Heat/Cooling as an alternative to stabilizers and reactor HP

[Cluwne]

Valiant70 Lecic
So basically it's SHP, but comprised of individual systems' HP AND overall structural integrity of the ship? Sounds reasonable.
I mean, even if most of the systems are intact, the ship will still fall apart because it has more holes in it than Schine's Vision™ of the game.
Then the excess heat would damage the systems, keeping the integrity mostly untouched.

 

[Nosajimiki]

hehe, yes, multiple reactors should be a thing.

As for your guns, it takes a 10k beam-beam-ion weapon to drop all of those 120m shields in ~1 minute or a 40k beam-beam-ion can do it in exactly 1 second (4x the alpha = 60x the kill rate). In comparison, a 10k DoT weapon will also take ~1 min, but a 40k DoT weapon will take ~15 seconds. What this all means is that your survivability depends on having more capacity than you can be alphaed for, because once the enemy hits above your capacity, it only take one shot. That said, if your can survive on capacity, then alpha weapons have to wait for the long cooldown to shoot again while shields recharge whereas DoT weapons can rely on the UnderFire penalty to prevent the shields from recharging during this time frame. So Big capacity counters Big hit

Against a ship on the opposite end of the spectrum with say, 10mil shields but 5mil regen, it only takes a 3.5k beam-beam-ion to one shot the shields which a lot of ppl have. However, it would take a 10k of dot weapon just to match the regen. Thus, buffering regen counters DoT

Note: to be balanced, the heat system would likely also need an underfire penalty as well.

 

[Valiant70]

Note: to be balanced, the heat system would likely also need an underfire penalty as well.

If it did, you wouldn't be able to return fire either, because that would heat your ship up more.
[doublepost=1513272201,1513271063][/doublepost]

As for your guns, it takes a 10k beam-beam-ion weapon to drop all of those 120m shields in ~1 minute or a 40k beam-beam-ion can do it in exactly 1 second (4x the alpha = 60x the kill rate). In comparison, a 10k DoT weapon will also take ~1 min, but a 40k DoT weapon will take ~15 seconds. What this all means is that your survivability depends on having more capacity than you can be alphaed for, because once the enemy hits above your capacity, it only take one shot. That said, if your can survive on capacity, then alpha weapons have to wait for the long cooldown to shoot again while shields recharge whereas DoT weapons can rely on the UnderFire penalty to prevent the shields from recharging during this time frame. So Big capacity counters Big hit

Against a ship on the opposite end of the spectrum with say, 10mil shields but 5mil regen, it only takes a 3.5k beam-beam-ion to one shot the shields which a lot of ppl have. However, it would take a 10k of dot weapon just to match the regen. Thus, buffering regen counters DoT

Note: to be balanced, the heat system would likely also need an underfire penalty as well.

I'm not sure that the under fire penalty really helps balance all that much. To defeat regen, you need DPS. To defeat capacity, you need an alpha strike. The rest is numbers. If there's an imbalance, the numbers are off.

EDIT: Further thought - I think the under fire penalty for shields mainly keeps large ships from being impossible for ships with lower DPS to bring down. If subsystems each have their own HP, that's less of a concern because you don't HAVE to overheat the ship to "kill" it.

I heard once that the armed forces consider different kinds of kills on machines like ships and tanks. The whole machine exploding is one. Losing all firepower is another, and being unable to maneuver is another. If the system-specific HP pools get the same penalty for massive size that ships did before the new power system, targeting specific systems becomes an effective strategy for defeating a large ship.

Once boarding is improved a bit more and there are more ways to sabotage the ship from within, the shield under fire penalty may not even be necessary.

 

[Non]

it takes a 10k beam-beam-ion weapon to drop all of those 120m shields in ~1 minute or a 40k beam-beam-ion can do it in exactly 1 second (4x the alpha = 60x the kill rate)

Pls Nosa, math. 40,000blocks x 10damage/s/block x 15seconds x 2(ion) = 12,000,000, you are off by a factor of ten. I shot a 480k 12.5s reload bbi (equivalent to a 400k 15s reload) at a despoiler and it took a while for it to lose shields, mainly because you are also neglecting the despoiler's ion effect passive. that 480k bbi hits for around 48,000,000 mil on a full ion target, and 480k bbi is more than almost any ship you'll find in pvp has on it. Really, your never going to one shot the shields of a decent shield tank at equal mass, you will almost have to rely on beating their regen (or just make a pure instakill weapons platform with no meaningful defensive capabilities). But shield tanking is only a thing you can realistically do at ~500k mass or above, mainly because you'll never get the regen you need below that.

