Kill Docked Power Entirely

[Comr4de]

-angery-.

is onley gaem

why u heff 2 be mad

 

[Raisinbat]

is onley gaem

why u heff 2 be mad

Yeah only retards care about things, haha!

 

[ToddoftheYear]

Disabling docked power does not disable:
-Docked Armor
-Docked Thrusters
-Docked Shields
-Docked Weapons
-Docked Interdiction Devices
-Docked Large Entities in General

All of these can cause just as much lag as docked power.

 

[NuclearFun]

I prefer another suggestion I saw that if a docked entity had it's rail destroyed, it would stop functioning, but not undock (something about a ghost rail being made, still looking for the thread again). That way we get rid of the problems with undocked entities in the middle of ships altogether, including rail doors etc.

including rail doors etc. - totally agree: regardless of any changes to power or balance, docked entities will stay a problem otherwise.

 

[Jojomo]

Certainly collision lag is a problem that needs an answer, but I feel like killing docked power entirely removes some interesting aspects of design and combat. For example you wouldn't then see a ship with it's weapon reactor shot out but other reactors still online.

I think a less intrusive solution would be to allow collisions between newly separated entities for a short time (fraction of a second) so that they could develop divergent vectors, then turn off clipping for the detached entity until it fully cleared the bounding box of the parent entity.

Not "realistic", but neat, efficient, and not difficult.

I might make a new suggestion to put it out there, and see if it sticks.

 

[Shadow2Lead]

Sorry about sort of breaking apart your post this way Raisinbat , but my response was really unclear when I just had the long quote at the top. Also, just to preface everything, I am assuming that the lag resulting from parts being shot off isn't a mere optimization problem, because the approach to docked reactors was to break them and put in aux reactors rather than just say "once we do a few optimization passes later on docked reactors won't create lag, so don't worry about the lag, we want this feature to stay as is."

Thoughts/questions:

As the author of that ship here's why it won't work, along with several other reasons. That ship isn't even modular for the sake of power generation, except the cannon, but to reduce mass cost of support systems.

I'd argue that it would be better to allow those systems to just work in a reasonable way on a single entity rather than have them have funky interactions with only the mass of the entity they are on rather than the mass of the entire group of entities up and down various docking chains. From your description it sounds like your ship is designed to work around problems in balance atm, rather than the modularity being because you want to be able to swap parts. If the balance gets fixed so you can do the same thing on a single entity, is making it not work with multiple docked entities a problem?

Also keep in mind that surface docking is a planned feature (as far as i remember, maybe correct me on that) and once that comes in you get alll the good old exploits right back, just with surface docking :D Surface docked turrets, surface docked armor, surface docked shields etc etc etc.

Fixing docked power/entities and all this other shit requires two core changes:

• Remove the power bonus and reballance power consumption
• Remove the mass cost for support systems and make them work on linear scales

I wrote a longass post about fixing this shit in detail a while back but nobody cared: My Stupid Power Mechanics Thesis

Surface docking would be a docker that could dock/latch-on without a rail on the receiving entity?
And I'll read the power mechanics post.

I'm sure this all makes a lot of sense when comparing single entity ships to modular ones, but compare both ships TO FLEETS. Fleets of identical mass would utterly fucking annihilate large ships, so what is the point of large ships then?

As has allready been pointed out, modular ships DON'T LAG WHEN THEY AREN'T DYING. Adress the fucking issue, the lag, if that's what your problem is.

Fleets... frankly, fleets more than anything else are where I see that I do not really understand what the final end state of the game the devs want is. RTS/4X/flight-sim hybrid of some sort. Because, you are 100% right, ignoring lag, fleets really make the soft caps make much less sense from both a balance point of view and a "make the game friendlier to new players by not having block count be a huge competitive advantage" point of view. Are fleets much lag friendlier? Why is it better for one player to control X mass across 5 ships in one battle than X mass across 1 ship in the same battle?

 

[Raisinbat]

Surface docking would be a docker that could dock/latch-on without a rail on the receiving entity?

I don't remember the source but i think that's how it's supposed to go. Everything else i agree with you 100%.

 

[Borr]

Or shadow docks are how you go about fixing it; modular ships don't lag when they're just floating around, only on undocks.

Whatever works the best. But explosions and big holes is what I prefer the most.

