How to make other stations secure - Discussion Thread ***PLAYER SOLUTIONS ONLY!***

[Jojomo]

As we all know, the vulnerability of stations that don't have homebase invulnerability is a problem.
I thought a thread where we could all post ideas for protecting them, and collectively analyse the ideas and find the holes in them, might be an interesting idea.

This thread is specifically for *player* solutions, not server admin solutions, nor dev solutions.
So nothing like "nerf warheads", or "buff stations" please.

Perhaps together we can come up with an idea that isn't ridiculously difficult, and from a *practical* point of view is effective (even if it still contains theoretical weak points).

The problem essentially has two distinct sides:

1. Vulnerability in war (fleets pouring on overwhelming firepower)
   
2. Vulnerability to cloaked griefers (ignoring shields with warhead torpedos, and 'cloaker pokers' - warhead-tipped ships ramming stations)

#1 is basically a case of simply having enough shields, and should involve a faction that your turrets consider enemies, and really you probably ought to be augmenting station defence with fleets if you're at war (just my personal opinion).

So I'll get the ball rolling by putting up some potential ideas for #2:

• put pulse/pulse weapons in the station hull, and area triggers outside the station to fire them. Whenever a cloaker poker comes close they set off the pulses which destroy all the warheads on the poker, and uncloak it ready to be shot by station turrets. (Thanks to alterintel for that one)
  
• The above could also be set to fire whenever the station hull shields take any damage.
• Rotating hulls on a station to make damage concentration on one hull location difficult. Even better, multiple rotating hulls inside each other.
• Minefield of small mines that have area triggers to detect cloaked ships, and pulse/pulse to uncloak them.
• To make the minefield above cheaper by reducing the number of mines (and making the mines hard to clear by giving them the station's shield protection) attach the mines to a rotation rail in the centre of the station, so each "mine" sweeps a large area instead of sitting still and watching a small area.

Feel free to pick my ideas to pieces

Post your own techniques.... (*Player* techniques, not admin or dev solutions)

 

[dwwojcik]

Personally I'd just ban warheads from the server. As far as I know, there's nothing like them in any of the science fiction universes I like, so it wouldn't be a loss for me.

 

[Jojomo]

Personally I'd just ban warheads from the server. As far as I know, there's nothing like them in any of the science fiction universes I like, so it wouldn't be a loss for me.

Not very constructive. Can we do this with the game as it is. We're talking about player solutions, not server admin solutions, and not dev solutions.

 

[Sachys]

I'll have to think on this some, but its an interesting question.

I tend to look at shield recharge if its a possibility - though of course due to the recharge being so low, this means building bigger and bigger, so isnt possible for all (due to mining / time constraints / simple client side and system issues).

Solid defensive turrets of course are a bonus - but do not guarantee any level of security - especially as theyre an "arms race trigger" - where somebody sees them and comes with a bigger gun. This can, in fact make them a magnet for titan owners / large factions on servers.

Will think onwards!

 

[dwwojcik]

Not very constructive. Can we do this with the game as it is. We're talking about player solutions, not server admin solutions, and not dev solutions.

Fair enough. Then I think the first option with the area triggers is the best one, it seems the most foolproof. Mines in practice seem like they'd be pretty easy to avoid, and they'd make navigating hard for friendlies.

Rotating hulls seems a bit much, they'd be unwieldy, and potentially laggy. But it does remind me of an interesting concept that might not be as effective in theory, but more practical- spaced armor. If you have an outer layer of cheap dispensable blocks spaced roughly far enough to block a warhead attack, they'd have no choice but to punch through the spaced armor at least once to get at the real station inside.

The efficacy of this solution depends on the exact tactics and the persistence of your attackers though. But if they don't get too clever it's worth a shot at least. The first attack would give an early warning to be on the lookout for a follow up attack if there are any ships nearby with scanners, and at the very least if the station is unmanned at the time it would make things less convenient for the attacker. The idea is that it's cheap and simple so it doesn't hurt to try it.

 

[DrTarDIS]

As we all know, the vulnerability of stations that don't have homebase invulnerability is a problem.
I thought a thread where we could all post ideas for protecting them, and collectively analyse the ideas and find the holes in them, might be an interesting idea.

This thread is specifically for *player* solutions, not server admin solutions, nor dev solutions.
So nothing like "nerf warheads", or "buff stations" please.

Perhaps together we can come up with an idea that isn't ridiculously difficult, and from a *practical* point of view is effective (even if it still contains theoretical weak points).

The problem essentially has two distinct sides:

1. Vulnerability in war (fleets pouring on overwhelming firepower)
   
2. Vulnerability to cloaked griefers (warhead torpedos, and 'cloaker pokers' - warhead-tipped ships ramming stations)

#1 is basically a case of simply having enough shields, and should involve a faction that your turrets consider enemies, and really you probably ought to be augmenting station defence with fleets if you're at war (just my personal opinion).