To defeat capacity, you need an alpha strike. The rest is numbers. If there's an imbalance, the numbers are off.

Capacity is always supported by a lot of regen on a good shield tank, so unless you make one shots a super viable thing, regen will be the best way to survive.

I think the under fire penalty for shields mainly keeps large ships from being impossible for ships with lower DPS to bring down. If subsystems each have their own HP, that's less of a concern because you don't HAVE to overheat the ship to "kill" it.

Valid on both points.
[doublepost=1513277562,1513276631][/doublepost]To be fair, I just found out that a despoilers regen isn't very good for a 500k, only a couple mil.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Pls Nosa, math. 40,000blocks x 10damage/s/block x 15seconds x 2(ion) = 12,000,000, you are off by a factor of ten. I shot a 480k 12.5s reload bbi (equivalent to a 400k 15s reload) at a despoiler and it took a while for it to lose shields, mainly because you are also neglecting the despoiler's ion effect passive. that 480k bbi hits for around 48,000,000 mil on a full ion target, and 480k bbi is more than almost any ship you'll find in pvp has on it. Really, your never going to one shot the shields of a decent shield tank at equal mass, you will almost have to rely on beating their regen (or just make a pure instakill weapons platform with no meaningful defensive capabilities). But shield tanking is only a thing you can realistically do at ~500k mass or above, mainly because you'll never get the regen you need below that.
[doublepost=1513277562,1513276631][/doublepost]To be fair, I just found out that a despoilers regen isn't very good for a 500k, only a couple mil.

Nope, I meant 40k mass which is 400,000 blocks which is about 8% of a 500k's total mass. While not everyone does it, I know of several factions that pack 7-10% mass in ion specifically for one-striking shields. Also, at 500k, the damage penalty for size is about equal to ion bonus; so, while those numbers aren't quite exact because of the convoluting factors with shields, I seem to recall they are within about a 10% margin of error. My real point here though is not the exact numbers but the patterns you create with these kinds of mathematical models.

 

[Valiant70]

I like this solution to HP:

• Ships have a structure-wide HP pool. Systems contribute just a little. Deco contributes some. Hull and armor contribute the most. If this runs out, the ship will disintegrate.
• Each subsystem has its own HP pool. Destroy a large part of a system and it stops working.
• Armor HP works the way it does now. Armor blocks provide a lot of armor HP, a lot of structure HP, and some heat capacity.
  
• When a ship is overheating, it loses all power until it cools off. Random explosions occur in system blocks while overheating, depending on how far over the limit the ship is. Overheating also does damage directly to structure HP over time, which can cause the ship to disintegrate.

Consequences of damage:

• Blowing the hull away damages the structural integrity of the ship a lot. Having interiors or otherwise having excess armor/hull blocks helps your ship not to fall apart as easily when it takes damage.
• Damaging systems damages structure HP a little. Destroy enough of one system and it goes offline. This should have the same size-based debuff as the old ship HP did. Thus large ships must protect their systems carefully.
• Damaging systems also adds a lot of heat. This can lead to overheating the ship.
• There are two ways to outright blow up a ship - deplete its structure HP and make it disintegrate, or overheat it enough that it melts its own SHP and breaks up.

If the numbers are right, the structure HP rework will do a better job of encouraging interior and interesting ship shapes than stabilizers do. This is because it turns excess hull from a disadvantage to an advantage. It's just a matter of determining how little structure HP systems should provide, and how much of the hull must be destroyed to break up a ship.

You might see people start to put bulkheads in between systems to strengthen larger ships so a few holes in the hull don't destroy them outright.

 

[Non]

I like this solution to HP:

• Ships have a structure-wide HP pool. Systems contribute just a little. Deco contributes some. Hull and armor contribute the most. If this runs out, the ship will disintegrate.
• Each subsystem has its own HP pool. Destroy a large part of a system and it stops working.
• Armor HP works the way it does now. Armor blocks provide a lot of armor HP, a lot of structure HP, and some heat capacity.
  
• When a ship is overheating, it loses all power until it cools off. Random explosions occur in system blocks while overheating, depending on how far over the limit the ship is. Overheating also does damage directly to structure HP over time, which can cause the ship to disintegrate.

Fine by me.

Blowing the hull away damages the structural integrity of the ship a lot. Having interiors or otherwise having excess armor/hull blocks helps your ship not to fall apart as easily when it takes damage.

God no, terrible idea, ship hulls get shot through very easily and is not a good way to rate integrity if you want a fun fight. Ships already die way to fast, don't make it any faster.

7-10% mass in ion specifically for one-striking shields.

