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Crossposted from another topic:
I see two, maybe three, main issues with combat, and indeed, the game in general. One, it's all about the core. You build around the core, rotate around the core, magically get sucked into the core and see out of it to pilot the ship, and if it's destroyed you and your ship die... ...[Two,] There's nothing to combat but core drilling as fast and hard as possible: No real reason to kill anything else aside from possibly turrets.
Separating radar targeting and ship core location is a good start to fixing the first issue. Perhaps further changes could include possibilities of "subsystem" or unit damage if you manage to hit that system, perhaps with specific weapons: Hit a big cluster of power generators and/or tanks, particularly with a missile or drain beam, and you have a chance to shut down power or (rarely) shield regen, or even cause a power leak, for a while. Hit the primary drive module [A.k.a. a very large engine block] hard enough with antimatter pulses and you just might nerf acceleration or turn rate by a painful amount for quite some time. Hit an AMC array (or many) with a really big boom and you just might... well... yeah, you get the point. Of course, for this to be worth it or even any fun, hull needs to get a lot harder. And possibly hardened hull a bit heavier to counterbalance that. (Personally, I'm against making shields more powerful, because that just nerfs small craft even more.)
New comment by me: I believe that perhaps these subsystem disabling things could have a higher chance of occuring the bigger a ship is, as well as a MUCH lower chance if the projectile is fired by turrets, giving smaller fighter ships another possible true role: sabotage.
In addition, I'd also like to see the actual piloting and commanding of ships done from a necessary pilot's chair [Which, for purposes of non-glitchy/annoying entering and exiting, would not have a collision box, but have a placement box and model that takes up a space two blocks tall] and set of three-ish consoles (possibly just a variation on the current Computers) of some kind, which would give at least a tiny incentive to having a ship interior of some sort, even in Doom Boxes, but also make boarding, killing the pilot, and stealing the ship a possibility.. I'd also like to see it seperate core overheating from player death... If the player can get out of the ship before the core and all power, shield, and weapon blocks detonate, and avoid the random explosions (which should do a bit of actual damage), they should have a chance to at least exit the ship alive when their core overheats.
Cockpit blocks could be renamed and retextured to "Camera Blocks," and stupid passenger computers would be replaced with far more logical "Normal Seats." The default view would be directly forward from the chair, and switching camera blocks would work as normal. You would no longer be able to change to docked entities by pressing the Up key (Because that discourages actual, practical interior planning and makes ZERO sense).
My second suggestion is a "console" block that you can link to any number of toggleable objects (Lights, doors, possibly future pistons or whatever), name, and slot into your piloting quickbar. They could also be activated manually by hitting R. This way, you could set up RP things like lockdown/Red/Yellow Alert, make PlexDoor landing gear, create lightswitches, or even just annoy people by repeatedly opening and closing your station's hangar bay doors or something.
Also, perhaps,, the ship core would be used to open up what is currently the structure menu, and could also be used to rename the ship, activate a Self Destruct function, or go from astronaut view into Build Mode. This way, it still needs to be accessed, but not all of the time, and so can be more heavily defended without sacrificing ship accessibility.
(If you have another Pilot's Chair and your ship core is still there, but the chair was destroyed, you can no longer pilot the ship, but can go to the core and just drop another chair into place from Build Mode.)
I see two, maybe three, main issues with combat, and indeed, the game in general. One, it's all about the core. You build around the core, rotate around the core, magically get sucked into the core and see out of it to pilot the ship, and if it's destroyed you and your ship die... ...[Two,] There's nothing to combat but core drilling as fast and hard as possible: No real reason to kill anything else aside from possibly turrets.
Separating radar targeting and ship core location is a good start to fixing the first issue. Perhaps further changes could include possibilities of "subsystem" or unit damage if you manage to hit that system, perhaps with specific weapons: Hit a big cluster of power generators and/or tanks, particularly with a missile or drain beam, and you have a chance to shut down power or (rarely) shield regen, or even cause a power leak, for a while. Hit the primary drive module [A.k.a. a very large engine block] hard enough with antimatter pulses and you just might nerf acceleration or turn rate by a painful amount for quite some time. Hit an AMC array (or many) with a really big boom and you just might... well... yeah, you get the point. Of course, for this to be worth it or even any fun, hull needs to get a lot harder. And possibly hardened hull a bit heavier to counterbalance that. (Personally, I'm against making shields more powerful, because that just nerfs small craft even more.)
New comment by me: I believe that perhaps these subsystem disabling things could have a higher chance of occuring the bigger a ship is, as well as a MUCH lower chance if the projectile is fired by turrets, giving smaller fighter ships another possible true role: sabotage.
In addition, I'd also like to see the actual piloting and commanding of ships done from a necessary pilot's chair [Which, for purposes of non-glitchy/annoying entering and exiting, would not have a collision box, but have a placement box and model that takes up a space two blocks tall] and set of three-ish consoles (possibly just a variation on the current Computers) of some kind, which would give at least a tiny incentive to having a ship interior of some sort, even in Doom Boxes, but also make boarding, killing the pilot, and stealing the ship a possibility.. I'd also like to see it seperate core overheating from player death... If the player can get out of the ship before the core and all power, shield, and weapon blocks detonate, and avoid the random explosions (which should do a bit of actual damage), they should have a chance to at least exit the ship alive when their core overheats.
Cockpit blocks could be renamed and retextured to "Camera Blocks," and stupid passenger computers would be replaced with far more logical "Normal Seats." The default view would be directly forward from the chair, and switching camera blocks would work as normal. You would no longer be able to change to docked entities by pressing the Up key (Because that discourages actual, practical interior planning and makes ZERO sense).
My second suggestion is a "console" block that you can link to any number of toggleable objects (Lights, doors, possibly future pistons or whatever), name, and slot into your piloting quickbar. They could also be activated manually by hitting R. This way, you could set up RP things like lockdown/Red/Yellow Alert, make PlexDoor landing gear, create lightswitches, or even just annoy people by repeatedly opening and closing your station's hangar bay doors or something.
Also, perhaps,, the ship core would be used to open up what is currently the structure menu, and could also be used to rename the ship, activate a Self Destruct function, or go from astronaut view into Build Mode. This way, it still needs to be accessed, but not all of the time, and so can be more heavily defended without sacrificing ship accessibility.
(If you have another Pilot's Chair and your ship core is still there, but the chair was destroyed, you can no longer pilot the ship, but can go to the core and just drop another chair into place from Build Mode.)
