Heat.

[Aracturus]

Hardly simple, but it could add enormous dynamics to the game.
1) All systems that use power generate heat (Particularly weapons systems)
2) Add a new block called a 'heatsink' which acts like a power capacitor, except for heat.
3) When a block generates heat, it radiates it to nearby blocks.
4) When a block is heated, it receives 'heat damage', which reduces (for armor/hull) block HP, or reduces performance for functional blocks
5) Conductors can transfer infinite heat without taking damage, provided they are connected to a heat sink
6) Heat sinks radiate heat out to space (if on exterior) or store it (if on interior) to be radiated later.
7) Large system block groups generate larger amounts of heat
8) The more heat-generating blocks are in a group, the more heat will be generated, and radiated to a wider area
9) Heat will always travel through conductor blocks FIRST, if possible.
10) If the core overheats, it will kill the occupant, and eventually explode.
11) damaged cores overheat more easily
12) Weapons transfer heat to their targets

 

[Keptick]

Eh, I don't feel like this would bring anything other than design constraints.... I'm not too hot for that suggestion :P

 

[jayman38]

I'm a big fan of heat dynamics in a game, but most StarMade players seem to be against it. I recommend keeping these ideas ready for a possible mod in the future. I think such a mod will be relatively popular, especially among those who look at realistic spaceship designs.

 

[Jaycephus]

I love this idea.

This is a REAL issue with spacecraft that should be in the game (because it is easier to add than whether your hull is airtight).

Right now, the only design constraints are the relatively loose constraints around power, shield, and weapon layouts. (Meaning you need to link things to controllers, layout in certain configurations, but cannon arrays can be behind armor and power arrays, etc. So, still fairly loose.)

But if every use of power and power-consumption blocks added to ship-heat-generation stats, both passive and dynamic, such as only when firing cannons, then you would have the possibility of overheating. Ideally both sub-systems and overall ship could overheat. Cannons and all other controller-linked systems could go into overheat locally (per controller), and overall ship could overheat. Idle systems might produce a little heat, or even effectively no net heat increase, but when scavenging, firing cannons, taking hits on shields and regenerating them would all generate heat.

There would be at least two blocks used for heat management: Heat capacitance (sinking) and heat-radiation into space. You could have a lot of capacitance, which would let you build up heat for a while before systems start to build up their own heat. But natural heat-radiation would be very low. Perhaps it would take days to radiate a full load of heat, after just hours of normal use, like in RL. Then heat radiation systems would shed a lot of heat quickly. So heat radiation is analogous to power generation, where a ship could work just fine with only power gen and heat radiation. But power storage and heat capacitance or heat-sinking provide cheaper, more efficient handling with less cost.

 

[Mariux]

Sounds interesting, but the game is already quite complicated for new players...

 

[Keptick]

To be honest, this sounds great for a mod! But not for the vanilla game :P

 

[Mr. V]

I agree with most of the other responders - I think this proposal would add a lot of micromanagement to maintaining ships that would be a buzzkill for most (but certainly not all) players.

However -- I think it would be cool if active systems generated a measurable amount of heat that affected heat seeking missiles. Something that could perhaps be dissipated through some form of heat sink block or the ability to shut down specific systems (which I seem to recall being able to shut down systems one day for power conservation as a planned feature... or maybe that was just a question someone asked during a dev Q&A... can't remember for sure).

 

[kiddan]

This would be cool if you could combine heat capacitators with weapons to heat up enemy ships. Maybe if heat destroyed a block it would have a vaporizing animation/particles instead of debris.

 

[Lecic]

I'm... WARMING UP... to the idea of heat in the game. In fact, I myself suggested it over a year ago on the old forums, as part of a railgun weapon idea.

However, I have to ask... how do you define the "inside" and "outside" of a ship?

 

[izzy1488]

This could be a cool idea, with the new update that gives moving rail parts... you could make your ships store the heat safe inside the ship with heat sinks, and then hit a button and extend the heatsinks into space to cool down... You could also have special weapons that use high ammout of heat.. or pump the heat into your shields and overload them into an AOE shockwave thing... We seriously just need mod support so all of these ideas can just be mods and people can use whatever they want.

 

[PizzaPress]

Certainly something to keep in mind once the game has full modding API/support and is stable enough that you won't have to change the whole code for a while.

 

[jayman38]

In the meantime, for all those realists, just think of your ship using a refrigerator to focus heat on fluid. The super-heated fluid is then injected into the exhaust plasma by your thrusters. Those ejected particles will have thousands or millions of years to radiate their waste heat before crashing into something.