From my experiences the reason that hull is so useless is that it's a large mesh where each individual block is isolated and easy to pick off so instead I suggest two additions
a. Shooting the hull will instead create an aoe which does spread out damage to a large ammount of hull pieces rather than a lot of damage to a single piece as well as large ammount of concentrated hull negating some damage. this means that hull and armor will stack to create large shields that need to recieve a massive ammount of punishment before a large section breaks at once rather than one shot one block.
b. Hull which is parralel to where the shot came from is more effective at blocking damage than hull which is perpendicular which means that making reinforced hulls with several layers is effective.
c. A secondary function of shields should be added which is always active shall increase the aoe over the hull so that at it's best will make it so that damage to hull is spread out over a wider area which at it's best means that the hull will essentially create a combined health system which allows the ship to take a large ammount of punishment before the entire hull blows up at once. Hull would be the main problem instead of it being a formality once the shields are down where as shields would be a way to take small ammounts of damage and have it repair by itself
d. Exposed weapon systems/shields/etc/ will not be part of this system and can be picked off as they are now meaning they need to be protected with hull.
e. Shields are proportional to the ammount of hull so a massive shields array on small ship isn't as effective. The two must be kept in balance to eachother for maximum effectiveness. I rationalize this through the shields needing a magnetic surface to deflect things off. People will need a large ship with plenty of hull before buidling the 0.1 second recharge rate shields array as it just won't work without a large ammount of hull
f. The Core counts as part of this system which prevents taking down the shields then penetrating directly into the core.
g. Weapons have a penetration statistic which can negate this and allow more concentrated damage
h. The astro technobeam doesn't need to be aimed at specific parts of the ship, you fire it anywhere and the ship will start healing the most damaged block on the ship until it matches the 2nd most damaged one where both will start to heal at 50% the beams power each until everythings being healed evenly
i. if this is combined with my engine suggestions http://star-made.org/content/couple-suggestions-regarding-engines-and-turning-speed in the previous thread this will balance things and further help aid the creation of a ship class system with various abilities and drawbacks rather than "bigger is always better". With my engines idea massive reinforced hulls would be offset with less movement meaning that shields, hull and movment must be kept in a delicate and equal balance as upsetting this balance results in diminished returns. Very similar to the current weapon stats system. The ships hull, weapons, shields and engines must be kept in balance whilst larger ships will become slower and slower. Hull will become useful, shields will become less game breaking, small ships will become useful and the games depth will increase massively. A ship coated almost entirely in shields would last seconds where a ship made entirely of hull would be far more slow and cumbersome than it could be if it had shields as well as being open to haveing it's core sniped
j. A tertiarty shield function would add a small ammount of samage mitigation even when the shields are down
h. Shield regeneration turns off when damaged and turns back on again 30 seconds after you stop receiving damage but the starting value is higher.
Feedback and ideas to improve my suggestions would be highly valued and I will edit this post as people give me feedback.
The hull spreading out damage I feel would also be highly realistic since when you hit hull it makes a dent. It doesn't magically vanish (ok they are antimatter cannons but still).
a. Shooting the hull will instead create an aoe which does spread out damage to a large ammount of hull pieces rather than a lot of damage to a single piece as well as large ammount of concentrated hull negating some damage. this means that hull and armor will stack to create large shields that need to recieve a massive ammount of punishment before a large section breaks at once rather than one shot one block.
b. Hull which is parralel to where the shot came from is more effective at blocking damage than hull which is perpendicular which means that making reinforced hulls with several layers is effective.
c. A secondary function of shields should be added which is always active shall increase the aoe over the hull so that at it's best will make it so that damage to hull is spread out over a wider area which at it's best means that the hull will essentially create a combined health system which allows the ship to take a large ammount of punishment before the entire hull blows up at once. Hull would be the main problem instead of it being a formality once the shields are down where as shields would be a way to take small ammounts of damage and have it repair by itself
d. Exposed weapon systems/shields/etc/ will not be part of this system and can be picked off as they are now meaning they need to be protected with hull.
e. Shields are proportional to the ammount of hull so a massive shields array on small ship isn't as effective. The two must be kept in balance to eachother for maximum effectiveness. I rationalize this through the shields needing a magnetic surface to deflect things off. People will need a large ship with plenty of hull before buidling the 0.1 second recharge rate shields array as it just won't work without a large ammount of hull
f. The Core counts as part of this system which prevents taking down the shields then penetrating directly into the core.
g. Weapons have a penetration statistic which can negate this and allow more concentrated damage
h. The astro technobeam doesn't need to be aimed at specific parts of the ship, you fire it anywhere and the ship will start healing the most damaged block on the ship until it matches the 2nd most damaged one where both will start to heal at 50% the beams power each until everythings being healed evenly
i. if this is combined with my engine suggestions http://star-made.org/content/couple-suggestions-regarding-engines-and-turning-speed in the previous thread this will balance things and further help aid the creation of a ship class system with various abilities and drawbacks rather than "bigger is always better". With my engines idea massive reinforced hulls would be offset with less movement meaning that shields, hull and movment must be kept in a delicate and equal balance as upsetting this balance results in diminished returns. Very similar to the current weapon stats system. The ships hull, weapons, shields and engines must be kept in balance whilst larger ships will become slower and slower. Hull will become useful, shields will become less game breaking, small ships will become useful and the games depth will increase massively. A ship coated almost entirely in shields would last seconds where a ship made entirely of hull would be far more slow and cumbersome than it could be if it had shields as well as being open to haveing it's core sniped
j. A tertiarty shield function would add a small ammount of samage mitigation even when the shields are down
h. Shield regeneration turns off when damaged and turns back on again 30 seconds after you stop receiving damage but the starting value is higher.
Feedback and ideas to improve my suggestions would be highly valued and I will edit this post as people give me feedback.
The hull spreading out damage I feel would also be highly realistic since when you hit hull it makes a dent. It doesn't magically vanish (ok they are antimatter cannons but still).