7-10% mass ain't gonna do that at equal mass against a well built ship in real combat, I know because most of my early ships had 20-30%.

But yeah, lets get back to the point.

Whether he would stick by it or not, and whether Schine would accept it, idk, but this suggestion is almost good enough.

But Valiant you keep adding smaller bad suggestions that generally weaken ships and make combat less fun, and it physically hurts me.

 

[Valiant70]

God no, terrible idea, ship hulls get shot through very easily and is not a good way to rate integrity if you want a fun fight.

Small sections of hull are destroyed at a time. This just means you need baffles inside the hull or additional layers of armor so that structure HP doesn't become relevant until after your ship is in really bad shape.
[doublepost=1513296455,1513296339][/doublepost]Think about how real ships are held together. They gain structural strength from their hull and the supports running throughout it. A system like a reactor doesn't hold the ship together. It might offer a little bit of strength simply by merit of being bolted to the structure in multiple places, but on the whole not much.

 

[Non]

Small sections of hull are destroyed at a time. This just means you need baffles inside the hull or additional layers of armor so that structure HP doesn't become relevant until after your ship is in really bad shape

Don't force people who don't want armor to have armor, it's not fun. Nor will adding what you say (baffles or additional layers) meaningfully affect survivabilty, almost any decent gun will shoot right through it.
[doublepost=1513296672,1513296489][/doublepost]Honestly, if you don't believe me, make any armor you want and I'll make a gun that can shoot through it instantly and be mounted on a 50k mass ship (unless you do like 200 layers of advanced).

Armor doesn't last.

 

[Valiant70]

Don't force people who don't want armor to have armor, it's not fun. Nor will adding what you say (baffles or additional layers) meaningfully affect survivabilty, almost any decent gun will shoot right through it.

All this is doing is separating structure HP into structural blocks and system HP into system blocks.

The reason builders feel like interiors and irregular hull shapes are a disadvantage is because extra hull blocks only add HP (which is gone in power 2.0), armor, and weight. You get both durability and functionality from all system blocks. You get only durability from structure blocks, and after you've built your systems, you already have enough durability that you don't explode when someone sneezes. Glass cannons don't even need a hull, and are worse at their role if they do have one.

This idea makes "skinless" ships almost as worthless functionally as they are aesthetically. A basic hull then becomes the baseline for function rather than something that just adds dead weight when you're trying to shield tank. Unless you want to build skinless blocks of systems all the time, this idea will benefit you when the numbers are right.

Honestly, if you don't believe me, make any armor you want and I'll make a gun that can shoot through it instantly and be mounted on a 50k mass ship (unless you do like 200 layers of advanced).

Big guns kill things. What's your point?
[doublepost=1513297383,1513297315][/doublepost]

Nor will adding what you say (baffles or additional layers) meaningfully affect survivabilty, almost any decent gun will shoot right through it.

The more blocks your enemy has to remove, the less you have to worry about a few holes in the outside of your hull.

 

[Non]

All this is doing is separating structure HP into structural blocks and system HP into system blocks.

The reason builders feel like interiors and irregular hull shapes are a disadvantage is because extra hull blocks only add HP (which is gone in power 2.0), armor, and weight. You get both durability and functionality from all system blocks. You get only durability from structure blocks, and after you've built your systems, you already have enough durability that you don't explode when someone sneezes. Glass cannons don't even need a hull, and are worse at their role if they do have one.

This idea makes "skinless" ships almost as worthless functionally as they are aesthetically. A basic hull then becomes the baseline for function rather than something that just adds dead weight when you're trying to shield tank. Unless you want to build skinless blocks of systems all the time, this idea will benefit you when the numbers are right.

Big guns kill things. What's your point?
--- Updated post (merge), 34 minutes ago, Original Post Date: 35 minutes ago --- The more blocks your enemy has to remove, the less you have to worry about a few holes in the outside of your hull.

You don't seem to get it son, armor bars melt fast, faster than structure, your idea makes ships more reliant on armor hp and therefore makes them die faster.

This is becoming another 'change the game mechanics to make my rp ship stronger because I can't do it myself' sort of thing and it doesn't have to be, nor does this actually make heavily armored ships any stronger.

Small trend worth nothing here: Literally all the best pvp ships (excluding spaghetti) have hulls, nobody smart builds a ship without them in the first place.

 

[Valiant70]

your idea makes ships more reliant on armor hp

No, it changes the way ships gain structure HP. They are not more reliant on the armor HP bar per se, although armor and structure HP values will be closer in number this way. If this makes ships die too fast, the amount of HP each block provides should be increased.