I was against "a solution" for "laggy" docked reactors as it is right now. Aux block can't be even triggered by logic or by AI. I love modular designs, they give so many possibilities. Ships like that are easier to change, upgrade, they benefit more from game mechanics (some called it exploits, but for me they just clever designs). Now I'm afraid of building anything because it can be nerfed in any time and all my effort, time invested to design, build, will be wasted.

But it is funny and so ironical. Schine removed docked reactors but players design new ways to workaround that and lag servers even more xD

 

[Reilly Reese]

What even is this...

 

[Panpiper]

Schine removed docked reactors but players design new ways to workaround that and lag servers even more xD

Docked power sources for turrets do NOT lag servers "even more". They do not lag servers at all, 'except' if they come loose due to battle damage. The old docked power reactors lagged servers a lot more even when not coming loose, due to their power beams and logic becoming quite taxing when used in large numbers. The new way in which docked power sources are being used is nowhere near the level of lag problem that the old systems were.

 

[Borr]

Docked power sources for turrets do NOT lag servers "even more". They do not lag servers at all, 'except' if they come loose due to bettle damage. The old docked power reactors lagged servers a lot more even when not coming loose, due to their power beams and logic becoming quite taxing when used in large numbers. The new way in which docked power sources are being used is nowhere near the level of lag problem that the old systems were.

You are right, previous system was bad, but this doesn't mean the idea of docked reactor was bad. Lag from logic and beams wouldn't be the case if we had the ability to transfer back and forth between entities, not only in one direction. Killing ability to transfer from docked entities, crippled idea of modular ships and make this style of building even more difficult. Now you have to dock even more entities to build decent ship:

engines = main entity >> docked power generation >> docked engines (oh wait, we can't even make that, because... I don't even know why... Power generation have to be on main entity)

+ weapon system: main entity >> docked power generation >> docked shield generation >> docked weapon system/turrets,

and on top of that: main entity >> docked power generation>> docked shield generation >> docked armour,

not to mention: docked drones, doors, and other systems.

I can live with that, just another challenge. But still remain major problem, even bigger now, there is so many possibilities to "lucky shot" and lag the shit out of it.

This is what I meant, we need a solution for collisions when those modules come lose.

P.s. I don't like new aux block because I can't automate it with logic, shame on you Schine :P

 

[Comradecolonel]

I don't think that this is exploiting the rail system, i think this is the intended use. A self powering, self shielded weapons module is pretty nasty, but that is part of the rail system. This is not the only ship that does this, there are several module based ships out there now, that move very quickly, turn very quickly, have massive shields each, and have some really amazing systems.

How is the intended use of the DOCKING system to build an entire ship in separate parts to circumvent limits made to stop you from doing what are doing? I would assume if schema wanted us to use separate entities EVERY TIME we built a ship he would have pursued that in terms of design. Again I am not advocating against building modular ships or having modules that improve the performance of the ship. I have a problem with docked entities being the only way to build certain systems if you want them to be effective. You can have a lot more regen, jump inhibitor power, waffle arrays of doom, and many others. The only downside is the vulnerability of logic and dockers, as well as the immense lag when things come loose. In that last sentence you are describing why I have a problem with mechanics abuse. These modular ships are much better than building a ship the normal way and I think that is highly detrimental to the creativity of this game.

The idea is good but i don't think StarMade understands entities in this way. That is why i didn't add a like. Every entity "core" can have 2 mil regeneration they are stand alone. How does the game tell them apart or add them while docked? I could be wrong but i think it would require major recoding same with ghost rails. I like solutions to use what is in the game already. Just in a better or different way so it's easy to implement.

I'm pretty sure Schema could handle it. If it was the only way for him to make the system work as intended, he would get it done when the time came.

Do you complain about people kicking footballs to hard, or when people use fire magic against ice monsters? People follow what works, and no, people aren't going to make "complex wonders" if there's no fucking point to them. You're basically complaining that people are playing the game differently from you. It's fucking retarded, please stop. Making your ships high end PVP ships isn't mandatory, just like making them pretty isn't, but if there's no way to make GOOD design that's better than BAD design, you kill the reason a lot of people play.

I also sincerely doubt that some random idiot, completely new to the game, needs to be able to build a fucking titan immediately. Why the fuck would that be necessary, you can't do that in any other fucking game.

