Increase Weapon Ranges

[Planr]

The real problem with this is turret AI being too accurate and insta-killing everything before people can see each other. {sidenote: can we have the ability to adjust the range at which HUD diamonds start appearing?}

Thankfully that wont be a problem, as the current default values for turret ai accuracy are really shabby and mean that its pretty hard to hit anything smaller than a corvette from a distance.

 

[max stripe]

Thankfully that wont be a problem, as the current default values for turret ai accuracy are really shabby and mean that its pretty hard to hit anything smaller than a corvette from a distance.

swarm turrets dont even have to aim. just fire

 

[ltmauve]

Perhaps missiles need a chance of losing the lock, especially because a powerful enough one can snipe shuttles from a distance. Can't think of an exact mechanic for it.

 

[max stripe]

Perhaps missiles need a chance of losing the lock, especially because a powerful enough one can snipe shuttles from a distance. Can't think of an exact mechanic for it.

only lock ons then since its kinda hard for something that seeks heat to loose a lock when you have engines that make heat

 

[ltmauve]

only lock ons then since its kinda hard for something that seeks heat to loose a lock when you have engines that make heat

Realism shoudn't trump good gameplay. There are plenty of awesome games with mechanics that make no realistic sense but are still fun to play. Also, having a 6-km range for swarm missiles: that's a lot of targets, and there's a huge possibility that you randomly hit some neutral vessel and start a war.

 

[Asmael]

swarm turrets dont even have to aim. just fire

I'll pick my own (blocky and horrible) station. This station has 14 turret slots. Each turret has 6 AMC barrels, each barrel fires 2 projectiles per second, and all have punch-through, against a target with a very small hull at the front. In fact, only 10 turrets can fire at the same target usually, which is still 10 * 6 * 2, or 120 projectiles per second, each being capable of killing said ship in one shot if the target's core is lined up with a single projectile. Well, it took almost a minute once to defeat a single ship orbiting at 1500 meters, so either I was VERY unlucky, or no one leave teh default value for AI accuracy x)

Now, I can see the problem with missiles later on, if they become the only reliable damage source later on at long range... As it stands, firing swarm missiles from a station is very strong against small targets, as it will ignore all the turrets on said station (and probably docked ships as well, never tried this one). The issue being it will kill everything, including friendly astronauts inside the station (!! ). Tho you can clear the surroundings of the station to make sure it'll hit enemy vessels.

Spoiler: Don't let anyone near this

 

[NeonSturm]

I certainly would like to see default ranges increase, but at least changing the range on your own server doesn't mean ships built in it won't work anywhere else.

Spoiler: P.S. Calbiri

Do you have an idea of when larger default sectors are coming?

Testers said that default is low on purpose. Else bugs which occur between sectors will not get dedected as often.

Realism shoudn't trump good gameplay. There are plenty of awesome games with mechanics that make no realistic sense but are still fun to play. Also, having a 6-km range for swarm missiles: that's a lot of targets, and there's a huge possibility that you randomly hit some neutral vessel and start a war.

If there are neutrals around, they should always help the attacked if all together have a chance to win. If the attacker gets flagged as pirate for 5 minutes, that won't start a faction war.

That should avoid you being required to use heat-seakers (no, not horse-breakers stupid firefox auto-spell-correction

Or vessels under attack will get flagged as "defender" after it suffered an initial strike. Factions may not declare war on the faction "defender".

 

[max stripe]

Realism shoudn't trump good gameplay. There are plenty of awesome games with mechanics that make no realistic sense but are still fun to play. Also, having a 6-km range for swarm missiles: that's a lot of targets, and there's a huge possibility that you randomly hit some neutral vessel and start a war.

that much is true
everytime i fire swarm missles i get like 1 or 2 more auto declare wars

 

[ResonKinetic]

Range should be affected by modules, like other weapon properties.

 

[jayman38]

Range should be affected by modules, like other weapon properties.

You can generally increase range by slaving a beam weapon system to a master system. IMHO, the range boost doesn't quite improve far enough, but it's something.

 

[Ithirahad]

Hmmm. Not sure if everything needs a range increase... Just beams.

