Overhaul of Ship-Core

[McDili]

TLDR AT BOTTOM



I have a suggestion that I think many of you would agree with. But let me first say that I love this game, I'm new to it but I've learned a lot this week and I'm fascinated by all the innovation here.



So, I only have one main gripe with this game, and that's the Ship Core.



I think it's silly that if you lose your ship core, your ship is done and you've lost the fight. It encourages some wonky setups when you build your own ship in mind of defending your core, and kind of detracts from the combat.



Now, I have something different in mind for how the ship core functions when destroyed, but I'll get to that later.



I think it's really freaking cool that if you lose your weapons computer, your weapons can no longer fire. This is awesome! I think that if your engines start taking damage, it's pretty neat that you start losing thrust. I think when you start losing power generators, you suffer the super baller consequences of less power regeneration.



All that said, I think the ship-core should have a crippling effect but not be the end-all be-all thing to aim for as an attacker.



So, this will be a group effort to suggest different and less punishing mechanics for how the ship reacts to having the ship core overheat.



I would suggest that when your ship core is overheated, it starts to drain your power regeneration capacity by 2% every second, and once your capacity to regenerate power is depleted, you start losing your actual power reserves, assuming you have any, at 2% per second. (At 100 Power Regen/sec, after 1 second you are at 98% Power Regen/sec, and so on.) It's like a sort of shutdown sequence(LOR FRENDLI OMFG). This process can be averted by not taking damage to any part of your ship for a short period of time, 20 seconds for example. This would simulate that you have somehow removed the danger of your ship being damaged, and found it safe to divert "Manpower/Resources" to restoring power throughout the ship. Whether it be by escaping, destroying your enemy(Or their weapon CPU... SEE! Look at this, a reason to attack a weapon CPU!), or your enemy has a sudden change of heart for no apparent reason.



In this way, you have 100 seconds at most from the time your ship core overheated to either destroy your enemy or escape with what you have left. I think this would be a good thing because it would make players focus more on taking out other systems as they are revealed to them, rather it be weapon positions, CPU's, Engines, Power Generators, shields, etc.



NOTE: When you lose all power and the capacity to regenerate power, you die. So if the shutdown sequence completes, you have lost all capacity to regenerate power and all reserve power, the core explodes and your ship dies. If you are in the ship, you die too. This also means that it might be important for an attacker to target the power generators during a shutdown sequence to speed the shutdown sequence up as well as attack power tanks if you have reserves. If your core explodes, it should be a server option to have the wreckage persist after the core is destroyed.

This condition is only applied during the shutdown sequence, if your ship core is intact and you have no power generators, you are fine. This is because otherwise, you would explode when you spawn a ship core.



"But McDili, why is that good!?" Thanks for asking! It's good because it encourages you, the builder, to build your ship while spreading systems around. Maybe you'll use multiple weapons computers in case one gets destroyed. Maybe you'll spread your thrusters to multiple engine rooms. You could spend more hull protecting the bay you stored all your power and shields in, or maybe you'll build smaller reserve power bay's throughout your ship in case your main power bay is destroyed in battle. Maybe you'll actually have the option to exit your core and get into that emergency hatch you made with an escape pod to make it out alive.



Overall, the general concept here is that battles would be more interesting, and having your ship core being overheat wouldn't necessarily mean that you're done outright. And it wouldn't mean that killing an enemy's core is an instant victory either. It opens up more room for viable strategy instead of a simple brain process of "Shewt Powr Coor -> Shewt mor pwr cor -> shwt cor agan"



EDIT: It is important to note that I do not seek to prevent the ship-core from being a valid target in an attacker's perspective. I want to retain it's nature as being a vital system required to use your ship, but at the same time bring it down to a level that doesn't invalidate protection on other parts of your ship for other systems. It encourages more freedom and strategical thinking when it comes to building your ship, without taking away the importance of protecting your core.