Let me start by saying that MANY of the mechanics in this game are not conducive to competitive play. It is far from balanced and there will most likely be many different popular strategies that will shift as the game is balanced. I don't have a problem with you using mechanics in a way that works. I have a problem with WHY it works in this specific instance. You are using gameplay mechanics to essentially bypass limits on single ships that are put there for a reason. You can do whatever you want but I'd like to help Schema make the game that he wants instead of making PvPers happy. There plenty of games made for competition and this isn't one of them.

As the author of that ship here's why it won't work, along with several other reasons. That ship isn't even modular for the sake of power generation, except the cannon, but to reduce mass cost of support systems.

The game punishes single entity ships in a myriad of dumb ways, power is just one of them, but consider that we have fucking fleets now:

What happens when a 500.000 mass fleet of small ships armed with EMP weapons runs into a 500.000 mass single ship?

The fleet of small ships have a massive power generation bonus and can easily outtage the large ship, which becomes completely unable to do anything. Currently turrets will still work, unless they're also being targetted, but at least turrets can compete. Modular design is how larger ships catches up with fleets of smaller ships. Game should have a ballance between large ships and small ships, not emphasize one of them to ridiculous extremes.

Not modular for power generation except for the weapon? That is the main reason for increased power regen, increased DPS. I can't build weapon that can match that raw DPS unless I build separate power for it using docked entities. How is this not problem? I HAVE to build a ship your way or I am ALWAYS at a disadvantage. You built your ship in a modular way not because it was cool or interesting, but to specifically achieve stats that would have been far unobtainable with any other methods.

If we were to argue about whether or not weapons should be necessary to fight, I would have no argument. Weapons are needed to fight because they are a mechanic that are made FOR THAT PURPOSE. Docked systems were not made for any combat or stat related purpose. They were made so you could dock ships together in creative ways.

The whole point of the power cap is to make so that the weapons on a larger ship aren't exponentially stronger. Fleets with varied ships are the desired gameplay. As you said before people do what works, and this is what schema wants to work. He doesn't what a single guy flying around in a titan that is unbeatable. That tips the balance of fun WAY in the other persons favor. I think a game where there are a lot of people in a single battle working together is a lot more fun.

Larger ships do need more of a purpose right now but I don't think making them better in combat in terms of raw numbers is the way to go. It will just keep this balance game going back and forth.

People keep complaining about complexity in this game, but this approach is what causes nonsensical complexity. First we had power system with reactor lines, but that couldn't be allowed to continue on forever, so softcab was added. Then that wasn't good enough for big ships, people were using docked reactors, so the cap was raised. That didn't fix anything so auxilliary power was added. That didn't fix anything so people are still using docked entities, what will the next rule be?

Refusing to go back and rework bad mechanics instead of just piling on arbitrary rule after rule trying to catch every exploit is how you get nonsensically overcomplicated design.

Maybe if shine would get their fingers out of a space whale butthole and fix the issues in the game that have been there for years, there wouldn't be so many "exploits" around.

I agree that we need new mechanics to add meaning to larger ships. I don't think they should match smaller ships pound for pound. I think large ships should focus on being hard to kill and support the ships in their fleet. The mechanics need some work but your suggestion are pretty much to just tear it down because it doesn't work. Obviously it works to some degree because people play this game regularly to fight. Is everyone 100% satisfied? No far from it, but that doesn't mean tearing it down and starting from scratch will make it better.

The point of the 2mil cap is that schine are fucking idiots, and removing the powerbonus would stop all this nonsense once and for all. I'm sure this all makes a lot of sense when comparing single entity ships to modular ones, but compare both ships TO FLEETS. Fleets of identical mass would utterly fucking annihilate large ships, so what is the point of large ships then?

As has allready been pointed out, modular ships DON'T LAG WHEN THEY AREN'T DYING. Adress the fucking issue, the lag, if that's what your problem is.

You really hate fleets don't you?

 

[Zekester81]

There is really only one solution. Stop entities from undocking upon ship death. That eliminates all clipping and collision created during the ships destruction. Even if you prevent power through docking, you still have docked armor, internal drone/fighter/torpedo docking, elevators, lifts, moving plates, other mechanical attachments to contend with that will undock currently creating the same situation. It's nearly the same comment I made on the Aux Pwr update thread. That update did nothing to stop these issues, only eliminated a full ship battery through docking.

 

[Panpiper]

I HAVE to build a ship your way or I am ALWAYS at a disadvantage. You built your ship in a modular way not because it was cool or interesting, but to specifically achieve stats that would have been far unobtainable with any other methods.

