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

[Winterhome]

That shouldn't even be a viable.

Is it so much of a stretch to assume that some crew member could grab an extension cord and run down a hallway to plug something in somewhere? Christ.

 

[Aynslei]

Losing one weapon but not others being silly? Oh let me beg for insta-killing a ship.

 

[ltmauve]

Then they should remove computers connected to weapon systems as that's core drilling too.... And no I'm not going to stop asking for critical blocks to be implemented in the functionality of a ship as I feel they would enhance not only the game depth but also the creation and planning it would take to make your ship. Why get so defensive over that concept?

Y'know what. You're right. Let's make it so that the block right at the center of the target marker is the only one that matters. No strategy, no need for armor, just point right at the marker and let'em rip.
Computers are actually an excellent way to do critical points - they can be put anywhere, armored, and it's not an instant death sentence to lose them. You also don't need to shoot them to win. They are optional targets that make your life easier.
You are suggesting critical points that are mandatory targets in order to win and fatal.
The difference between "Mandatory and fatal" and "Optional and moderate" is the difference between boring and fun.

 

[Harbinger_OF_Cthulhu]

Y'know what. You're right. Let's make it so that the block right at the center of the target marker is the only one that matters. No strategy, no need for armor, just point right at the marker and let'em rip.
Computers are actually an excellent way to do critical points - they can be put anywhere, armored, and it's not an instant death sentence to lose them. You also don't need to shoot them to win. They are optional targets that make your life easier.
You are suggesting critical points that are mandatory targets in order to win and fatal.
The difference between "Mandatory and fatal" and "Optional and moderate" is the difference between boring and fun.

About that center targeting thing and blah blah blah: Nope that's not what I'm saying at all.

Not "mandatory" target to "win" a fight. As I have said many times already we can still keep this hp system. They would be exactly like how you described computers in your own words. But they would be in charge of systems currently not controlled by a computer... The only time they would be "mandatory" would be to use certain systems on a ship just like how other current systems work, and of those you have already acknowledged... You are essentially agreeing/ supporting my concept suggestion. Thank you!

 

[Lecic]

About that center targeting thing and blah blah blah: Nope that's not what I'm saying at all.

Not "mandatory" target to "win" a fight. As I have said many times already we can still keep this hp system. They would be exactly like how you described computers in your own words. But they would be in charge of systems currently not controlled by a computer... The only time they would be "mandatory" would be to use certain systems on a ship just like how other current systems work, and of those you have already acknowledged... You are essentially agreeing/ supporting my concept suggestion. Thank you!

The difference being that a ship losing its power or thrust completely is utterly worthless, where-as a ship has many weapons and losing control of one of them isn't as huge a problem, especially since you can relink them.

 

[Bench]

Schine has no plans to implement "computers" that control key ship systems like shield, thrust, or power in a way similar to weapons computers that, if destroyed, would cripple that particular system.

 

[Jay_do]

I literally said it was a core...

Currently if this was introduced the targeting system would not find the "core" block it would just aim for CoM. If it changes to target systems it still would not target the computer but the system.

There was a reason why tankers in WWII and even today (but to a lesser degree with the introduction of highly effective H.E.A.T. rounds) would shoot for known locations on enemy tanks that housed fuel or ammunition. This is because a critical hit there would neutralize the enemy with out causing catastrophic damage to the entire tank. This isn't seen in Starmade, but you can still compare a ship to a tank. It has shields and armor to protect it, but now it always has an arbitrary structure hp system that needs to be dealt with be fore the ship is neutralized. So the real world example would be a tank that had invincible crew members and even if you shoot its engine, as long as there was more than 1% of the engine left and the remaining tank had more than 55% of its "structure' not including armor of course, would still drive around just fine. No critical damage, ever. It's like having a decentralized brain/ decentralized nervous system, and makes sense when it comes to biological organism but not so much when in regards to ships. With this introduced in SM it does not support any modicum of realism, it may be a slight step in the right direction. And I'm going to be honest, core drilling makes more sense. (Not that I don't understand the math behind the hp system or that I don't see how it works.) But I think it isn't at all appropriate for a game such as Starmade, if they are attempting to introduce realism, which is why there should be critical blocks that hold most of a system's functionality.