Also, henceforth I will be referring to the process of "Power regeneration capacity drain" as the "Shutdown Sequence." Let's be honest, that sounds way cooler and fits the lore.



TL;DR: I suggest that when a ship core is overheated, you start to lose capacity to regenerate power, and then your actual reserve power. This is the shutdown sequence. When you lose the capacity to regenerate power and all reserve power during a shutdown sequence, the shutdown sequence is complete and the ship core explodes. If you are in the ship core when this happens, you as the pilot die too.







What do you all think of this suggestions? Do you have any other suggestions for how the power core reacts to being overheated that adds more depth to combat? Maybe you like the way it works now(WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU... jk... but srsly, WHAT!?) and you'd like to explain to us why it's good now.(It's not) (By all means, don't let me hold you back though) (Seriously though, what is wrong with you?) (I'm talking to myself, and asking what's wrong with other people) (I need help)

 

[Dogdard]

Well i agree with what you say about the core overheating not being the \"end-all\". Although im not sure how to changd it considering atm the core is essentially the ship itself.

 

[Energy]

Yep... that\'s just plain silly the way the ship core works. That\'s why we see all this ships with AMCs that can pierce through 100 layers of blocks within seconds. It doesn\'t matter the size of your ship, only the distance from surface to core. I don\'t realy want to see a bunch of spheres flying around!!!

Your sugestion for a timer before your core explodes, with a reduction in ship capabilities, is very interesting. This kind of \"system shuting down\" fits the game. Maybe a connection between ship mass and power drainage, so a 10 block ship and a 1M block ship don\'t take the same time to explode (100 seconds) would be great.

Although this is not a way to prevent attacks from aiming at the core directly. This will just give the ship some more minutes.

@Dogdard I\'m no programmer but I don\'t think it\'s a hard task to set a countdown before the core explodes, and set it to be related to your ship mass and power regeneration.

 

[McDili]

Thanks for the feedback, I\'m glad you like what I came up with.



I would say that I\'m not trying to find a way to prevent the ship-core from being a valuable target to hit, but rather decrease it\'s value from an attacker\'s perspective to a point where the value of other systems, like weapon CPU\'s and Engines, are actually worth your time as an attacker.



I think I will add to the original post, that I would suggest that once your ship core is overheated, if you last 10-20 seconds without taking damage to any part of your ship that the \"Shutdown Sequence\" is halted. This would simulate that you\'ve somehow prevented the enemy from damaging you, rather it be through escape or maybe you destroyed their weapon CPU before they were able to take out your vital systems.

(Speaking of which, if ship-boarding is ever a planned feature, it would go hand-in-hand with this ship-core suggestion. THINK OF IT! Both ships weapon CPU\'s are down, so the core\'s on either ship will recover. Only option left now is to board the ship! And if you took out the weapon CPU\'s, you\'ve punched holes to enter inside with. HOW COOL! I\'m a nerd)



But back to the topic, the core should always be a valid target from an attacker\'s perspective, I just don\'t think it should end the fight. And yeah, I don\'t want sphere\'s flying around either!



Also I think the dumbfire missiles would be slightly more useful if you had to worry about the actual systems of the ship rather than just the core.

 

[Steveo53]

I would love the abbilty to abandon ship when my core overheats, especially now that the admin on my server set the credit penalty to 50% (lost a cool 200m the other day when before i realized it was turned on).



But just the feeling of, Oh crap i have x amount of time to get outta this thing before im toast. The core exploding with a good amount of force would also be very awesome! make it like a 20 block radius that explodes when it hits 0.

maybe impliments a system to save the core as well so if you\'re in a fight and that other persons core blows up and you have 10 seconds left you can do somethign to stop yours from exploding lol. So many posibilties, maybe what i suggested is a little extreme but I really like all the ideas im hearing in this thread!

