Yeah, this makes sense. I kinda went the other way with a suggestion a while ago, but I think you're right about it eventually becoming redundant to game play. Even the targeting of the core could be moved to something else like the centre of mass, which makes more sense.

However, if they do continue to maintain the core you could go the complete opposite and make sure everything has a core including Asteroids, Planets and Stations. And then deliberately add game play around the core like making it the strongest/weakest point on the entity or something.

My suggestion was around making a universal core that you could use to manipulate the structure in ways you could not from any chair or other kind of console control station. Perhaps giving access to the core structure could be the game play option to retain it.
Celestial Core

 

[Ithirahad]

Agreed; this needs to be done. Creating a new ship/station should consume a build block instead of a ship core, and all of its functions should be decentralized to computers (e.g. thrust computer, structure monitoring computer). Radar mark can be moved to the center of mass.

 

[Plisko]

I tend to agree with this. It's a hassle trying to figure out placement when you don't know what your ship is going to be yet. However, it's not just ships and stations. The rail mechanics rely heavily on cores with dockers to define things as moveable. It is awkward, I agree, and it gets worse the more parts you have in a rail build. . . but it may not be so easy to change.

 

[Ithirahad]

The rail mechanics rely heavily on cores with dockers to define things as moveable.

Uhm, no. An entity is an entity, and isn't defined by a core. You can/could create an entity via file editing or whatever that is just a docker, and it would still work... or replace the ship core with whatever block via file editing and the ship would become un-enterable, but (bugs aside) nothing would really change.

 

[Extholious]

Death To The Core, Up With Pilot Seats!!

 

[Nauvran]

Uhm, no. An entity is an entity, and isn't defined by a core. You can/could create an entity via file editing or whatever that is just a docker, and it would still work... or replace the ship core with whatever block via file editing and the ship would become un-enterable, but (bugs aside) nothing would really change.

it could make it a tad more troublesome to fly to your ship and dock your turret, door, etc.

 

[Ithirahad]

Death To The Core, Up With Pilot Seats!!

Yeah, yeah. Seats are already confirmed. That's not really the point of this suggestion. The point is that ship cores will probably continue to exist after seats are added, and they shouldn't.

it could make it a tad more troublesome to fly to your ship and dock your turret, door, etc.

Yes, until we get the ability to load blueprints directly onto a docking location. I'd be willing to wait an extra two weeks for the chairs update to get that particular feature in anyway.

 

[Kelpaz]

Pro: No core entities would be good for rail doors hatches and moving ship parts.

Con: Removing cores completely would bring back the age old problem of coring again except this time the pilot inside is the one getting cored.

So one step forward and one step back.

Unless the pilot get protection like a core.

Don't get me wrong I plan to use command chairs when they get available, but I still want to be able to get into the core if things heat up too much in a ship.

Spoiler

Bonus: Small ship to ship bricks would leave the pilot even more exposed.

 

[Valiant70]

Pro: No core entities would be good for rail doors hatches and moving ship parts.

Con: Removing cores completely would bring back the age old problem of coring again except this time the pilot inside is the one getting cored.

So one step forward and one step back.

Unless the pilot get protection like a core.

Don't get me wrong I plan to use command chairs when they get available, but I still want to be able to get into the core if things heat up too much in a ship.

Spoiler

Bonus: Small ship to ship bricks would leave the pilot even more exposed.

Part of the problem with coring was that you could destroy the ENTIRE rest of the ship without killing it, which is stupid. Another part was that ships were TOTALLY frakked after losing shields. Neither of these is true anymore.

The problem of killing the ship by hitting a single target is still there with exposed pilots, but in this it's both realistic, makes sense, and is consistent with all sic-fi that I know of. We also have functioning armor now, and you could even have an extra entity surrounding bridge/CIC with its own shield. There are more ways to keep pilots safe than there were to keep cores safe in the old days.

So no, I don't think the pilot really needs to be invincible.

 

[Kelpaz]

The problem of killing the ship by hitting a single target is still there with exposed pilots

If a pilot sits outside the core you can lock onto them with the navigation menu, no it wouldn't be harder to hit them.
Turrets set to target astronauts would fire directly at the crew ignoring all docked entities as well.

I would rather have the option of no core rather than complete removal.

 

[Valiant70]

If a pilot sits outside the core you can lock onto them with the navigation menu, no it wouldn't be harder to hit them.
Turrets set to target astronauts would fire directly at the crew ignoring all docked entities as well.