You have to build a ship using all the tricks of the trade, you have to build it with attention to detail and intricacy, and if you do not, you will indeed be at a disadvantage. What you are arguing for here, quite frankly, is that 'you' want 'us' to build ships 'your' way.

Our using modular tech is what makes the game interesting for us. If it was just a matter of X numbers of this block and Y numbers of that block, and make it with nice wedges and colors, this game would frankly be an exceedingly dull exercise in monotony. There would be no skill in ship building other than artistic, and I cannot imagine anything LESS interesting. I want a game with sufficient nuance in the building strategy that I can mull over build strategies for hours on end in my head, without laying down a single brick.

You quite frankly, are arguing for the removal of all but the most trivially basic of strategy... How many shields should I use, what ratio of capacitors to regenerators, how much armor, what weapon systems should I add, how big should I make them, should I put them in turrets, how many PD, how much thrust... And that's it. Everything else is cosmetic. If that was the build system, I could write a strategy guide to turn a newb into Clausewitz, and it probably wouldn't be more than two pages.

That is the whole of the strategy of building that you are lobbying for.

He doesn't what a single guy flying around in a titan that is unbeatable.

A titan built "that way" is by no means unbeatable. It needs simply to meet a titan built by another player who used an equal level of build strategy themselves, or a fleet built even half way competently (a fleet will decimate any single ship at anywhere close to the same mass).

 

[Jojomo]

I HAVE to build a ship your way or I am ALWAYS at a disadvantage.

But that's true of any optimisation technique, not just using multiple entities. You have to allocate a reasonable mass to power capacitors, make your weapons the "correct" size, achieve a decent thrust to mass ratio, and so on. Just like Raisinbat will have already done

Personally I think ships made from multiple entities are MUCH more interesting than not. Ship design becomes a much larger world to explore.
I love that you can have a reactor for your port shields and one for your starboard shields, and they can be operating at independent efficiencies because of different damage levels to the reactors, or that you can prioritise a system for power by giving it it's own reactor before giving leftover mass/space to a reactor for other systems, and so on, ad infinitum.
It adds such a huge, huge range of possibilities.

 

[Shadow2Lead]

Just going to pop back in here to reiterate support for PanPiper's ghost rails suggestion. I don't particularly support docked entities interacting with power/shields etc. the way they do now because I don't think this is the interaction intended by the devs. That said, if the devs do embrace the system interactions working the way they do atm between docked entities (and balance accordingly) and if docked entities didn't undock upon rail destruction I wouldn't consider the current docked entity system a bad thing either (I do think every ship after a newbie's first would be modular however, for better or worse.) Right now undocking entities is both a lag problem and just looks absurd. Seriously just look at something float/jerk out of a ship when it's rail has been destroyed, it just makes no sense and looks ridiculous.

TLDR; In space games I want weapons to go pew pew and make ships blow up not make parts of a ship weirdly phase through the rest of the ship.

 

[philthy mcnasty]

I have mixed feelings on the ghost rail. I think the problem with the lag will slowly go away as optimization gets better, and as hardware improves both with servers and the users.

This means that there will come a day when docked modules breaking free inside a ship become a gear adrift hazard, and start doing internal collision damage in the ship. This is a inherent flaw with the "turret battery" design: a proper explosive missile/punch through cannon hit has the potential of causing the turret to flat away. I have not see this happen, but i do not implement a design unless i am well aware of the risks, and in case my own ship is used against me...

I also like the thought of seeing ship modules break off of ships as the ships take damage. this adds a level of realism and awesome to the game, as debris starts floating around in a battle. As optimization gets better, this will not lag systems as much if at all. This will give huge advantages to sniper weapon systems and organized fleet operations for fighters. It also gives torpedoes a purpose, as the explosive blocks are very good for this.

Lets gets to the real nitty/gritty of the problem: Lag ships. ships that cause lag on the server, maybe even to the point of being on purpose.

So perhaps the real solution is a tool for the server admins a : memory usage tester for ships and stations. A tool that checks to see if a ship causes too much memory drain, and the server admin can remove it from the server. If your lag ship gets booted this way, then you will be given a nice "spawn crate" a large cargo area with all the parts and stuff from the ship spawned right there.

I am not sure how the best way to go about this would be. Would the admins be given a blue print of all ships in the lag area, and then get to see performance issues in a special sector to make their own decisions? would the tool make lag worse? Should we have a special "report lag button" that when you lag it puts it in a log that lets the server admin see the entities in the sector?

