New Mass and Thrust Calculations, etc.

[SgtFlexxx]

Okay, so I realize that it's feasible to make the largest ship ever in StarMade, and spam it with power blocks, and have enough thrust to make it go as fast as you want as long as you have enough thrusters. I think there should be some new mass calculations to prevent that from happening. I think each type of block should have a different mass calculation (This will make it so at one point your ship will have a defined top speed for it's total mass, and it won't be able to go above that without consuming MASSIVE amounts of power). Another thing is that power consumption from turrets (but only a portion of your shields divided amongst all your turrets) and mass should be added onto your main ship as well. The aim of this suggestion is to prevent the large-ass ships going retardadly fast chasing you. Sure you may have a faster acceleration, but usually you both have the same top speed, so he will only stop chasing you if he manages to kill you.

There needs to be some sort of idea set in stone that will let NOT let you get the BEST ship ever. For example, larger ships could house a crap ton of weapons and house a lot of ships, with a seemingly infinite barrier of shields, but at the cost of transportation, and the difficulty to turn fast enough to combat a bunch of small ships. As such, small ships are good in combat, and a fleet of them could prove to be deadly.

Right now, as it stands, large ships are ALWAYS the best in Starmade. Turrets drill right through small ships without taking a dent, and have no problem unless they're facing another large ship.

 

[Cirdanoth]

Eh... I seriously worry about the lack of evidence on this.
We know of several occassions where smaller, but more efficiently build vessels have triumphed over the higher mass vessels.
We also know of occasions where smaller vessels in higher numbers succesfully took out a higher mass deathbrick.

I also need to disagree with your initial statement. Please build an enormous ship, add the thrust you believe you need, and keep an eye on how quickly you lose all energy... Without energy, a ship cannot restore its shields, it cannot move, it cannot fire, it forms no threat.

Currently, it is possible to create a certain mass ship, which will beat higher mass ships, through sheer efficiency.
Through correct knowledge of the game elements, you can defeat giants.

 

[NeonSturm]

Through correct knowledge of the game elements, you can defeat giants.

Except the big ship is a very efficient borg-deriviat (10^3 blocks of shields, thrusters and many 23^3 docked reactors with activator blocks to bypass the new limits on power-drain docked reactors)

I think we should determinate efficiency by mass vs total mass of each system (thrust/power/...), but we should also find a way to encourage nice interiors - less mass for decoration, a buff on cooling systems based on hull around it, ... are just examples.

Personally, I think big ships should be not very practicable because:

• In the time it flies, it has some percentage to get scouted and marked as "value-able target" by pirates and ships from other factions.
• Factions should see the rumours of pirates fearing this big ship, get a hint about it's position and be able to send a cloak-jammed interception squad or a carrier full of bobby-fighters.

Bigger ships should -in my opinion- not make cost salvaging asteroids, because the travel time is too high compared to the actual salvage/working time.

• Salvaging planets should require much energy (transport material into space should cost equal to launching that amount of mass with thrusters. Maybe a bit more)

I don't know if what I currently think is the best solution to capital-spam, but it is definitively considerable.

 

[Cablestinks]

The thrust blocks should go back the way they were, with one exception, the larger the ship, the longer it takes to get up to speed and to slow down. Nothing else should change. Even in the real world that is the way it is, anything can go the same speed if enough thrust is involved, it's the starting and the stopping that changes.

 

[LordChicken]

First off: I am not a math genius. Second off, if this was a complete, well thought out idea, I would make a thread for it. As it stands its a work in progress.

With that said I had an idea to have the effectiveness of a ship based on mass VS size(the dimensions of your ship, hight, length, girth etc), were larger, hollower ships were more powerful then smaller compact ships. If you make the effectiveness difference at low amounts(small compact ships) near non existent it should have little to no effect of fighters, while having ships lose effectiveness as they get larger without having space on the inside of the ships dimensions.

The logic is that if lets say a ship fits in a 10x10x10 cube, but its mass fills less then a third of it(either being a big cube with a nice interior or a ship that isn't a cube in shape) it would get more effectiveness from its systems then a ship that was just a big block of systems wrapped in armor like a giant chocolate box of death.

The goal being that a ship built in a odd way(like being shaped like an actual ship, and not a big box) would not have such a massive gap in effectiveness between itself and the 'perfect' death cube. Hopefully allowing it to compete, at least a little bit.

Anyway thats the idea, not 100% done, but hopefully it helps someone get their creative juices flowing.