Making ships SO much cooler

[Calbiri]

This post started out as just 1 suggestion but has grown into a list of interlocking complimentary ideas, I'll compile them into 1 cohesive list if i find the time, for now if you read through the posts youll find ideas by others (credited) and myself that work towards much improving the feel/function of ships in the game.
Below is just the first.
-I was thinking about the possibility of Frame blocks
these would act something like a mediary between your core and your ships other blocks (or it could replace a core altogether?)
The frame blocks in a ship in build mode would all need to be connected into 1 grouping (whether attached to core or not) After connecting your innitial frames together you can start adding standard blocks onto the frame
(possibly having a green build box, sort of like the opposite of not being able to build within a docks "green box", like each frame has a 3x3x3 cube around it you can build on?)
That could make for some interesting build desgins, provide structural integrity and the opposite, structural collapse...
Imagine if someone shoots through your armor and severs the 2x2 thick frame running the length of your frigate, currently your ship magically stays in 1 peice and continues the fight... BUT what if with the frames severed, the rear of your ship (and all attached blocks, via the build zone boxs) drift off and become a seperate entity...
now you engines are gone, half your power system is gone and so is that sweet cloaking rig you stuck back there... or losing a wing that someone just shot through the frame of...

Hate me for suggesting this if you will, but it adds more flavor to the build mode, and could help with the magic floating ship parts in combat
(maybe put a destruct timer on severed parts so they dont clutter an area for too long)

 

[Calbiri]

Additionally, i forgot to mention that while in build mode frames that are not connected the frame group will stay attached until leaving build mode, this way you dont get parts drifting away during construction.
this may also serve as a sort of \"upgrade\" from the standar core for fighters to a frame-core for larger vessels? (maybe only allowing my suggested reactors from another post on frame-core vessels)

• 
  Another Tie-in i thought of (forgive the pun :D ) it to use this frame system to incorporate your template building concept, so you can make a frame template for a type of wing, and then simply attach it to the frame on a ship and prestom, the ship now has a wing

 

[Calbiri]

Clearing up some confusions
after talking with several people about this, i realize that some people think i mean preset ship frames. Not at all (only the template peices, if that is used, for faster assembly)
this concept of frame blocks would allow you to custom build your ships \"skeleton\" as you see fit. you can have thin ribbing lines of frames 1block thick, or make the frame as thick as you want (kind of like thick armor, more frame thickness means harder to sever) and the shape of your frame is also fully malleble, simply place the blocks as you do now to lay out the skeleton, then fill it in with armor, power, thrusters, weapons, sheild blocks, etcetera. Not a limiting factor, merely a guiding factor that you fully choose the shape of

 

[Xiphon]

I like this, it would make structural decisions much more important when planning your ship.

 

[Marduk]

I think this would be an excellent idea and in addition to the graphical improvement, it would really enhance the overall feel of combat.
Once the pacing of combat is tweaked a bit, I think this idea would make in-combat damage control that much more important.

 

[Calbiri]

Just some extra thoughts on frame blocks provided by Baron
http://www.star-made.org/content/building-frame-block-idea
\"Building on the Frame Block Idea




So I believe it was Calbiri that suggested using frame blocks instead of cores.
This got me thinking as to an efficient way to classify ships in game - using ship cores for smaller vessels (only a core = fighter / shuttle) and adding from blocks to build off of. The more frame units on a ship, the large the classification, for example 100 frames = cruiser, 500 = destroyer, etc.
This seems like it would have a twofold effect. Not only would it assist in building larger ships (you start with a core and add frame blocks - a % of frame blocks must be destroyed in addition to the core, meaning that it doesn\'t take one solid beam to wipe out a capital ship). In addition to making it easier to build larger ships, it would also add a new way of classifying ship size. Having specifically designated classes based on the size of the ship would allow much easier balancing, as you could focus on the numbers of a class rather than having to change the numbers of every ship in the game.
There could even be bonuses and drawbacks to using different classes, for example a medium \'cruiser\' sized ship may have decent balances to mobility and survivability (integrity) while not retaining the bonuses of a fighter or a capital ship in regards to speed and hull HP, respectively.

To sum it up, add a new block - frame, or hull frame. The more you have, the larger your class of ship is. Easier to balance in the long run, easier to build for players, and more realistic in terms of losing your ship.\"

 

[achoo92]

An interesting element I see from this is if you have a ship with multiple cockpits and a way to get to them internally, whichever one the pilot is in when the ships splits determines which part of the ship he reamins in control of. As well as the possibility of having a crew member (or an enemy) taking control of the other section(s). Would almost act like a turret in that if the docking block is destroyed it can be operated as a seperate entity. This would probably only be possible if the frame replaces a core, since you can only fly a ship from within the core.