Well in current StarMade if you destroy the "engines" of a ship it will lose speed as blocks are gone. If you destroy weapons ot weapon computers then they don't function anymore. Or you cut a energy reactor line in half it loses much of its energy generation effectivness. Ships do have weak spots in this new hp system. I don't see why we should add more brutal ones. I thought that weapon computers were brutal enough weak points but that's what I believe.

 

[Harbinger_OF_Cthulhu]

Schine has no plans to implement "computers" that control key ship systems like shield, thrust, or power in a way similar to weapons computers that, if destroyed, would cripple that particular system.

But sometimes taking input from outside sources is good too. As I know you all already do. Which, I think is vastly important for game development. Because of such importance I thought I'd bring up my opinion, whether or not people liked it or no. Obviously almost everyone poo-pooed. As I said before just thought it would be a cool idea. Thanks for dropping in.

Well in current StarMade if you destroy the "engines" of a ship it will lose speed as blocks are gone. If you destroy weapons ot weapon computers then they don't function anymore. Or you cut a energy reactor line in half it loses much of its energy generation effectivness. Ships do have weak spots in this new hp system. I don't see why we should add more brutal ones. I thought that weapon computers were brutal enough weak points but that's what I believe.

Hey thanks for replying in a very nice manner without snarky comments and the like. I see your point. And I see where I'm coming form too, I guess I feel it should be more brutal once you lose your shields, more so than it is now. But I have to remember this isn't that type of game. Thanks for your input Jay!

 

[Bench]

But sometimes taking input from outside sources is good too. As I know you all already do. Which, I think is vastly important for game development. Because of such importance I thought I'd bring up my opinion, whether or not people liked it or no. Obviously almost everyone poo-pooed. As I said before just thought it would be a cool idea. Thanks for dropping in.

Thanks for suggesting the idea, after discussions with some of the other devs this is where we sit on the topic of adding in additional "computers" for key ship systems. Not that we're necessarily against the idea of adding in a computer that could let you adjust key ship systems, more the crippling of a key ship system through that computer's destruction. This is based off feedback with gleaned from setups in the past as well as the affect it would have on the learning curve of the game and a couple other factors.

 

[Harbinger_OF_Cthulhu]

Thanks for suggesting the idea, after discussions with some of the other devs this is where we sit on the topic of adding in additional "computers" for key ship systems. Not that we're necessarily against the idea of adding in a computer that could let you adjust key ship systems, more the crippling of a key ship system through that computer's destruction. This is based off feedback with gleaned from setups in the past as well as the affect it would have on the learning curve of the game and a couple other factors.

Yes sounds very reasonable. I totally understand where you're coming from on the learning curve now that you mention it. I like the idea of more critical ship blocks but the implementation of them and subsequent balancing is the tricky part. Guess I lean towards more brutal consequences upon taking ship damage than most. Good to know you guys did test it at one point though! :D Thanks for the feed back.

 

[dickersack]

Hi this discussion gave me an idea about how to make systems even more realistic i think somebody said that shooting an army ship and hitting the nuclear power core would instantanously destroy it and thats probably right but that doesnt mean that we need a block that can instakill a ship maybe if we add something like warheads to some systems like misseltubes or power reactors that would make them blow up if destroyed would make it more realistic. I´m pretty much into Star Wars and how did they kill the Death Star ? By hitting its weakspot following a chain reaction. I think this would help the overall fighting a little due to huge ships may loose some energy if you hit their reactors but if you have 10 m e per second and now loose 2m it will bother you a little but it wont stop you.
If you now hit a huge mass of powercores at once(maybe make the explosion weak enough that one power core or systems survives one but not a couple so hitting a weakspot still needs some criticalamount of damage to start the chain reaction) it could damage other systems aswell this would make a proper design of ship interior unavoidable and would stop people from just stuffing every spot with shield capacitors nad other stuff.
This was my first post ever so i hope you dont bother my pretty desorganized style or language.

 

[Lecic]

i think somebody said that shooting an army ship and hitting the nuclear power core would instantanously destroy it and thats probably right

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...ile_strike_set_off_a_nuclear_detonation_.html

Not exactly the same thing, but no, it almost definitely would not.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Thanks for suggesting the idea, after discussions with some of the other devs this is where we sit on the topic of adding in additional "computers" for key ship systems. Not that we're necessarily against the idea of adding in a computer that could let you adjust key ship systems, more the crippling of a key ship system through that computer's destruction. This is based off feedback with gleaned from setups in the past as well as the affect it would have on the learning curve of the game and a couple other factors.

