Module Docking Block

[Neoclad]

We need that!

We need a block that makes it so when you dock an entity to it everything is shared with the main ship: Weight, power, shield, thrust, weapons, everything.

I love the idea of modular ships and I also like small ships. This is the only way to make ships work with modules and rails without being oversized (understand without lots of power transfer or shield transfer beams) and with functional railed weapons!

Give your thoughts.

 

[CyberTao]

Sharing power? There is a reason we don't have that. The only thing that really needs to be shared to help Modular ships is Thrust.

 

[Neoclad]

Oh... and what is the reason?
The reason is that we could add power with weighless docked units.
But if the unit shares weight as well we can share everything, it just becomes part of the ship, it is just natural.

Actually Thrust is the least important thing to share cause it is easy to add more to the main ship and we rarely see thusts on rails... + if a ship is docked to another ship it should not add its thrust to it. But we not are speaking abouts ship to ship sharing we are speaking about ship Modules.

 

[CyberTao]

ship Modules.

A module is just another ship though.
Power regeneration is on a curve.
Shield capacity is on a curve.
Thrust is on a curve.
There is a reason these things are on a curve, and the idea of sharing to this degree would pretty much remove the curves from them entirely. I have to vote nay to anything that would easily support rofl-titans and bigger is better.

 

[Neoclad]

Actually it would do the opposite. If you remove the curve-thing it means more power with less mass... so smaller ships.
Also:
- Shield is not on a curve.
- Thrust is determine by the number of blocks in one array.
- Only power would be affected

BUT we do not remove the curve-thing with this solution. modules are still built like ships, with curves. As they would share everything with the main ship they are just as if built in the ship, they would be parts of the ship that can be mounted on rails and moved or undocked to make the main ship lighter. That is all.

 

[SapioiT]

Actually it would do the opposite. If you remove the curve-thing it means more power with less mass... so smaller ships.
Also:
- Shield is not on a curve.
- Thrust is determine by the number of blocks in one array.
- Only power would be affected

BUT we do not remove the curve-thing with this solution. modules are still built like ships, with curves. As they would share everything with the main ship they are just as if built in the ship, they would be parts of the ship that can be mounted on rails and moved or undocked to make the main ship lighter. That is all.

Lighter or more manouverable. You could have a "docking" shape/mode (ressembling a cylinder), a "flight" mode (keeping everything packed in) and a "fight/peaceful" mode where the core is protected and the weapons are ready to fire and the turrets are out and active.

 

[Neoclad]

And so many more things.

I was actually doing a cloaking device whith concentric rotating elypsoids so you can dock your ship in the middle and it is cloacked.

But power is not transfered from one part to the other so I can never get enough power to cloak...

 

[CyberTao]

Shield is not on a curve.

shieldCapacity = ((totalUnitShieldCapacity*ShieldCapacityPreMul)^ShieldCapacityPow)*ShieldCapacityTotalMul
Notice the use of the exponent. Shields are not linear.

Thrust is determine by the number of blocks in one array.

total = (total^PowTotalThrust)*MulTotalThrust
Notice the use of the exponent. Thrust output is not linear (although power consumption per block is).

There is issues with sending data back and forth between entities, you'll notice that power regeneration does not actually increase the regen of turrets, or add to their storage. Sending block count values back and forth might work, but I forsee lag when doing block updates after blocks start getting hit.

 

[Neoclad]

Nope, you are still thinking modules = no weight.

If module adds weight then it can add everything no problem, it is a part of the ship.
Same goes for turrets.

The issue with sending data back and forth might be worked around by considering the module simply as part of the ship, it is 1 ship not 1 ship and 5 modules. But do not know if possible, do not know enough about starmade code.

 

[ltmauve]

Without shield sharing by default I would consider your idea balanced even with the curve not a factor (just adding stats on)
However, since the mothership shares shields up to 50% I'd say that having modules that can boost things past the curve is OP.
So an idea to implement this without letting every titan get away with having a bunch of tiny thruster modules to beat the curve is:
Let ships link modules to dockers. The modules will not benefit the ship itself, but only the parent ship. If the ship has shields linked to the docker, it does not receive shields when docked using that docker. If a ship has power linked to the docker, it cannot recieve power from the mothership if it runs out.
This means that you can't just boost the capabilities of a ship by docking another ship onto it, you need a dedicated module to do so.