 

[Calbiri]

Heres an addendum id like to add, i got this from RPGprayer and his
http://starmade.org/content/rpgs-gargantuan-post-suggestions
\"Power Distribution
A power distribution block that you can use to allocate power to your different systems (The same way allocation now works with the weapon controllers), to be able to focus you ship designs. Do you want a nimble ship? Divert power to your RCS (mentioned above)! Do you want a massive shield, and less damage? No problem! This would be really useful.
Structural Integrity Field Generators
I\'ve been thinking a bit how bigger ships would be affected by damage to it\'s hull.
Bigger ships (Maybe 40-50 Mass and above?) would need to have structual field generators to keep it\'s hull intact if taking damage. These would, when needing to be activated (After the Hull has taken a loss of around 20%) would drain a lot of power, increasing as the ship takes more damage. Each Generator would only be able to support a set amount of blocks, so if you don\'t have enough structural integrity, your ship could break apart (Random explosions on the ship that removes more hull lost).
How this would work after a shield failure and diverting loads of power to those, I haven\'t worked out, yet.

 

[Calbiri]

and to just throw in another feature that would tie in well towards allowing for complex designs
this is from my post
http://starmade.org/content/fighting-gigantism-starmade
A complete conversion of the current power block grouping and its box dimension system to

• 
  Reactor Core-The Central Unit of any ships Reactor, simply attach a length of Reactor Enhancers to each face to increase its performance
  
  
  To start, each Reactor core can have 6 enhances connected to it at 1 per each face. Each of these faces draws additional power from the enhancers linked to it.

[*]
Reactor Core Enhancers-A complicated miniaturization of the standard power block

• 
  
  A set of enhancers 5 blocks long adds +5 to the box dimension extending from that face of the Reactor Core (5 blocks linked to the Z face adds 5 to the Z of the \"box dimension\" equation)
• 
  Enhancers extension can be build in any length, manner or direction, as long as it starts from a X face it adds to the X dimensions \"box dimension\"
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  Each Enhancer blocks can only touch 2 other enhancer blocks or (A Reactor Core may also be used as one of the alloted 2 touching faces allowed) this forces a player to \"chain\" out a series of enhancers from each side of the core without merging them
• 
  This would allow for more complex power supply designs without forcing players to expand into the XYZ dimensions to the extent that they are now
• 
  Schema, i can do a detailed in game example of how this would work, using some colored blocks i can easily show the idea to you

A simplification, this system would allow for box dimension math to be used on a reactor without forcing the builder to use ever larger space for the box, (while preventing loopholes to exploit)

 

[Calbiri]

http://starmade.org/content/cockpits-weapon-pcs
basically, allow cockpits to link to weapon computers in addition to the core (not both at once though)

 

[Calbiri]

These ideas are from
http://starmade.org/content/hull-blocks-more-decoration
Thanks to Xiphon for the original post and ideas

1. I played around with hull armor and hitpoint values, and found that for the current strength of the anti-matter cannon, a standart hull with double the hitpoints and armor around 60, and armored hull with 350 - 400 hp and armor around 80 would make them a bit more useful. Currently standard hull is barely more durable than power blocks.
2. Making power blocks explode with a small radius damage perhaps 50% of the time when destroyed would make protecting them much more important as a ship with loads of them packed close together could self destruct pretty spectacularly if a few went off at the same time.
3. Hulls should be able to absorb some damage taken by non-hull blocks next to them. Of course this destroys the hull faster, but creating bulkheads to slow damage from reaching vital systems would be strategically important as it is in real ship building.
And to Kwahu for an awesome sheild/armor concept

As another idea, the damage model could be changed so that instead of all weapons doing 100% damage to shields regardless of where the laser or missile hits, the armor value of the underlying block could modify the damage that the shield takes. For example, a laser blast that hits a power block does it\'s full damage to the shields health pool, whereas a laser blast that hits a hardened hull does half damage to the shield. This also adds another element of strategy/skill to combat, as hitting exposed weak points like engines would do more damage even on a ship with its shields up.
As a way of hand-waving variable shield damage away, you could say that armored blocks are designed to absorb and disperse some of the energy that strikes the shield above them.

 

[Calbiri]

I was thinking about the capital ship problem, and it might be an unpopular suggestion, but would it be cool to change thrusters to work like this
Give thrusters a throttle that sticks where you leave it, throttle up to 50% and you might still get to 50 kph, but itll take longer (maybe make higher thrust effect agility, or lower thrust bonus to agility?)
Thrusters do a small cone of damage (1-2 blocks) in the direction their burners are facing (generally to the rear of the ship)

• 
  this would prevent massive stacking of thrusters (ya i know you hate me and my idea) youd have to actually dedicate surface area on the backside of your ship to provide adequate thrust.
• 
  Now this solves the exponential space/area issue that large ships get as a current advantage (the bigger your surface gets the exponentially larger your area to put more blocks in becomes), while not punising small ship to any sever degree (they can still easily pile enough thursters on their backs to move their small mass)
• 
  Also imagine thruster burning someone who gets to close on your tail, or flipping the thrusted around and strafe burning someone or ramming them with the burner

 

[Calbiri]

