Multiplayer Control Over Different Systems
- Thread starter Shadow18000
- Start date
Lecic
Convicted Lancake Abuser
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
- Messages
- 5,115
- Reaction score
- 1,229
Can you seriously just not take "no" as an answer? I don't like the idea of directional shielding. I don't think it belongs in the game. My opinion is that any bonus "shielding" should come from intelligent designing of your ships, with armor and docked shield plates, not a guy at a console flipping around the shield variables.
With directional shielding, you don't have weakspots unless you're attacked by multiple ships, because you'll just constantly swap your shields around to face the enemy. There's no "flying over and attacking at the weakpoint," just people constantly moving it around. You might as well just give shields a solid boost all around and accomplish the same.
And your solution to the shield computer exploit just leads to people building symmetrical cubes with all 3 planes with for equal shield distribution throughout.
With directional shielding, you don't have weakspots unless you're attacked by multiple ships, because you'll just constantly swap your shields around to face the enemy. There's no "flying over and attacking at the weakpoint," just people constantly moving it around. You might as well just give shields a solid boost all around and accomplish the same.
And your solution to the shield computer exploit just leads to people building symmetrical cubes with all 3 planes with for equal shield distribution throughout.
Ok this is how my basic Idea would work in actual game-play
---For a Defensive Scenario---
Think of the shields as they are now. They completely surround the ship. Now imagine you are retreating from a battle, and you have lost most of the armor plating to the rear of your ship, and you need to run, but by doing so, you are assuring your death.
If you redirect shielding to the rear, the rear would reduce up to 50% more damage, but the front of the ship can now take up to 50% more damage as well...but your forced to do this just to survive.
Enemies would notice this difference happening because all of the sudden their damage pings would drop in half. This gives them an opportunity to Jump drive a sector in front of your enemy, turn around, and start shooting at him from the front. Now you have a tactile advantage. You are dealing 50% MORE damage to his shield systems. Which means that they can be brought down even easier.
This makes the work load on the captain a lot harder, because he has to juggle power, shields, enemy awareness, and running for his life.
---Now for the offensive scenario---
Lets say you have a ship with a LOT of firepower going up against another ship with a LOT of firepower. You can divert as much power as possible to the front shields to reduce as much damage as possible. They will most likely do the same thing (IF they react in time).
So now both of you are 50% stronger in the front, but weaker in the back. Now you simply just have to send fighters to the other side of the ship to ambush them and take down their shields. Once their Shields are gone...BOOOM. They get hit with the full force of your weapons systems and are taken down.
---In conclusion---
All of the above stated measures require MORE juggling of systems, MORE need for team work and MORE strategy. This would increase game mechanics dramatically! And give a GOOD reason to even have an engineer to redirect power on your ship instead of just having him pilot a fighter
---How would you make this system work?---
As to how you would write the code for this...I know about as much Java as a 3 year old knows English. Enough to understand it, but not enough to use it well. That being said, I'm sure that my next statement would work.
You would code each ship to split itself into two separate Hemispheres, based on the total length and width of the ship.
Hemisphere #1 = Front Hemisphere + Back Hemisphere
Hemisphere #2 = Port Hemisphere + Starboard Hemisphere
Now when you redirect power, you would reduce the shield's effectiveness from the one side of the hemisphere, and distribute it to the other side.
---What about people abusing this?---
Lets say someone is smart enough to make a ship that's 300m long, but puts all of his systems and his core in the back 150m. Now he increases his shields by 50% in that area to keep those systems from being damaged. That would make this diversion of power thing really OP right? Lets think again.
If they redirect all the shields to the BACK half of the ship, that means anyone hitting the ship head on with their weapons will actually remove the shields FASTER than if they didn't direct the shields at all. Therefore what they did to try and break the system really made them weaker. And when their shields are gone, it wont take long for the damage to reach the core.
And as far as all this armor plating + shields in specific area (Like the back area of a ship with all the shields systems and the core)...that makes perfect sense to do that. Why would that NOT be ok? I don’t understand the premise of why that would be considered a mistake...Sure it would make the shields and core hard to get to from the back, but then you can just shoot him from the front, take down his shields, and smash his face in....I just don't see a fall back for this. How would it make any difference if the shields were left as they already are?