That is the root of this mess. Memory usage. And the problem here is how do we address this, if at all? The game is still in alpha, so optimization is going to take a long time. If they can't optimize this, then the ghost rail will have to be a thing.

Then there is the other nasty bit: will the finished product of the game be playable on older machines? that may be part of the lag issue. I know my processor was new when skyrim was released. I plan on updating that and the motherboard next year. Some people don't like the thought of updating their machines, it is expensive. Early Access makes this even nastier as some games that they could play, they can't because of new features. This happened to me with space engineers(that game is very poorly optimized)

 

[Raisinbat]

Now I'm afraid of building anything because it can be nerfed in any time and all my effort, time invested to design, build, will be wasted.

I know this pain friend

You really hate fleets don't you?

As would everyone if they had any idea what it meant! Anyone who has played X3 will know how little interest you end up taking with your ships, because they're burried in menus and so far away from you, there's no real interaction with them. That's fine for X3, but ship creation is THE most important part of starmade; even if it's not what you personally are doing, the creation and use of ships is what the entire game revolves around. When you make the game about this high level expansion, it's like having a super elaborate character creator for your mmo, which is immediately burried under random gear so you can't see it at all.

I've played X3 for hundreds of hours, yet i have ZERO idea what 99% of the ships in that game look like, because my only interaction with them is ordering them around out of sector, doing trade runs and defending factories, and since they're a thousand times better at it than i would be personally doing these things because they are many and i am one, your personal involvement in everything eventually doesn't really concern the game.

Not modular for power generation except for the weapon? That is the main reason for increased power regen, increased DPS. I can't build weapon that can match that raw DPS unless I build separate power for it using docked entities. How is this not problem? I HAVE to build a ship your way or I am ALWAYS at a disadvantage. You built your ship in a modular way not because it was cool or interesting, but to specifically achieve stats that would have been far unobtainable with any other methods.

Again you're missing the point dude. Let me try to explain this a bit more clearly...

Your ship needs a bunch of support systems to not be terrible; ion effect, overdrive effect, scanner and possibly EMP effect. Im too lazy right now to look up the exact values for all of it, but that totals about 15% of your mass. By splitting your ship into modules, these systems only count the entity they're on for how much mass they need to match. For arbalest, it's split into 4 similar sized modules, so you're cutting this cost down by 75%, from 15% to <5%.

If you're assuming shield systems are about 20% of your total mass as a single entity ship, being able to add 10% more mass results in !!! 50% !!!! higher shield strength, at NO extra cost. That is a MASSIVE advantage, and it's why beating around the power system won't stop modular designs.

You're also missing the fact that this won't change the power disparity between groups of ships and large single entity ships. A modular is just a fleet that's glued together and specialized, why does a fleet suddenly need to be weakened because it's attached to itself? The only reason AI fleets aren't completely dominating everything is because the ai is too stupid atm.

 

[Comradecolonel]

You have to build a ship using all the tricks of the trade, you have to build it with attention to detail and intricacy, and if you do not, you will indeed be at a disadvantage. What you are arguing for here, quite frankly, is that 'you' want 'us' to build ships 'your' way.

My way? What exactly is my way of building ships? Maybe everything but using docked entities to break limits that the dev put there. I knew when I used docked power and shield generators they were eventually going to be patched out. I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that the same is going to happen to advantages that come with docked construction methods.

Our using modular tech is what makes the game interesting for us. If it was just a matter of X numbers of this block and Y numbers of that block, and make it with nice wedges and colors, this game would frankly be an exceedingly dull exercise in monotony. There would be no skill in ship building other than artistic, and I cannot imagine anything LESS interesting. I want a game with sufficient nuance in the building strategy that I can mull over build strategies for hours on end in my head, without laying down a single brick.

I don't even know how to respond to this. I get modular tech is cool but how can you say it is the ONLY interesting thing in the game. Either I'm insane and my experience with Starmade is totally different, or you've never really built without modules. Seriously how can you even say this?

You quite frankly, are arguing for the removal of all but the most trivially basic of strategy... How many shields should I use, what ratio of capacitors to regenerators, how much armor, what weapon systems should I add, how big should I make them, should I put them in turrets, how many PD, how much thrust... And that's it. Everything else is cosmetic. If that was the build system, I could write a strategy guide to turn a newb into Clausewitz, and it probably wouldn't be more than two pages.