So I'll get the ball rolling by putting up some potential ideas for #2:

• put pulse/pulse weapons in the station hull, and area triggers outside the station to fire them. Whenever a cloaker poker comes close they set off the pulses which destroy all the warheads on the poker, and uncloak it ready to be shot by station turrets. (Thanks to alterintel for that one)
  
• The above could also be set to fire whenever the station hull shields take any damage.
• Rotating hulls on a station to make damage concentration on one hull location difficult. Even better, multiple rotating hulls inside each other.
• Minefield of small mines that have area triggers to detect cloaked ships, and pulse/pulse to uncloak them.
• To make the minefield above cheaper by reducing the number of mines (and making the mines hard to clear by giving them the station's shield protection) attach the mines to a rotation rail in the centre of the station, so each "mine" sweeps a large area instead of sitting still and watching a small area.

Feel free to pick my ideas to pieces

Post your own techniques....

Not arguments against, as much as warnings to people hoping to implement:

• Mostly good. Rotating hulls are collision nightmares, but other than that it's a useful point. Keep your spaces WIDE where possible.
  
• Any time logic breaks server-side, anything with sensors or triggers breaks too. Analog clocks (perpetual rotors) help sever-proof this. Having area-triggers trigger that rotator is a good way to "jump-start" from-failure. 2-rail(facing) clocks are also fairly immune to server-freese-breakage.

Other useful things:

• Investment Magnitude: System-padding of the station proper and any of it's defending entities is very useful. "difficult to destroy" blocks like area triggers, cargo space, open doors, etc. Bloat is life, like HP-tanking in any MMO.
  
• distributed mass: Not every part of an entity has to be physically touching. "floating" systems blobs at disparate distances makes destruction-overheat magnitudes more difficult. also increases hull surface area, further padding AHP:SHP ratio
  
• Scripted Actions and Engineered response: Sensors can trigger defensive effects intelligently. "X is less than 100%" -> activate appropriate passive. These can be entity-independent, e.g. the main entity can have ion, while rotating hull piercing(or a compounding Ion), while turrets can have EMP, while....
  
• Redundancy: "why build one, when I can build three for three times the price?" 3 near-identical rings and computers per warp gate, lined up in a row. three times as hard to disable. two extra marker squirts per station. (bloat is life) 3-4 semi-synced rotating analog clocks instead of just one. Parallel logic chains where possible(and non-cosmetic).
  
• Block-HP vs SHP/block vs AHP/block vs mass/block vs resources/block are useful ratios. They each have interesting properties vs different weapons. The lack of attention other players pay to this is often your weapon. Spend time looking at
  
• Robust infrastructure: The easier it is for you to acquire resources/blocks, the less damaging their loss is to you. Spend time automating as much as possible (eg physically moving asteroids to one rich cluster, allowing you to farm/respawn all at once easily)
• Cultivate noobs; where possible, let noobs use ships from faction fleets to get themselves ahead. You can always order it home when they logoff. Learn to use permissions and ranks, as well as both permission modules appropriately. Activity is a good thing, investments too.
• there are veys of making hou talk: directional enemy scanner You can technically-probably-sometimes get logic signals back from areas with loaded enemies. to areas with loaded allies. you can also define "red alert" states that way.

 

[Jojomo]

Another idea (to be used in conjunction with others):

Not sure how to describe this..."noise cloud" perhaps.

Surround stations with single blocks (cheap ones), widely spaced, in a semi-random pattern. For example a single block in every 10^3 of empty space (and not lined up in nice straight rows).
Laying this 100m deep around a station would be a nightmare to try and fly through, or destroy (it would have the station's massive shield protection).

You'd need a section that could be moved on rails to allow friendlies to reach the station, or simply put rails for docking on the outer face of the noise itself.

If it rotated that would be even better, but I suppose DrTardis is probably right about the load that would put on servers, so I guess I'll stop thinking about rotating hulls.

Increasing the density close to the station would be good.

It would also be easy to hide small traps in the noise.

Of course it would be incredibly labour-intensive to build, unless you built a section once and saved it as a tenplate for all future needs.

Using the density I suggested above of 1 block per 10^3 space (which is only an example):

• Surrounding a 100m^3 station in a 100m deep noise cloud would take 26k blocks - any old spare blocks you had would do, aesthetics permitting.
• Surrounding a 300m^3 station in a 100m deep noise cloud would take 98k blocks.

 

[jayman38]

The only things I can think of are short-term and disposable.
1. Already mentioned: Multiple giant rotating armor cylinders that do not rotate in sync. Unless the attacker has cracker-jack timing, they'll need to hit the armor barrels several times to get through. If your station is really lucky, the attacker will need to almost completely destroy the armor barrels to get a clear shot.
2. Exceptionally long missile turrets: The barrels are several hundred meters long, so that attackers must get into return-fire range in order to attack the turret. Once the attacker catches on, they will counter with their own exceptionally-long missile barrels.

Current-game ideas just won't last against a sustained siege without invulnerability.

 

[Jojomo]

An idea I've had before, but want to post here:

Using station hull shield damage or area triggers, use logic to activate a "forcefield net" (just a loose pattern of forcefield blocks) that is usually turned off.