---Last Comment---
And as for the “This isn't Star Treck” comment...why can't I make a ship like they have on Star Treck? How would that change the way this game is played at all...or how would that affect the enjoyment of Star Treck haters? (I personally wouldn't mind blowing captain Kirk out of the sky lol) And why shouldn't Trecky fans be attracted to this game. I'm not a Trecky by any means, but there are some things about the Star Treck universe that they do REALLY well. One of those things is the division of labor amongst a ship by means of operations of different systems. I don't really enjoy the show (although it can be entertaining form time to time), but the concepts in the show are very appealing.
And this is a Sandbox, soon to be Mod-able game. It's very purpose is to give us a means to simulate space travel, but in a way that WE design. So wouldn't it make sense then to open this game up to all genres of Space TV shows/video games/books that people enjoy? (And honestly, there's very little difference in space mechanics between shows. Most of them have Shields, differing weapons systems, life support, etc.).
So I understand that YOU don't personally like this idea, but that doesn't mean its a bad idea either. I'm sorry if that upsets you, because I don't want to make anyone mad for any reason...that's just dumb. But the idea IS a good one, it just needs to be play tested and balanced to see if it would work well in this universe. And if it doesn't get implemented...oh well. No sweat off my back. I'll still have fun with it.
---For a Defensive Scenario---
Think of the shields as they are now. They completely surround the ship. Now imagine you are retreating from a battle, and you have lost most of the armor plating to the rear of your ship, and you need to run, but by doing so, you are assuring your death.
If you redirect shielding to the rear, the rear would reduce up to 50% more damage, but the front of the ship can now take up to 50% more damage as well...but your forced to do this just to survive.
Enemies would notice this difference happening because all of the sudden their damage pings would drop in half. This gives them an opportunity to Jump drive a sector in front of your enemy, turn around, and start shooting at him from the front. Now you have a tactile advantage. You are dealing 50% MORE damage to his shield systems. Which means that they can be brought down even easier.
This makes the work load on the captain a lot harder, because he has to juggle power, shields, enemy awareness, and running for his life.
---Now for the offensive scenario---
Lets say you have a ship with a LOT of firepower going up against another ship with a LOT of firepower. You can divert as much power as possible to the front shields to reduce as much damage as possible. They will most likely do the same thing (IF they react in time).
So now both of you are 50% stronger in the front, but weaker in the back. Now you simply just have to send fighters to the other side of the ship to ambush them and take down their shields. Once their Shields are gone...BOOOM. They get hit with the full force of your weapons systems and are taken down.
---In conclusion---
All of the above stated measures require MORE juggling of systems, MORE need for team work and MORE strategy. This would increase game mechanics dramatically! And give a GOOD reason to even have an engineer to redirect power on your ship instead of just having him pilot a fighter
---How would you make this system work?---
As to how you would write the code for this...I know about as much Java as a 3 year old knows English. Enough to understand it, but not enough to use it well. That being said, I'm sure that my next statement would work.
You would code each ship to split itself into two separate Hemispheres, based on the total length and width of the ship.
Hemisphere #1 = Front Hemisphere + Back Hemisphere
Hemisphere #2 = Port Hemisphere + Starboard Hemisphere
Now when you redirect power, you would reduce the shield's effectiveness from the one side of the hemisphere, and distribute it to the other side.
---What about people abusing this?---
Lets say someone is smart enough to make a ship that's 300m long, but puts all of his systems and his core in the back 150m. Now he increases his shields by 50% in that area to keep those systems from being damaged. That would make this diversion of power thing really OP right? Lets think again.
If they redirect all the shields to the BACK half of the ship, that means anyone hitting the ship head on with their weapons will actually remove the shields FASTER than if they didn't direct the shields at all. Therefore what they did to try and break the system really made them weaker. And when their shields are gone, it wont take long for the damage to reach the core.
And as far as all this armor plating + shields in specific area (Like the back area of a ship with all the shields systems and the core)...that makes perfect sense to do that. Why would that NOT be ok? I don’t understand the premise of why that would be considered a mistake...Sure it would make the shields and core hard to get to from the back, but then you can just shoot him from the front, take down his shields, and smash his face in....I just don't see a fall back for this. How would it make any difference if the shields were left as they already are?