 

[Cerebralhemirage]

Interesting thread. I personally find sniping to be an atrocity. Sniping may have it's place when playing games such as first person shooters or single player RPG's.. they should hold No place in space battles the distances are too vast. Ships in space should rely on early warning detection devices and attempt to avoid damage by maneuvering and piloting, much like naval battles but in 3d space. In the case of beam weapons.. the damage should decrease over distance and the power demand increase.. at close quarters.. a beam would be devastating.. but limited by shield absorbtion as they are energy based weapons. They should not carry so much damage over distance then the accuracy is irrelevant if they cannot even drop shields.. their function should be more in tune with destroying shields and punching holes through hulls, even lighter craft such as fighters should fear a hit from one but in the case of fighters beam accuracy should deminish by a huge margin. AMC's should be more like Ballistic weaponry.. their accuracy decreases over distance.. not their power.. and their distance should be hindered. They are cannon emplacements for close quarters fighting.. and should be utilized as such.. more for anti fighter capabilities and missile defense than ship destruction.. well.. unless a ship wanders to close. Missiles are versatile. Missiles can completely obliterate a targets armor and inner workings to great degree.. if they achieve contact through the hail of AMC fire. AMC's accuracy should be increased vs. Missiles.. mid ground for fighters.. and almost useless against turrets.. that is where the beams excell.. beams should be more accurate against turret based weapons.. mid ground for ships.. and almost useless vs. Fighters. This is all just my interpretation of a fun strategic environment, more of a template than number crunching as my math is in itself an atrocity.

 

[NeonSturm]

Some cannons (like shotguns) are devastating at short range, but not if most miss.

Short-range guns don't need to be fast and do not need to stabilize the projectile.
In long-range guns that may drain some power in form of magnetic fields if you are working with rail guns.​

Laser damage does not scale down linearly but 1/4 dmg at 2x distance and has huge distances. Basically laser guns are sniper guns - not in StarMade.


The damage of weapons IRL mostly depends on how much energy you can put onto the enemy in a _very_short_ time.
That is the reason kinetics or charged projectiles will always be superior to beams in damage IRL (as long as this doesn't change like against charged shields)


You can change the distance in StarMade/data/config/blockBehaviourConfig.xml but having the option for diminishing damage over distance would be nice.

 

[aceface]

I think that weapon range should be one of those things that scale with size, and adding beams further increases it.

 

[NeonSturm]

I think that weapon range should be one of those things that scale with size, and adding beams further increases it.

We had this and it was bad.

except we make it asymptotic to have a limit between 1000 and 3000... but probably a bad idea


BTW: if you pinpoint a strong fast burning lasers to a 1nm^2 surface, the refraction of gasses can redirect it's energy to the sides.
It has to have a minimum size dependent on burn depth, thus damage would scale down above certain distance.

Star-Trek's Phasers are short distance things as Nadion particles created by the Rapid Nadion Effect have expire time.

Masers (materie instead of photon lasers) exist IRL.
Maybe some charged particles could help to keep themselves in a line, not spreading out their damage over a large surface.

 

[Asmael]

I'm totally fine with increasing range of weapons based on X axis (basically how long the weapon is), BUT:
- With a MUCH lower scaling than before.
- With a massive drawback. Want to hit further? Fine, but you need more power / have worst rotation speed (or different drawback for missiles. Mmmmh, less missile maneuvrability?).
- With a higher base range for all weapons (to reduce the impact of long weapons). Probably once sectors get bigger by default, not before that.

Let's say sectors get big enough to double all the weapons' ranges. Well, even a 2km long AMC shouldn't have more than 5km range with full beam support. Simply put, the bonus would be small enough to make it very unpractical for turrets (unless you have a OMGWTF turret docking bay). So... Long range front weapons? Perfectly fine with that. I'm not fine with uber-long range turrets.

Just in case you didn't get it for the 5km range: that's the base range (1km) doubled, supposing the sectors get bigger by default (1*2, or 2km), with full beam support (+2, that's 4km), and THEN, the extra range from weapon size (that'd be too much if it had the bonus from beam support as well), here, supposedly 1m per 2 blocks long.

Tho I'd like to see some real siege weapons designed to destroy other capitals or stations, using a pulse slave, which would have drawbacks huge enough to make it almost impossible to hit small entities, but with really long range.

For instance, a beam with a pulse slave would require a few seconds to charge up (with a shiny light on the output block and a distinctive sound), as well as marker, visible by everyone, on the trajectory of said beam, allowing smaller fighters to dodge it. Maybe something similar for AMCs. Finally, missiles with pulse slave would require much more time to lock on targets.

Those are just examples, but that would really force bigger vessels to choose between artillery-role, anti-capital, or heavy anti-fighter defense.