This is becoming another 'change the game mechanics to make my rp ship stronger because I can't do it myself' sort of thing and it doesn't have to be, nor does this actually make heavily armored ships any stronger.

Making RP ships slightly stronger is a side effect. In power 1.0, the difference between RP and non-RP ships was real but not extreme. This closes the remaining gap because extra hull (more than just a thin shell) is something you probably want unless you're extremely shield-focused.

The primary effect is that structure HP is... well, structure HP rather than system HP, and that system HP is something different. Disabling systems and breaking up the ship become two different things as I believe they should be. If I want to disable engines while keeping most of the structure intact, I should be able to do that. If I just want the ship to fall apart, the blocks that hold it together should be my target, not the systems that sit within the structure.

 

[MacThule]

A heat-based power capacity system would be awesome. It's nuanced and realistic. I'm probably missing something vital in the OP, but it sounds like I could still make a 1-axis line ship with the heat sink system though:

[REACTOR]----------[HS]---[HS]---[HS]---[HS]---[HS]---[etc]---[etc]---[ad nauseum]

Is there any way to force the spaced heat sinks out of a single-axis line?

 

[Valiant70]

Is there any way to force the spaced heat sinks out of a single-axis line?

Why would you want to? If people want to make a long, narrow ship, they should be able to. It would tend to be rather vulnerable though. Break a big section of conduits halfway along and you lose about half your cooling. That's one possible shape for a glass cannon. Aptly enough, it looks like a big flying cannon.

You could just as easily move some of those out onto nacelles, into a ring around the ship, or into various towers and points throughout the ship, or you could make a somewhat wider ship that has heat sinks up and down both sides, or a tall ship with sinks along its spine and belly. No particular shape should be favorable per se. Every shape I can think of off the top of my head has pros and cons for power generation and defense. (Please let me know if you think of a way a particular shape could become OP, and explain why.) Any design with a good amount of cooling speed will tend to have heat sinks all over different parts of the ship though.
[doublepost=1513462098,1513462016][/doublepost]Please see this thread as it has a modified version of this thread's ideas, plus some other things all rolled together as a unified solution: Power 2.1 - A Compilation of Ideas

 

[MacThule]

Why would you want to?

Optimize meta, minimize target profile, economize material usage, speed & simplify design. Same old reasons. Which isn't to say that I'd actually want to. I'd probably have to though in order to compete against others who did if I wanted to go back to MP.

You yourself said in the Remove Stabilizers that the one-dimensional meta was one of the worst current problems. I agree with that. My agreement isn't meant to invalidate your suggestion, only to note that a single very minor tweak to your proposal might also eliminate this fairly serious issue.

 

[Dire Venom]

Just straight up turning stabilizers into heatsinks seems like it would work just fine imo.

As for size balancing:
The larger you reactor, the larger the amount of heatsinks you have.
Taking damage to your heat sinks is pretty bad, thus a smaller ship using a larger reactor is going to be very explosive/vunrable due to being covered in heatsinks and not having much armour to further mitigate the heat buildup like a larger ship would have.

Thus ships powerlevels are not limited by size, merely their ability to manage their heat safetly.

Want to walk around with a giant reactor strapped onto a motorbike? Sure thing!
Good luck surviving the first pirate attack.

Want to cruise around with a smaller reactor in a large Role-playing ship? Sure thing!
Your reactors small size and the ships cooling/gear absorbance means that your ship is unlikely to ever have heat issues or be volitie in the slightest.

 

[Valiant70]

Just straight up turning stabilizers into heatsinks seems like it would work just fine imo.

You would have to either include conduit connections, or remove any distance-related mechanics. Otherwise you encourage island builds by providing a bonus for distance, but no symmetrical drawback.

 

[Dire Venom]

You would have to either include conduit connections, or remove any distance-related mechanics. Otherwise you encourage island builds by providing a bonus for distance, but no symmetrical drawback.

I sorta assumed that would be happening anyway XD, thus didn't bother to include it.

 

[MacThule]

You very well may be right.

I have always been very keen on seeing conduits used as part of build complexity myself though, and am going to hold out a somewhat pessimistic hope that Schine eventually realizes the value in complexity and balance that they could imbue in building dynamics.

 

[Dire Venom]

Please Schema!!! Post your brain-thoughts!!
We won't judge, we just want to understand how you view the system and what you want to do with it.
We can only guess and get frustrated at the lack of communication and hope the whole thing doesn't just faceplant.

We do not want to see one of our favourite hobbies reduced to Duplo becuase of a brain fart.

(I do think you'll get there in the end, it's just more of a case of how much time and resources will be wasted due to the mavoulous design philosophy of "Ignore your community")