 

[Dogdard]

What would be cool is if the tracker missles could be set to target specific components ie weapons computer etc. And if the heat seeker actually sought after heat? Like from engine exhaust? Or possibly power cores/regen blocks. This would make fighter/bomber craft much better and far more potent given your suggestion was implemented.
@Energy im not a programmer either but yeah i agree i csnt see how that would be too difficult either.

 

[McDili]

@Steveo53, thanks for the feedback! I edited the original post just as you made your post, and I highlighted that I think when the core has become overheated, you can \"Fix\" it by not taking damage to your ship for a short period of time. You could do this by escaping, taking out an enemy weapon\'s CPU(OPTIONS YEAH) and any other creative things. I would say that when the core has stopped overheating, the \"Shutdown Sequence\" goes in reverse, you would regain the regenerative capacity of your power at the same rate that it is lost during the shutdown sequence.

 

[McDili]

@Doggard, thanks for the feedback! I completely agree, this would allow bomber craft to put in some serious dents and actually be worth something rather than having ALL SHIPS including bomber craft aim for the ship-core. Since the ship-core is the end-all right now, there\'s no reason to have fighters and bomber craft on your ship in a battle because you could use that space to make your AMC\'s more powerful to take out the enemy ship-core quick enough to win the fight. If the ship-core functions the way I have suggested it, suddenly bomber craft are validated! They could get around the ship to destroy engines, or other systems. And if bombers are validated, that in and of itself validates fighters!



Imagine fighters and bombers dogfighting in the midst of a battle between two battlecruisers. Now imagine it in a fleet battle! All of these cool things are more likely to happen if the ship-core functioned just a little differently, think about what we\'re missing out from!

 

[Kaelum]

Ship cores should be weaker than what you suggest. Otherwise, someone could get away after being hit by a planet sized missile, because he cannot die and cores need no power to fly around fairly fast. My idea is that the cores would take very little damage (But always take some) from enemy fire, and at lower percentages begin to lose health on its own. The cores health percentage would have a direct effect on other systems and when it goes to 0, the ship core explodes and leaves a wreck. So if you got hit by a missile that was the only weapon of a massive titan, you would not go fly your little core away, you would be dead. Also, people would STILL have backup systems because the enemy might try to kill your weapons then kill you, or try to stop you from running, or knock out your shield generation.

Also, please check out my topic about faction funds and clearance.

 

[Kaelum]

Bombers are still valued, because they can kill a lot of systems quickly, which makes them deadly if your shields are down. Plus, they are good for base raids.

 

[Dogdard]

Agreed! Thats always been my biggest disappointment wuth the current game. Is that for the most part smaller craft arent useful enough. There is no strategic thinking involved. Its EVERYONE HIT THE CORE. Id love to see taking out a ships systems becoming a valid tactic in fleet actions.

 

[Kaelum]

It ISN\'T everyone hit the core RIGHT NOW. The core may be the goal but you need to kill systems to get there. Knocking out weapons is key to not dying yourself. The core is targeted because logically, if the place you are piloting it from gets blown up, you will not have magical invincibility and be explosion proof. Read my idea below.

 

[platinum467]

I like this idea

it\'s really annoying trying to just pinpoint one part of a ship when the rest still is pretty much fully functional

the idea of a eventual shutdown makes sense

 

[jayflo]

New guy here. So you\'re telling me that if I wanna pimp my ship out with some shields and nothing else, small ship, because I don\'t have to compensate, and if I get hit with a missile the size of an XXXL adult toy, I just die instantly? Realistic. Not fair.

In a perfect world, there would be a decay rate of whatever is powering to core, which I assume is pretty radioactive, therefore, the core would decay by itself over time. The core being damaged while having shields up is stupid. Shield - noun - \"something that defends or protects someone or something.\" Pretty sure that \"something\" that\'s being protected is the core.

If you want cores to have a health percentage that affects secondary and tertiary systems, you should be suggesting optomization and presets of directing certain power percentages towards certain systems. direct correlation of power is just bad. I don\'t want to power my ice cream machine if I\'m being torn a new one.

