Integrity

[nulitor]

Now that integrity is an optional option does most people like playing with it or do they prefer playing without?

 

[NeonSturm]

I haven't played SM very much during it's integrity period because I had real life things which came first.
And I am not a PvP player who cares how ships are build.

Also:
You have shipA and it looks pretty and now you want to make the best combat ship out of the shell possible.
For ShipA, any Isanth would fit. Retrofit it until certain combat or speed cap is maxed out, go to next, repeat.

Then you have shipB which is a meta-build. For ShipB, I have once build a pyramid ship on sunworld
° maxed out reactor-power with a set number of Squares missing a block at one diagonal's corners.
° used Blocks so black, you need to fire your handgun at your own ship to see shape via shields.
° Designed so that AI had serious problems firing it's Core at the top-point
° Players didn't know where to aim at the pure darkness shape when I am not flying through asteroid fields.

TypeC doesn't care about combat at all, because it knows that it can handle most minor treats with turrets far smaller than the reactor outputs and for major treats it knows there will be escorts.
Once escorts are not sufficient anymore because they die 1by1 or because you don't live long enough for escorts to help you, you would need to invest into something bigger anyway - optimisation or not.

My Ships are TypeC:

17x9x25 has 3 hull layers - inner hull, armor layer, deco layer.
3x scale has 2x armor.
5x scale has 3x armor.
8x scale has 5x armor.​

This is the ship I currently build.
Wireframe as guide for size and positioning.​

I can make armor layers like 3x scale or 5x scale as following:
inner // outer // deco:
wireframe, basic, standard // standard, standard, advanced // basic basic standard
wireframe, basic // basic, standard // basic basic.
wireframe, standard // standard, advanced // basic.

I will opt for the last option.

​

How will this affect integrity?

I have a wireframe. Not good.
But I have a solid shape around it. Good.

I have mining waffles - guess it's not good?
But thrusters within - is that good or do they both suffer?

I have a dedicated outer-hull layer fitting the consumers needs, but the inner hull is not made for military and unlikely to change.
The deco layer contributes some basic hull parts, but not much hp per block.

Either it's pure good, or using 1-block-thick layers will hurt integrity. dunno.

​

I think there should be some mechanic in place which clearly says:

YOU NEED 1/2 mass in hull or your ship will break at 20%+1/2 max speed.
BECAUSE it would break, you cannot archive that speed.

It doesn't really matter how it's laid out.
Decorative blocks can weight 50kg and a solid 1x1x1m water would weight 1 ton or more.
Everything made of metal filling that volume is either a partially occupied volume or weight 4-10 tons easily​

 

[nulitor]

I haven't played SM very much during it's integrity period because I had real life things which came first.
And I am not a PvP player who cares how ships are build.

Also:
You have shipA and it looks pretty and now you want to make the best combat ship out of the shell possible.
For ShipA, any Isanth would fit. Retrofit it until certain combat or speed cap is maxed out, go to next, repeat.

Then you have shipB which is a meta-build. For ShipB, I have once build a pyramid ship on sunworld
° maxed out reactor-power with a set number of Squares missing a block at one diagonal's corners.
° used Blocks so black, you need to fire your handgun at your own ship to see shape via shields.
° Designed so that AI had serious problems firing it's Core at the top-point
° Players didn't know where to aim at the pure darkness shape when I am not flying through asteroid fields.

TypeC doesn't care about combat at all, because it knows that it can handle most minor treats with turrets far smaller than the reactor outputs and for major treats it knows there will be escorts.
Once escorts are not sufficient anymore because they die 1by1 or because you don't live long enough for escorts to help you, you would need to invest into something bigger anyway - optimisation or not.

My Ships are TypeC:

17x9x25 has 3 hull layers - inner hull, armor layer, deco layer.
3x scale has 2x armor.
5x scale has 3x armor.
8x scale has 5x armor.​

This is the ship I currently build.
View attachment 52638 Wireframe as guide for size and positioning.​

I can make armor layers like 3x scale or 5x scale as following:
inner // outer // deco:
wireframe, basic, standard // standard, standard, advanced // basic basic standard
wireframe, basic // basic, standard // basic basic.
wireframe, standard // standard, advanced // basic.

I will opt for the last option.

​

How will this affect integrity?

I have a wireframe. Not good.
But I have a solid shape around it. Good.

I have mining waffles - guess it's not good?
But thrusters within - is that good or do they both suffer?

I have a dedicated outer-hull layer fitting the consumers needs, but the inner hull is not made for military and unlikely to change.
The deco layer contributes some basic hull parts, but not much hp per block.

Either it's pure good, or using 1-block-thick layers will hurt integrity. dunno.

​

I think there should be some mechanic in place which clearly says:

YOU NEED 1/2 mass in hull or your ship will break at 20%+1/2 max speed.
BECAUSE it would break, you cannot archive that speed.

It doesn't really matter how it's laid out.
Decorative blocks can weight 50kg and a solid 1x1x1m water would weight 1 ton or more.
Everything made of metal filling that volume is either a partially occupied volume or weight 4-10 tons easily​

I believe integrity is per system and not shipwide(or else you would just make a giant cube of capsule somewhere then ignore integrity for all the rest).

 

[Edymnion]

Now that integrity is an optional option does most people like playing with it or do they prefer playing without?

I play without it.

The "problem" it was supposed to fix (spaghetti ships) was rendered moot when the reactor stabilizer distance was decreased. Not that it was ever a legit problem to begin with.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

They didn't turn off SHIELD integrity. Why was this even a thing?

 

[The Advocate]

How do you even turn off integrity?

 

[Tsnonak]

This is a simple Temp-Fix for Integrity...
Drop the xml file in the "customBlockBehavior" folder.
Rename it to "customBlockBehaviorTemplate" to De-activate it when the Fix with the next Update goes Live.
This simply switches the "negative" Values into positive Values which then add integrity.

Personally I like Integrity, I feel systems should have it, but I also think it needs balancing for small ships, because that is where problems arise.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Absolutely, positively without integrity.

All it did, was made it take longer to fill up a ship with systems, - that is, if you like more complex shapes than the classic "space rifle".
I just ended up filling the gaps with blocks that didn't use integrity, such as weapons, salvage, missile cap; And when you have to start adding exceptions to a rule, that means it's a bad rule to begin with.

It's all just pointless calculations for the game and pointless headache for the builder. And it really is redundant; If I build a big fat armored shell, the ship is sturdy. If I keep it sleek and thinly armored, it's fragile. I don't need a stat to tell me otherwise.

BTW, there's a bug right now that still shows you the low integrity warning message even when it's turned off.



Soon after as my target practice went wrong and the station started putting holes in the ship, the game crashed with a null pointer exception and corrupted the world's save file.

How should it be?

Forget integrity. System groups under power should just shut down or even explode like warheads if a shot passed through armor. (I think there are already server rules in for that.)
Ships die too slowly as it is.