---Last Comment---
And as for the “This isn't Star Treck” comment...why can't I make a ship like they have on Star Treck? How would that change the way this game is played at all...or how would that affect the enjoyment of Star Treck haters? (I personally wouldn't mind blowing captain Kirk out of the sky lol) And why shouldn't Trecky fans be attracted to this game. I'm not a Trecky by any means, but there are some things about the Star Treck universe that they do REALLY well. One of those things is the division of labor amongst a ship by means of operations of different systems. I don't really enjoy the show (although it can be entertaining form time to time), but the concepts in the show are very appealing.
And this is a Sandbox, soon to be Mod-able game. It's very purpose is to give us a means to simulate space travel, but in a way that WE design. So wouldn't it make sense then to open this game up to all genres of Space TV shows/video games/books that people enjoy? (And honestly, there's very little difference in space mechanics between shows. Most of them have Shields, differing weapons systems, life support, etc.).
So I understand that YOU don't personally like this idea, but that doesn't mean its a bad idea either. I'm sorry if that upsets you, because I don't want to make anyone mad for any reason...that's just dumb. But the idea IS a good one, it just needs to be play tested and balanced to see if it would work well in this universe. And if it doesn't get implemented...oh well. No sweat off my back. I'll still have fun with it.
Lecic
Convicted Lancake Abuser
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
- Messages
- 5,115
- Reaction score
- 1,229
I said nothing about Star Trek fans not being allowed to be pulled towards this game. I said one line about the game not being the same thing as Star Trek, which is what the idea seems to be based on, and I'd prefer if Starmade stayed unique to itself instead of being an amalgamation of other games.
I think any "system manning" should be able to be accomplished NPCs instead of players, as, beyond RP reasons, sitting at a computer on someone elses ship is pretty boring. Multiplayer control would come from being able to remotely control turrets and fighters from on-board the main ship. If you want something along the lines of varied shields, I think that should be accomplished with armor plating and docked shield plates, which require smart ship designing, instead of just swapping shields around.
Am I no longer allowed to be even slightly less than perfectly friendly to ideas I disagree with? Quit trying to micro-mod me, Kros.
Lecic
Convicted Lancake Abuser
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
- Messages
- 5,115
- Reaction score
- 1,229
Players should be able to. I was just saying that they should be able to do all the same tasks.
I personally wouldn't have fun just sitting at a computer on a ship someone else was piloting. I'd much rather man (or, remote control) and turret or fighter from the hangers. I'm sure there ARE people who would enjoy piloting a weapon's computer (maybe it could have a minigame like routing power to the weapon, so that a decent player would be superior to a basic NPC?) so I think that option should still be available.
That's basically what the whole thread is suggesting. Changing the shields is a mini game
Lecic
Convicted Lancake Abuser
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
- Messages
- 5,115
- Reaction score
- 1,229
But crews should have a large impact on the ship. Otherwise, it is pretty boring. Also, changing the shields would only boost effectiveness by a small margin.
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2013
- Messages
- 523
- Reaction score
- 56
Lecic, I do believe you'll find that there's a difference between "A little less than friendly" And "Being an outright dick". The second one being what you are. And no, I'm not micro-moderating you, because funnily enough, i can't actually do anything to make you do anything, i was merely asking you to be a tad politer, because it could lead to flame (Which i realize, this might count as)
Lecic
Convicted Lancake Abuser
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
- Messages
- 5,115
- Reaction score
- 1,229
I'll state my opinion on why I don't support a suggestion, and I'll post alternatives and disagreements to attempts to fix and balance something I don't care for.
Now you are being kind of a dick. My opinion is that you are wrong. That's the whole point of an opinion.
Lecic
Convicted Lancake Abuser
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
- Messages
- 5,115
- Reaction score
- 1,229
You're the one derailing your own thread.
50% boost to damage resistance sounds like a pretty huge margin.
50% boost is too much actually, since Ion can go up to 60%, which would allow you to have 110% total damage resistance. If you remember the bug that allowed you to go over 100% with effects when they were first added, you'll remember that doing that causes your shields to GAIN shield from damage.
Oh 50% was just a suggestions. It would need to be properly balanced of course
Arguing over the specific numbers in a suggestion thread is counterproductive, because the overral general concept is what is important. If you don't like directional shielding, fine, whatever. What is important here is talking about how players can interact with their vessels.