New hp system breaks combat, doesn't "make it better"

[Harbinger_OF_Cthulhu]

The latest update brought forth many fixes to the rail system and also a change to combat. This change in combat was mainly due to the interduction of the HP system. Now before I rip the concept of this novel idea a new @ss hole let me say it is a very unque aproach to assessing a ship. Maybe even a step in the right direction. But it is hugely flawed in more than one way. For instance should a 100 mass ship be reduced to 50% of it original mass but still be able to fly and shoot normally? Well this new hp system allows that. Before, once you hit the core of that little ship it was done. Not any more. The core is impervious to damage. No amount of shooting the core will overheat the ship. Which is fine. But then what purpose does a core serve? Maybe have damage to the core be mitigated to structure hp, so shooting the core actually does something??? (Maybe this could be where cannons and lasers would be good in combat??) And while we are on the topic of structure hp, the whole combat style of "killing" a ship revolves around reducing structure hp to a certain percent value. This structure hp value ignores all damage to "armor" blocks. So a structure isn't defined by its structural features, interesting. Its structural integrity isn't dictaded by its armor, interesting. Maybe make armor damage count towards structure damage to some degree??? Essentially this combat system breaks actual combat of ships it doesn't help it. It makes small fighter combat feel like you're slamming your head against a brick wall and then realizing you are actually breaking the wall not your head. Laughable confusing. Also the changes to the laser and cannon systems was an attempt to make them a usable alternative to missile combat. But by adding " native " pierce or punch through effect means nothing with the introduction of the hp system. In fact it may hurt them. Because now they cost more power than before making them even less ideal. Because, as I said before you need to destroy a huge portion of a ship's "structure" to have any effect in combat. Which as before this weapon update makes missiles ideal. Pushing cannons and lasers out of the "meta" even further. Except in the cases for turrets. Oh and also missiles and turret AI now track for the "center of mass" of a ship not the core any more. Which can be very awkward in combat. Maybe fix this? Over all I'm sad to see this update have such a combat breaking effect but I'm glad to see this unique hp system. Please for the sake of the game rework/ rethink the hp system!!

 

[Tunk]

The armour system could do with more work, not seeing many issues with the hp system though personally.

 

[Harbinger_OF_Cthulhu]

I was clumping the armor system under the general concept of the hp system. As they are bundled together.

 

[godmars]

The latest update brought forth many fixes to the rail system and also a change to combat. This change in combat was mainly due to the interduction of the HP system. Now before I rip the concept of this novel idea a new @ss hole let me say it is a very unque aproach to assessing a ship. Maybe even a step in the right direction. But it is hugely flawed in more than one way. For instance should a 100 mass ship be reduced to 50% of it original mass but still be able to fly and shoot normally? Well this new hp system allows that.

No it doesn't. Most ships can still one shot ships that size. Assuming it survived being sneezed at, 50% of its blocks are gone..im not sure how that would allow it operate normally

Before, once you hit the core of that little ship it was done. Not any more. The core is impervious to damage. No amount of shooting the core will overheat the ship. Which is fine. But then what purpose does a core serve?

None besides piloting the ship until that is changed(?) . The entire point of the change was to move away from the prev. core-centric mechanics, idk about having the core take damage again since its indestructible you can just shoot it til the ship dies and we're back where we started

Maybe make armor damage count towards structure damage to some degree???

From personal exp. it is kinda annoying to be blasting away at someone but not doing much because they are a walking mass of armor. I don't know if that's intentional to promote armor tanking though

It makes small fighter combat feel like you're slamming your head against a brick wall and then realizing you are actually breaking the wall not your head.

This hasn't been my experience. can you elaborate? Is it related to the armor thing too?

and they're supposed to be fixing the tracking from center of mass since you can exploit it with doughnut ships but idk when that will happen

 

[Lancake]

Well, the HP system is not finished and features will be added to it, mechanics will be changed.

The shipcore only serves 1 purpose atm and that is ship control, this will most likely change to something like a station, just the first block that is being placed and you'll have seats or whatever that allow you to control the ship.