I had an idea once for the addition of power computers. They would do one thing, increase the softcap on power. This way larger ships can be created that do not always have to rely on docked reactors but they would still be weak points. Taking one out on a large ship could cripple that ships weapons or engines or the like.

As for the HP system I was originally worried you would have to destroy too much of a ship in order to kill it but this doesn't seem like the case. 50% sometimes feels to high on small ships but the scaling does seem to work well for larger ships. I do however agree fighting small ships feels more like banging your head on a wall than actual fun combat. Small ships generally don't have the power to run weapons capable of dealing with advanced armor which has a 90% damage reduction when the armor HP bonus is applied.

 

[sayerulz]

The closest I would come to this is to give systems individual HP. I.E if you destroy X percentage of a thruster grouping, then said thrusters stop functioning or even explode. But I don't want a block that is just an "I win" button if you hit it. One should have to target multiple areas of a ship and do massive damage to them in order to take it out. May not be realistic, but it is more fun. Also, the issue with fighter combat is because fighters tend to have such a high armor/system block ratio, and so while much of its mass may be gone, the actual system blocks may be largely untouched. This is particularly true for isanths, which are the most commonly encountered fighters. I would also note that the old core system was actually worse about ships sustaining silly amounts of damage and still working fine, since with the old cores one could (in theory) destroy all of a ships blocks but one and have it actually have it IMPROVE in terms of mobility. Obviously this is not likely in a real combat scenario, but neither is destroying half of a ship with the HP system and having it still function normally. Recall as well the system malfunctions that one gets when their system HP is low. If those are not crippling, I don't know what is. And finally, consider that having the core as the weakpoint actually discouraged people from studying a ship to find weak spots, since the only block that really mattered was marked by big fat nav icon.

 

[aceface]

I think taking out the core should kill the player. Would make logical sense since if you destroy cockpit on a ship the pilot would die.

A solution to prevent core drilling meta would be for the marker around your ship to not focus on the core, rather a marker surrounding center of mass.

 

[jorgekorke]

I think taking out the core should kill the player. Would make logical sense since if you destroy cockpit on a ship the pilot would die.

A solution to prevent core drilling meta would be for the marker around your ship to not focus on the core, rather a marker surrounding center of mass.

Well, I am glad that the core-drilling is gone. Sure, it might sound a little unrealistic to have a nuke on it and it keeping alive, but it is necessary for gameplay purposes, because back then, the PvP life of people that lives far away from U.S. and Europe (where most of the servers are hosted) were almost impossible, due to a naturally higher ping because of the distance - how the person is supposed to accurately drill it ?. And since I'm from Brazil........

 

[Keptick]

Well, I am glad that the core-drilling is gone. Sure, it might sound a little unrealistic to have a nuke on it and it keeping alive, but it is necessary for gameplay purposes, because back then, the PvP life of people that lives far away from U.S. and Europe (where most of the servers are hosted) were almost impossible, due to a naturally higher ping because of the distance - how the person is supposed to accurately drill it ?. And since I'm from Brazil........

Cannon turrets. Didn't work with the ridiculous default turret accuracy setting though.

 

[dickersack]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...ile_strike_set_off_a_nuclear_detonation_.html

Not exactly the same thing, but no, it almost definitely would not.

Well your definetly right with your post but i wasn´t thinking about a bomb i was thinking about a reactor and how Fukushima and Tschernobyl showed us if there is a Failure in the reactor for whatever reason you can cause a melt. Maybe this melt wouldn´t destroy the whole ship but it would kill anybody on the ship.

 

[GRHayes]

The biggest issue I noticed I did early on when it came to ships was that I didn't compartmentalize systems. I put all the systems in a fairly local area. It is better to put your control system for each module away from the core bridge area. Separate your ship in to multiple compartments not just with hulls but actual armor. That way if you have a breach in one area it doesn't allow damage from things like explosions to just rip through entirely. It also means if one system is taken out it doesn't take everything out. Things like thrusters and shields should be spread through out the ship not in any one central area. Part of not keeping all your eggs in one basket.

Right now you have to get a ships structure down to 50%.

However, with shields performing the way they currently do. None of this will do anything if the person has a gets a good hit with a significant weapon designed properly using the left mouse method it will simply cut through the armor and eat the inside of the ship out.