 

[Neoclad]

implement this without letting every titan get away with having a bunch of tiny thruster modules to beat the curve

This si an overly complicated solution. Why not just add the number of blocks of the module to the total of the ship?
The idea here is that, when docked, the module is part of the ship, it is not considered another entity anymore.
As said earlier, it would be just like adding those blocks directly on the main ship so no curve beating. The only afvantage is that this module can be mounted on rails and moved.

 

[Keptick]

Shields and thusters are on a curve, just saying.

Power is linear (25 e/sec). However, there's a 1 million power bonus to benefit smaller ships. Removing that would make smaller ships even less useful and would completely destroy the current balance, so no on that.

Being able to share power freely to the main ship would mean 0 loss docked reactors, as in I could permacloak a 1 million mass ship. So that's definitely a no.

Sharing 100% shields: What's the point of shielding entities if they share 100% of the ship's shields? Also destroys the balance, no.

Thrusters; I'd be ok with that. That is until I realized that people could use the power bonus from docked entities and have powerful docked thrusters (more so than what could be on the main ship). Also no.

Basically, your suggestion would completely destroy the balance of the entire game for some additional modularity. Don't forget that big ships would also benefit from the changes, even more so than small ships.

Edit: Idk how feasible it would be to have them be "part of the same ship" as you put it. My guess is that it'd require quite a recode since stuff is all bounded to the core of the entity it's on.

 

[Mariux]

Shields and thusters are on a curve, just saying.

Power is linear (25 e/sec). However, there's a 1 million power bonus to benefit smaller ships. Removing that would make smaller ships even less useful and would completely destroy the current balance, so no on that.

Being able to share power freely to the main ship would mean 0 loss docked reactors, as in I could permacloak a 1 million mass ship. So that's definitely a no.

Sharing 100% shields: What's the point of shielding entities if they share 100% of the ship's shields? Also destroys the balance, no.

Thrusters; I'd be ok with that. That is until I realized that people could use the power bonus from docked entities and have powerful docked thrusters (more so than what could be on the main ship). Also no.

Basically, your suggestion would completely destroy the balance of the entire game for some additional modularity. Don't forget that big ships would also benefit from the changes, even more so than small ships.

Edit: Idk how feasible it would be to have them be "part of the same ship" as you put it. My guess is that it'd require quite a recode since stuff is all bounded to the core of the entity it's on.

Did they change shields again then?

 

[wagfeliz]

I dont see the point. If you need it to build ships in a modular way, you can use templates.

 

[crambaza]

All I know is that when I dock the saucer section of my Enterprise D with my battle section, I want to have the thrust of both halves.

 

[Ithirahad]

Uh, IDK if I've missed something, but isn't this guy suggesting that the modular bits' systems are also merged formula-wise with the main ship? So if a ship has passed the softcap already, docking a reactor module would only give you another 25 energy per block, rather than working like a docked reactor? If it was implemented like this, which I'm fairly certain is possible, then I don't see any issue...

 

[Neoclad]

Uh, IDK if I've missed something, but isn't this guy suggesting that the modular bits' systems are also merged formula-wise with the main ship? So if a ship has passed the softcap already, docking a reactor module would only give you another 25 energy per block, rather than working like a docked reactor? If it was implemented like this, which I'm fairly certain is possible, then I don't see any issue...

Finally somebody who actually reads posts. Thank you.

 

[Draeke_Forther]

Maybe it could be done like a control transfer styled block, with player commands being propagated through the levels. That would allow for cockpit modules to be put on otherwise complete ships.

 

[CyberTao]

Uh, IDK if I've missed something, but isn't this guy suggesting that the modular bits' systems are also merged formula-wise with the main ship? So if a ship has passed the softcap already, docking a reactor module would only give you another 25 energy per block, rather than working like a docked reactor? If it was implemented like this, which I'm fairly certain is possible, then I don't see any issue...

That would work for thrust and shielding, but not power (since you could probably not transfer the grouping bonus's right with all the formula stuff, meaning that you would just get a flat 25/block on a docked module making it inferior to a docked reactor). If that is even possible. People tend to think wireless logic is more magical than it is. I personally still believe weapons would be impossible.

 

[Neoclad]

That would work for thrust and shielding, but not power (since you could probably not transfer the grouping bonus's right with all the formula stuff, meaning that you would just get a flat 25/block on a docked module making it inferior to a docked reactor). If that is even possible. People tend to think wireless logic is more magical than it is. I personally still believe weapons would be impossible.

Maybe it could be done without wireless logic if the docked entity can be considered completely part of the ship, this would simplify all calculs.
I hope it is feasible and if it is I see no reason not to implement it cause this would just be pure awesome!