The standalone penetration was to improve the damage propagation cannons and beams have, it does not equalize with missile damage. It is better in every way compared to the old cannons/beams. Missiles can be shot out of the air by PD so that makes them harder to use/hit.

Ship HP is about your systems, if you lose a big portion of your systems your ship will go criticial/overheat. Armor blocks still add to the ship HP but only with 5 HP each. The point of armor is that you need to kill armor...till you can destroy the ship HP. What we don't want is that people also need to kill 40-50% of a ship's armor to destroy/overheat it. Killing armor is slow, it would take hours to do this for a bigger ship.

Cannons and beams use 2 times more power per block yes, but they also deal 2 times more damage per block. In the end nothing changed for them, except that it is 2 times more compact now.

I'm not sure what pushes beams/cannons out of the "meta" since the meta already was "spam missiles"... The only weapon that worked well enough was cannons + cannons and beams + cannons.

The center of mass targeting is temporary as stated by schema, it's a little bit better than having the shipcore as target marker since the CoM is dynamic and moves around when blocks are getting destroyed. But it can also be exploited, this system will change.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Cannons and Beams are outright better than before. Both because you don't need as many blocks with them, and they're better at dealing damage to armoured target than missiles are. Advanced Armour can eat missiles really well, and missiles pretty much always count as hitting armour due to the radius (sequenced missiles will still drill through though).

 

[Criss]

Maybe have damage to the core be mitigated to structure hp, so shooting the core actually does something??? (Maybe this could be where cannons and lasers would be good in combat??)

This would reduce us back to the original problem of core drilling. Larger ships = better because they have more weaponry. More weaponry means lots of damage in shorter periods of time. It's entirely possible all of that damage could be applied in a few shots. Regardless of any mitigation the structure would serve, it could still disable the core.

It should be noted that the core probable does more in terms of how the game functions instead of contributing to actual gameplay. It's not something so easily dismissed. I am sure schema would have changed it by now if many other aspects of the game did not rely on it or if it wasn't the best option.

This structure hp value ignores all damage to "armor" blocks

Not true. Armor provides structure HP. Just not as much as systems. It might be easier to understand why it works this way if we refer to it as system HP instead.

But by adding " native " pierce or punch through effect means nothing with the introduction of the hp system. In fact it may hurt them

I've never done more damage with cannons or beams than I have with this update. I tested some cannon systems against a very large ship and I have to say that equally sized missile systems did the same amount of damage. They create an utter mess of hull now. Not just missing blocks. But literal tears through structure.

 

[NuclearFun]

The center of mass targeting is temporary as stated by schema, it's a little bit better than having the shipcore as target marker since the CoM is dynamic and moves around when blocks are getting destroyed. But it can also be exploited, this system will change.

It has to change pretty soon because the center of mass only moves around if those destroyed blocks are not at the center of mass... which they are with turrets (if there are any blocks there to begin with)

 

[shadowulf]

There are some flaws with the armor part of this update certainly, but until yesterday while testing out ships, I've never actually brought down shields with cannons, let alone down MASSIVE damage with them. Also, I've found that on smaller ships, the weapons or their computers are taken out long before the HP reaches 50%, destroying the ability of them to fight, and causing them to usually flee or give up. In my opinion, armor HP should be a secondary shield, absorbing a portion of damage until depleted. Also, I've heard from many sources that cores are being phased out, and this is a huge step to remove them.

 

[Lancake]

In my opinion, armor HP should be a secondary shield, absorbing a portion of damage until depleted.

That's the case, no? 50% of incoming damage is absorbed by armor (if armor contributing blocks are hit), you can increase this to 75% with the piercing effect.

 

[shadowulf]

That's the case, no? 50% of incoming damage is absorbed by armor (if armor contributing blocks are hit), you can increase this to 75% with the piercing effect.

When I test it, it seems like armor doesn't absorb damage when a system block is hit. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how it seems with my testing yesterday. If I'm wrong, it means I wasn't using a big enough ship to see it.

 

[godmars]

Nope your right.. even with full armor if you hit a system block it takes 100% dmg

 

[Lancake]

When I test it, it seems like armor doesn't absorb damage when a system block is hit. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how it seems with my testing yesterday. If I'm wrong, it means I wasn't using a big enough ship to see it.

