Ramming!

[Chezzprinn]

Could you imagine it? You and your friend have tied up a destroyer, her shields are down and her guns are solely focused on your friend. You sneak around her flank,power up your engines and go for the kill shot. Your ship ploughs through her engines, sending her helplessly spinning out of control as your friend quickly dispatches what is left. I think ramming would add an interesting, not to mention badass, mechanic to Starmade. It would give rise to a variety of new ship designs and roles, and would add a new way to destroy enemy ships, no longer being "the bigger guns, the better". I don't know any coding but I assume this could be possible with the game's engine. Just assign each block a set damage and self damage value if they collide with another block at a certain speed, say 45+,with corner and side pieces having a susbstantially better damage to self damage ratio, making ramming heads possible. Am I the only one who thinks this would be amazing?

 

[oZode]

Disintigrators are somewhat of a ramming mechanic, but actual ramming would still be nice.

 

[Chezzprinn]

Didn\'t know that,but there\'d be nothing like the feeling of a enemy ship coming down due to your clever ship design, rather than some cheap boomsticks you bought.

 

[Ganelon]

And then that space would be littered with the damaged blocks of the gutted ship, pinging off your viewscreen as you moved in to strip what was left of its systems. That would be amazing...It would also be cool if they added stress to the ships, so once you smashed a huge hole in a destroyers side and it tried to turn it just tore itself apart because the design couldn\'t hold itself together.

 

[KarmaHound]

Prepare for ramming speed!

 

[Chezzprinn]

@ganelon Holy shit,yes! That would be epic! imagine tearing a hole in a capital ship,reversing, then pumping missiles into the breach. Would slightly counter the need to build big,too.

 

[SilverBack]

Although this would be amazing I think the game isn\'t ready for collision based damage. In most cases it would render the game nearly unplayable as collisions happen by accident very often and usually due to a bug.

Possibly implementing a specialized ramming block could provide a middle ground. Say \"SD Ramming Hull\" which could just damage things on impact, but also be less durable as to prevent players from using it as their entire hull. Ofcourse you could still build a full \"Ram Hull\" design with armor underneath, but that would self balace as your ship would need to be twice as big and twice as costly.

I have to admit, driving right through a planet with a space bulldozer sounds fun :P

 

[Danzarlo]

I admit that space bulldozer does sound fun but they are planning on implementing collision damage as far as im awear

 

[Hodhandr]

I made a video about them disintegrators, they work pretty well for ramming, but I do get what you\'re saying, and having parts that did damage on impact would be pretty cool.

Anyways, here\'s the video: http://youtu.be/fjP26xe4CXo

 

[Shanghikid]

I have found that running into another ship with out weapons of any kind caused damage, at least to me it did.

I was being chased by some pirates and they shot my weapons computers leaving me defenseless. (poor design om my part) Anyway, with no way out I just turned and started ramming them, it would send them glitching out trying to get distance and I saw some of my blocks take damage and get destroyed. So it seems like some basic ramming already exists, its glitchy but exists.

Also, please correct me if I\'m wrong.

 

[Crusade]

@Shanghikid, the pirate would of still been shooting at you xD

Ramming is not yet in, but it would be amazing. Think the opening scene of Bulletstorm. Smashing a tiny speeder into the side of a gargantuan capital ship. Your ship would be heavily damaged, but if you aimed right, you just took out all their weapons.

This with flexing of hulls and entity splitting would introduce the need for ships that aren\'t hollow, you would need to reinforce the armor on your ship, especially if it is large. Colliding with asteroids would also be interesting, I can imagine a large capital ship slamming through an asteroid field attempting to outrun its foe, taking heavy damage, with parts of the ship drifting off into its opponent, causing them to freak out and crash into each other.

On top of this, explosion and particle effects would be nice, sparks from ships colliding, smoke within atmospheres and a nice scalable explosion effect for missiles. Perhaps effects for certain blocks being destroyed.

 

[Arclight]

Anyone play Homeworld: Cataclysm? With Ramming Frigates you could push ships out of the combat zone. The best strategy was to push a cruiser, carrier, or dreadnought class ship out of combat with a couple of ramming frigates so your fleet could focus on wiping out the enemy\'s frigates, fighters and corvettes. Once you cleaned up the escort, you could move your fleet in to deal with the bigger ships, which are then completely outnumbered and out-gunned.

Somtaaw Ramming Frigate:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=WhNJkmyQbB8SDM&tbnid=6AxL9cRVGAJ-rM:&ved=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.giantbomb.com%2Fhomeworld-cataclysm%2F3030-14029%2F&ei=9uHJUaDkKaariAKGoIDYCw&bvm=bv.48340889,d.cGE&psig=AFQjCNFHUBc37IAk-xQ_4AOtPlCLFTW80Q&ust=1372271477752549

 

[jackibis]

CHARGE THE SHIP RIGHT DOWN THEIR THROATS!!!!!

 

[Carnanty]

You make it sound like you\'re gonna ram this big capital ship and have a huge affect on it and still be alive to salvage it? i think you would do some damage and weeken it but not take it out, and you would be dead.