I would rather have the option of no core rather than complete removal.

The game may add ways to hide crew inside ships from detection. I seem to recall that this was discussed for precisely that reason. "Information warfare" will be a thing. You can't lock onto crew if you can't detect them within the ship! Besides, how do you know which one is the pilot if the ship is fully crewed?

 

[Kelpaz]

The game may add ways to hide crew inside ships from detection. I seem to recall that this was discussed for precisely that reason. "Information warfare" will be a thing. You can't lock onto crew if you can't detect them within the ship! Besides, how do you know which one is the pilot if the ship is fully crewed?

From what I remember the information warfare update will help you target ship systems.
Hiding the crew itself would require everyone on board to have their own jammer.
The nav menu shows you crew and pilots already.

 

[Valiant70]

From what I remember the information warfare update will help you target ship systems.
Hiding the crew itself would require everyone on board to have their own jammer.
The nav menu shows you crew and pilots already.

Information warfare will begin with systems, yes. Crew is a natural and necessary extension of that.

 

[Kelpaz]

Information warfare will begin with systems, yes. Crew is a natural and necessary extension of that.

This is from StarMade News - StarMade Ship Systems 2.0

"Information warfare

Knowing where the reactors are of your opponent’s ship is quite important now and we don’t want people to just randomly shoot ships either. Going back to the old core drilling where you always knew where to shoot is not an option either. The ability to find reactor related blocks is something that will be tied to the scanner blocks and also the Scanner + ECM tree with the reactors.

In best case scenario, you can see exactly where they are, lighting up green through the hull’s ship. This would of course scale properly with transparency and intensity so that the most important reactors are easily seen

In worst case scenario, those reactor groups would not show up or appear bigger than they are and they may even move around randomly (scrambled).

In which scenario you end up depends on how strong and upgraded your scanners are, and how many points the enemy invested into countering it."

It's about system targeting and ECM scrambling it's signature.
They will probably think of crew stuff once they actually release the crew quarters update but until then I don't think it's going to be priority.​

 

[jayman38]

The devs would probably consider this and "hide" anything aligned to the ship from the nav scanner.

As long as you aren't free-floating inside the ship, it would be consistent to other scifi media that individual astronauts in (or on) the ship can't be targeted without some kind of "marker". And that might lead to a new kind of astronaut weapon: the transponder dart gun (or something similar), which might add a whole new level to ship-boarding warfare, making astronaut-marking an important goal as much as sabotaging ship systems.

It would be even better if Schine could hide an astronaut even if he is floating free of the ship, as long as that astronaut is inside. However, that might take some extra ray-tracing or some other computational trickery, which would inevitably add to computation load (I.E. lag).

 

[Valiant70]

This is from StarMade News - StarMade Ship Systems 2.0

"Information warfare

Knowing where the reactors are of your opponent’s ship is quite important now and we don’t want people to just randomly shoot ships either. Going back to the old core drilling where you always knew where to shoot is not an option either. The ability to find reactor related blocks is something that will be tied to the scanner blocks and also the Scanner + ECM tree with the reactors.

In best case scenario, you can see exactly where they are, lighting up green through the hull’s ship. This would of course scale properly with transparency and intensity so that the most important reactors are easily seen

In worst case scenario, those reactor groups would not show up or appear bigger than they are and they may even move around randomly (scrambled).

In which scenario you end up depends on how strong and upgraded your scanners are, and how many points the enemy invested into countering it."

It's about system targeting and ECM scrambling it's signature.
They will probably think of crew stuff once they actually release the crew quarters update but until then I don't think it's going to be priority.​

That's exactly what I'm talking about.

They don't want to go back to always knowing where to shoot (core marker or astronaut marker) so instead we get information warfare. They'll have to do the same thing with crew as with reactors. Two targets, same problem, same solution. It should be quite a bit harder to spot a human than a big, electromagnetically active machine, though. That's good, because humans are easier to kill.

 

[Calhoun]

We also have functioning armor now

I'm just going to point out that armour is all but completely useless at the average PvP ship size.

 

[Valiant70]

I'm just going to point out that armour is all but completely useless at the average PvP ship size.

How large is that?

 

[Calhoun]

How large is that?

Anything above 5k honestly. It's extremely easy to make a gun that will vaporise quite a few layers of advanced armour.