How is making docked entities not convey huge advantages going to greatly reduce strategy? All the same systems exist and they still work the same too. It just takes out the tedium of having to start your ship a specific way to even begin the design process.

But that's true of any optimisation technique, not just using multiple entities. You have to allocate a reasonable mass to power capacitors, make your weapons the "correct" size, achieve a decent thrust to mass ratio, and so on. Just like Raisinbat will have already done

Personally I think ships made from multiple entities are MUCH more interesting than not. Ship design becomes a much larger world to explore.
I love that you can have a reactor for your port shields and one for your starboard shields, and they can be operating at independent efficiencies because of different damage levels to the reactors, or that you can prioritise a system for power by giving it it's own reactor before giving leftover mass/space to a reactor for other systems, and so on, ad infinitum.
It adds such a huge, huge range of possibilities.

It is also true of any exploit. I don't see how that makes it a viable game design. You don't design hard limits into the game and expect that players will circumvent them.

Again I am not against modular design I just don't think it should be required for PvP. It should be optional at all levels of play and convey its own strengths and weaknesses. I'm pretty sure we can all agree that the devs intended for you to be able to create a fully combat capable ship using the vanilla build mechanics. Are you suggesting that all combat builds need docked modules because it's a better way of building? Or is it because it provides unrivaled capabilities?

As would everyone if they had any idea what it meant! Anyone who has played X3 will know how little interest you end up taking with your ships, because they're burried in menus and so far away from you, there's no real interaction with them. That's fine for X3, but ship creation is THE most important part of starmade; even if it's not what you personally are doing, the creation and use of ships is what the entire game revolves around. When you make the game about this high level expansion, it's like having a super elaborate character creator for your mmo, which is immediately burried under random gear so you can't see it at all.

I've played X3 for hundreds of hours, yet i have ZERO idea what 99% of the ships in that game look like, because my only interaction with them is ordering them around out of sector, doing trade runs and defending factories, and since they're a thousand times better at it than i would be personally doing these things because they are many and i am one, your personal involvement in everything eventually doesn't really concern the game.

Well I don't know what to tell you but this game will have that level of play. By the end of development you should have the ability to command a large amount of ships by remote. You don't have to play that way but as far as large scale combat goes that is the reality if you are the leader of a large faction. This game has the potential to be more in-depth and varied than X3 could ever dream of. You can explore every inch on foot and there will be endless randomly generated content. Not to mention quality RP that will be expanded with upcoming world updates.

Again you're missing the point dude. Let me try to explain this a bit more clearly...

Your ship needs a bunch of support systems to not be terrible; ion effect, overdrive effect, scanner and possibly EMP effect. Im too lazy right now to look up the exact values for all of it, but that totals about 15% of your mass. By splitting your ship into modules, these systems only count the entity they're on for how much mass they need to match. For arbalest, it's split into 4 similar sized modules, so you're cutting this cost down by 75%, from 15% to <5%.

If you're assuming shield systems are about 20% of your total mass as a single entity ship, being able to add 10% more mass results in !!! 50% !!!! higher shield strength, at NO extra cost. That is a MASSIVE advantage, and it's why beating around the power system won't stop modular designs.

I'm missing the point? I don't have a problem understanding why docked entities can be used to GREATLY enhance your ship. I totally get this point. There is no reason to explain it again. I've built combat ships in this game and understand the mechanics that go into them.

My point is that as you stated yourself, using docked entities provides MASSIVE advantages for no cost. This means that every ship in the game that is not built this way is at a disadvantage in every single way. If that is your idea of a fair and balanced game then I can't agree with that.

You're also missing the fact that this won't change the power disparity between groups of ships and large single entity ships. A modular is just a fleet that's glued together and specialized, why does a fleet suddenly need to be weakened because it's attached to itself? The only reason AI fleets aren't completely dominating everything is because the ai is too stupid atm.

A fleet? How can you call an empty hull with a few modules, a naked shield/weapon bank, and a naked thruster thingie a fleet. So the game is supposed to think you are flying around in a glued together fleet. This really couldn't sound gimmickier.

TLDR: Nobody can seem to defend the balance of the current docking mechanics. All I hear is the good ol' "git gud" argument.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Me too, but if people won't voluntarily stop making docked reactor chains that break the server every time one of them comes loose, what choice do we have?

Its a case of "This is why we can't have nice things, because people abuse them".

make active dockers and rail pairs invulnerable? No more dedock, no more problems.