Correct. That's for 2 reasons:
- System blocks barely have any HP, reducing damage by 50% would barely be enough to stop the block from being destroyed or to reduce penetration depth
- It makes your armor HP last longer so it isn't depleted immediately after just 1 hole and 20 seconds of system destruction.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Armour HP seems to work better against missiles, since they're pretty much always hitting armour.

 

[Lecic]

Nope your right.. even with full armor if you hit a system block it takes 100% dmg

False. It takes 50% damage. The other 50% is absorbed by armor HP.

If you want your armor to be effective, you're going to need more than 1 layer, guys. Armor HP absorbs 50% of incoming damage, and then the armor blocks themselves also absorb damage before weapons start hitting systems. Standard has something like 400 EHP, and advanced has 1000 EHP. If a 700 damage shot hit a ship with standard armor, it'd do 350 damage to the Armor HP pool, and then it'd knock a standard armor block down to 50 EHP. Basic and Standard armor are a lot, lot cheaper than shields. You can easily layer the stuff on for decent protection.

 

[Winterhome]

do you even play?

 

[Zovc]

Think of it this way. My frieghter atm is just over 200k mass, and stands with about 32mil shields (more after interior is added) and roughly 140mil structure hp. This means that to actualy kill me, you have to deal 32mil damage to knock out my shields (plus my 20% ion passive XD) beat my shield regen (1mil) and then you have to do serious damage enough to actually cripple my systems.

The more damage you do to the structure hp, the weaker I become (less shield regen, less power, ect) and the easier it is to deal more damage to me. This update then allows the massive titans to stand alone and be able to hold their own against a swarm, but once the swarm breaks the shields, the large ships will be crippled.

 

[Mariux]

Give it some time. The system got added just a couple of weeks ago and is probably not yet fine-tuned yet.

 

[Comr4de]

his structure hp value ignores all damage to "armor" blocks.

What is armor HP

ut by adding " native " pierce or punch through effect means nothing with the introduction of the hp system. In fact it may hurt them.

Are you theory crafting at this point? I don't follow. Just because they consume more power doesn't make them less viable? They're already just as viable as missiles for the simple fact that you can't shoot down a cannon or a beam. Missile defense is godly now, how else do you plan to attack the enemy ship?

 

[Fireshock]

Dude you did not even take time to understand the update before you posted this.
IMHO HP system is PERFECT because it is REALISTIC and still seems very enjoyable to play. Having to actualy figure out enemy ship's weak spots and system locations and designing your ships to protect the same ones.

But then what purpose does a core serve? Maybe have damage to the core be mitigated to structure hp, so shooting the core actually does something???.

It has been said 100 times that the goal is to eliminate core drilling and move away from core concept in general. Because cores are not realistic and not fun in combat.

And while we are on the topic of structure hp, the whole combat style of "killing" a ship revolves around reducing structure hp to a certain percent value.

You are forgeting HOW structure hp is reduced, by destroying blocks, which each have their own functions inside the ship which DO SOMETHING(you kill the block, it's function is removed) and strucutre HP value correctly assigned to that block type is also removed. Combat style is 100% realistic now. You wanna "kill" the ship? Your gona have to destroy it. You wanna neutralize the threat without destroying it? Your gona have to figure out where it's particular systems are located at and shoot them, JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE.

This structure hp value ignores all damage to "armor" blocks.

Wrong, armor blocks also have structure HP which is lost when those blocks are removed. Naturaly they give way less structure HP than system blocks. Because destroying part of some system would hurt a ship way more than making a hole in it's armor.

So a structure isn't defined by its structural features, interesting. Its structural integrity isn't dictaded by its armor, interesting.

In space there is no gravity, so there is also no structural integrity. Objects CAN NOT fall apart because they are loosely connected together.

Because, as I said before you need to destroy a huge portion of a ship's "structure" to have any effect in combat.

Bigger ships take more structural HP damage per block destroyed, meaning you need to destroy SMALLER portion of the ship. Also each destroyed block can't perform it's function anymore, making you have an effect in combat, "as I said before" .