Is it possible to tag ship schematics with a list of the designers, each additional designer who changes the ship gets their name added to the list. This way you can see that your epic ship started out life as one of... oh lets say beetlebears ship designs.
If your not sure how i mean this to work, it would be just like Spores creation lineage system, a list of all the prior ship editors for your particular schematic
EDIT:
VonDred details this aspect in ship history, as well as various other usefull info in his link just below. Very well put together!
http://www.star-made.org/content/new-way-saving-ships

 

[Calbiri]

For thrusters, another suggestion that\'s been made is to remove speed drag on ai or player controlled entities (non air or player controlled entities would need to slow to a stop still for server performance I imagine)
Use the cuurent brake to automatically descelerate the same way (instead of instant) in any direction needed.
Possibly make thrusters facing the proper direction a requirement/factor in thrusting in that direction (you need forward thrusters to slow down, or you\'ll need to learn to flip180 to descelerate)

 

[Xiphon]

Yes to all of these ideas, would add a whole new level of awesome to building ships. There is one thing I would like to add though, it\'s something I posted a while back.
....
I would like to have a computer block similar to the weapons computers that could be assigned a number key in the flight interface, so you can use it while flying. This computer could be linked to any regular Hull blocks, angles and corners, just like weapons now. When activated it would vanish the blocks the same way doors work. This way you can create retractable landing gear.

There also happen to be a huge number of other cool things you could do with this.......

 

[Legion]

If this were simply implemented in the next version it would be a rather fantastic fail.

To do this, first there would need to be a way to handle proper turning. At the moment, when you fire your thrusters, you fire all of your thrusters, and their relative positions on the ship dont change the effect of the thrust.
If youve got your main thruster assembly on a pylon 10 blocks away from your ships center of gravity, you still move exactly forward when you fire the thrusters.
In real life, firing those thrusters would cause the ship to spiral, as the pieces far away from the thrusters would have greater inertia and thus move slower.
It would be like having a rocket tied to an immovable post by an unbreakable rope, only slower.
This is a necesarry first step to adding the requirement of thrusters to be pointed in the right direction.
Im ok with either the setup we have now (in this regard) or the setup with both, but going halfway poses problems.

 

[Calbiri]

i know its been suggested, but what about the possibility of adding collision damage based on the mass/speed of the 2 objects?

And i cant remember if it was covered earlier here, but having heavy hull blocks resist damage from cannons the same way shields resist missile damage would be sweet for offensive/defensive strategy

 

[Battul Bruva Cat]

I like idea of frames, would be fun to crack ships in half. We should get max number of derbis configurable in cfg so they will not spam server and cause lags. If ship breaks in half there should be chance that power and computer blocks around ship will explode. Also, the docks from destroyed pieces of ships should fail so breaking carrier will cause fighters to fly off through new hole. Or temporal power failure when ship gets big damage, like those from breaking it in half.
Also, what about asteroids? They are locked in place... so what about asteroid getting a main block inside it and others that can be cut off and float away. Just imagine, you fly a small fighter and there is big destroyer after you. You fly into asteroid field (WELL, FIRST WE NEED REAL FIELDS) and when destroyer rockets hits asteroids they will break into crapload of pieces so navigating through it will be pain in ass and if we implement collision damage they will be dangerous too.
Or cutting smaller pieces of really big asteroid and then tuging them near mining station/ship where salvaging beams do their work... without danger of someone destroying those smaller ships. Bigger ones would not fit in asteroid fields, so...

 

[Calbiri]

You make a great point Legion.
When i wrote this, i was only thinking of converting the thruster blocks, since right now they dont actually control your ships roll/pitch/yaw, additionally, there is no center of mass to the ship, only the core determines the central point. So worst case is we leave the R/P/Y turn rates as is (and i think the current ship agility system is just non-sensical) and only implement the changes i mentioned to the thrusters affecting the 6 directions of travel relative to your ship.
So to solve your issue, and to resolve my unspoken desire, i propose we use the system i mention above, but in addition

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  Change the ships pivot point (as well as the ships diamond icon) to be at the center of the ships mass, instead of defaulted to the core\'s location (this would be a requirement in larger ships if frames replaced cores)
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  Add an maneuvering type (roll/pitch/yaw) thruster system (or alter current thrusters to serve both funtions?)

RPGprayer mentioned this earlier on this page, (also here http://starmade.org/content/rpgs-gargantuan-post-suggestions ) although if you have some more specific thoughts or solutions to the system, please post them, a comprehensive list of suggestions/solutions to ship design specifics for schema is my goal.
Thanks for the input

 

[Calbiri]

I know shields use to use box dimension to determine Bubble size (which was reomved for the much cooler skintight shield effect)

• 
  I propose we bring back shield box dimension, and apply the bonus to shield regen amount
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  Shields should also cover docked ships/turrets (yes i know this is planned, just mentioning it)
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  Shields protecting the ship from Solar Damage when near a star (if the shield is strong enough)