Tl;DR: real life isn\'t balanced, devs please nerf.

Edit: Essentialality - player decides what\'s essential

 

[Kaelum]

My point is that the damaging of your core damages the way the system works, so realistically, would make things malfunction due to the fact that the computer managing it has a large smoking hole in it.

My topic:
http://star-made.org/content/faction-funds-clearance-and-more

 

[McDili]

Thanks for the feedback! Especially feedback that\'s not completely for my idea, this is good because now we can contrast ideas.



So I\'m not sure what you mean about core\'s being able to fly around really fast without power. I know that they can if they are indepentent, but if they are attached to less than a handful of blocks, they almost can\'t even move. So if your battlecruiser was hit directly in the core by a planetcracking missile, your core would overheat and the shutdown sequence would be engaged, in which you start losing the capacity to regenerate power. Now if you have ample power gens and thrusters, the beginning of this sequence is essentially an alarm.



But as the capacity to regenerate power is drained, the thrusters will eventually only be able to be used in bursts, and the duration of those bursts would get shorter and shorter until the capacity to regenerate power reaches 0, in which cases then the core explodes and the pilot dies.



Speaking of which, I suppose I wasn\'t clear in my original post that in my suggestion when the shutdown sequence happens, the pilot still dies at the end of it as long as the sequence completes.



In contrast to what you said about your idea where the core\'s HP directly affects all the ships systems, I would ask you to take another look at my suggestion. Since the shutdown sequence drains the capacity to regenerate power, this would also have a very direct affect on all of the ships systems as the shutdown sequences nears the end of it\'s duration, because systems such as weapons and thrusters use power as well. Not only that, but it would simulate that the ship is actually shutting down since as the shutdown sequence nears its completion, the weapons and thrusters will only be able to be used in bursts, and the duration of these bursts will get shorter and shorter with each burst since the regen capacity keeps draining.



I feel like your idea would still encourage an attacker to focus down the core, and to maximize weapon power to get it destroyed as quickly as possible. And I don\'t mean to come off as rude when I say this, but in my suggestion once an attacker has set off the shutdown sequence of a core, they have no reason to keep firing at the core and in order to actually achieve victory, they must at the very least keep firing at the ship until the shutdown sequence is complete. Because this is the case, an attacker might try a different approach than to just aim for the core at the beginning of a battle. For example,tThey may try and go for the engines first to prevent the opposition from trying to escape once they do actually target the core.



In your suggestion, I would still always attack the core first.



P.S.- I will most certainly visit your threads about faction funds and clearance and give some feedback.

 

[Dogdard]

I mean yeah you COULD fly away in your little core but after a missle that size blows up every single other block on the ship? Whats the point? With this system it would allow you effevtively retreat in order to preserve what little is left of your ship. Although yeah it would take away fron the satisfaction of killing someone...

 

[Kaelum]

Ship cores do not need power generation to fly, and if a fighter got hit by a capital class weapon, well.... It shouldn\'t survive. A capital class missile burst should blow up the fighter, but with your idea they would just get away, because the missile would destroy the entire fighter and would kill an entire corvette if it hit one. My idea is that you are not an immortal core of doom, and can die EVENTUALLY, but have so much armor and health that it is better to kill your systems.

 

[Kaelum]

The point is, killing someone clears territory in wars, and drains their credits, and gives a freaking consequence for attacking someones base.

 

[Dogdard]

I get that but id like to say that in a realistic scenario... say a tank or a ship or a plane even gets hit in the \"core\" or the closest thing which imo would be the engine the crew or pilot or whatever still has a small escape window. A battleship hit by a torpedo still takes some time to sink. And even fighter jets are equipped with ejection seats... so although i think the odds should be stacked against you i still feel as though there should be at least a SMALL chance you can get out...

Edit: however, once the pilot and or crew are floating in space... then yeah if you got hit with anything your dead