It'd trap cloaker pokers close to the station, in a amber-and-insect type fashion.

Could deactivate itself after a long enough pause to frustrate a griefer enough to give up that ship (or after long enough for the ship to be destroyed).

Could combine with pulse damage.

Area triggers would be better than shield damage activation, because you could turn on only the local area forcefield net, instead of the station-wide one.

 

[kiddan]

I see potential in docked hulls. Despite being a laggier approach, you can have activators in the panels, and when they break a new panel could slide out to replace it automatically. So as long as the main station's shields are active (to protect rails) the armour would be replaced without players re-building it by hand. You could also have the panels set-off pulse weapons on their side when they break, destroying any enemy warheads in the process.

You could also have them rotate. But with an auto-replacing system there isn't as much need.

Edit/Also:
A few issues I see with rotating armour in general:

• A grappled enemy player could use a torch beam pretty easily in some situations. There has to be space between the cylinders so they can spin, meaning a player can get through a hole in the first layer and cause your turrets to destroy your own station trying to dig the intruder out.
• If your armour rotates on the x axis, then there will be a 1x1 area on the y or z axis where the enemy can easily tunnel.

 

[Jojomo]

I see with rotating armour in general:

• A grappled enemy player could use a torch beam pretty easily in some situations. There has to be space between the cylinders so they can spin, meaning a player can get through a hole in the first layer and cause your turrets to destroy your own station trying to dig the intruder out.
• If your armour rotates on the x axis, then there will be a 1x1 area on the y or z axis where the enemy can easily tunnel.

Yes, you'd want the hull to rotate on two axes at the same time.

For players with torches the hull needs pulse protection fired by area triggers.

 

[Stormraven]

You said you don't want admin solutions, but your obviously playing with Warhead damage turned way up.
In my experience, warheads do very little damage without Admin interference.

(Unless that changed recently and I didn't notice. Which is possible.)

 

[kiddan]

You said you don't want admin solutions, but your obviously playing with Warhead damage turned way up.
In my experience, warheads do very little damage without Admin interference.

(Unless that changed recently and I didn't notice. Which is possible.)

Warheads can deal a good amount of damage when grouped. You can also deal more damage to systems behind armour if you go fast enough (clipping, really), but I see it as a sort of exploit.

 

[Stormraven]

Perhaps I just did it wrong.
When I made warhead torpedoes in single player with 10-15 warheads, they were utterly useless. Bounced off advanced armor with hardly a scratch, even if it had no shields.

Did I just not use enough warheads?

 

[kiddan]

Perhaps I just did it wrong.
When I made warhead torpedoes in single player with 10-15 warheads, they were utterly useless. Bounced off advanced armor with hardly a scratch, even if it had no shields.

Did I just not use enough warheads?

10-15 sounds lethal enough. Wouldn't recommend using on advanced armour unless you've got multiple warhead-bearing ships. You have to focus them on one location on the enemy structure so that you may breach the hull and then ruin systems inside. Warheads are very good at destroying system blocks, especially when an enemy has strong shields (as other weapons require shields to be taken down first).

 

[Stormraven]

Good to know!
Out of curiosity, do you know whether warheads can damage non-physical rails, like pickup or push rails?

 

[kiddan]

Good to know!
Out of curiosity, do you know whether warheads can damage non-physical rails, like pickup or push rails?

Lucky you, I'm playing right now. =)

Warheads can break intangible rails if they are part of the same entity. Ships and warheads on those ships can pass right through intangible rails on other entities.

 

[Jojomo]

Guys could you keep it on topic please - player methods for protecting vulnerable stations.

 

[Nickizzy]

Personally I'd just ban warheads from the server. As far as I know, there's nothing like them in any of the science fiction universes I like, so it wouldn't be a loss for me.

Cough protón torpedos cough

The only reason the rebels ever thought of fighting the Death Star was because they could use warheads proton torpedoes to shoot through a hole to hit the aux reactors reactor core and activate overheating blow the whole thing up.

Even tough the whole thing somehow didn't have shields stronger than the Melinium falcon

 

[Jojomo]

I'm at work so can't answer this for myself right now:

I've recently been working on a alloy mesh "noise cloud" (described a few posts up) to surround stations with, that makes flying up to the station's hull slow/difficult or impossible (depending on your size). It's 10k alloy mesh blocks in a 100^3 volume, arranged semi-randomly.

I combine this with area trigger nets in the cloud, and pulse/pulse weapons inside the station hull, to unlcloak cloaker-pokers (and destroy their warheads), or kill astronauts.
The point of the noise cloud is just to ensure that an enemy can't clip through the area trigger net by flying at high speed.

But a bug report I just read about activating warp gates at very high speed makes me wonder if I'm worrying about the no-clipping issue for no good reason, and that the area trigger net won't be able to be avoided.
Is this correct, or not?

Even if it's not, I just realised that area triggers are so cheap I could build the entire noise cloud with them, and no tangible blocks at all, and probably still achieve the desired result...