Remove Mass from Defensive System Calculations

[alterintel]

Currently a defensive system's effect is based off of it's percent of mass to the total mass of the entity it's on.
Because most systems are based off of mass, the result is allot of docked modular components which make more efficient use of power and space such as docked shields, armor/hull, and engines. I think it would be a good idea to base these systems off the strength of the systems they are enhancing instead. For example base Ion off of shield capacity instead of ship mass. Base Over Drive off of thrust capacity instead of ship mass. Not only would this suggestion reduce the amount of docked entities and also reduce lag; I think it also makes more logical sense.

THE FLOWING NUMBERS ARE NOT ACCURATE.
THEY ARE FOR DEMONSTRATIVE PURPOSES.

Current defense system block count needed for max effect:
Ion: Block Count Required = Ship Mass * 0.5
Over Drive: Block Count Required = Ship Mass * 0.25
Punch Through: Block Count Required = Ship Mass * 0.0556
Pierce: Block Count Required = Ship Mass * 0.0556

Proposed changes:
Ion: Block Count Required = Ship Shield Capacity * 0.025
Over Drive: Block Count Required = Ship Thrust Capacity * 0.25
Punch Through: Block Count Required = Ship Armor Capacity * 0.00025
Pierce: Block Count Required = Ship Armor Capacity * 0.00025

Thoughts?

Thanks guys

 

[DrTarDIS]

... How would that reduce the docked entities? In principle, It's still worth it to give a sheild-plate ion effect, and scale it to the shield pool of the shield plate, likewise with an armor/hull plate. All you've done is swap out a value that tries to prevent you from having every trick in the book at once for one that LETS you have every trick in the book at once.

 

[alterintel]

I was trying to speak in general terms but I had the ship I'm currently working on in mind:
I'm working on another USS Defiant build. It has 4 main entities with different systems to make most effective use of mass power and space.

1: Mother-Ship: Over-Drive, Radar Jammer, Jump Drives, Jump Inhibitor
2: Shield Entity: Ion
3: Docked Hull: Pierce, Punch Through
4: RP: Engines, Logic, Torpedo and Shuttle Lunch Systems, Docked weapons.

The mother ship isn't protected by the shield entity. Instead it's enveloped in the RP entity and the Hull Entity which are protected by the shield entity.

To keep Over-Drive small the mother-ship's mass is kept as small as possible with only enough power for docked engines, and the radar jammer.

With the proposed changes. all of these systems could be on one entity. I'm not saying the proposed changes would necessarily be better. I guess it would depend on your perspective. But I think it would make things allot simpler, more logical, and possibly result in less lag.

 

[Heillos]

I think the issue is that the proposal doesn't actually incentivize putting everything on the main entity, as far as I can understand it.

For example, we'll use Ion because that's a popular one to put on a docked shell. The shell, having no shield capacitors, has a shield capacity of 220. Multiplied by your example value of 0.025, this would require a mere 11 blocks to reach maximum effect, and the power blocks to support it would not affect the required Ion module count at all.

In comparison, the number of Ion modules to reach max effect on an entity with significant shield capacity (we'll say 100,000, which is still comparatively small to my knowledge) would be a lot more; (0.025*100,000=2,500 modules).

Changes in the actual numbers will not change this imbalance; unless I misunderstood what effect this will have, this implementation will not help things. Indeed, as DrTarDIS stated, it will allow one docked entity to handle all of these effects, as their defining variables do not overlap like mass does currently.

Technically, this would be a reduction in lag as one entity can pull all of the weight (as opposed to individual entities per effect), but it does not resolve any of the arguable balance issues with docked entities.

 

[alterintel]

Maybe my perspective is off, and I'm looking at this wrong?
why would you have a bunch of docked entities if it doesn't give you an advantage?

as far as Ion goes you are correct. To make my proposal work, a change to Ion system would have to made as well. In addition to making Ion dependent on shield capacity, it should also only work on the shield it's attached to. So in the example of Ion on Docked Hull. Ion should only be applied to the first 220 damage. Any damage that does not get absorbed by the shields on the docked hull should not benefit from the docked hull's Ion effect.

But this is also a tangential discussion of sorts.

Say for example you want a huge ship, that mostly depends on it's Armor. But you have a little shield system for good measure. To protect that shield system you would need allot of Ion to account for the huge mass of the armor. Wouldn't it make more sense that the Effect fit the System that it's affecting, rather than be affected by the entire mass of the ship?

Eh, I don't know, It was just a thought that came to me and I thought it made sense.
But if it doesn't make any sense, and the old system is better than we should just keep it the way it is.

 

[Thalanor]

I am not a fan of docked entities + passive effects, because (like docked reactors previously) it is yet another "workaround" for a flawed system, and unfortunately the workaround brings it up from flawed to overpowered.

I would suggest a radical solution: All defensive effects are based on total entity mass (entire docking chain), and affect all of it (in both directions). Then there would not be a benefit for splitting a build into several entities (and not a drawback either!) if these are not meant to be moving/decorative. Docking IMHO should be used for turrets, doors, decoration, actual ships, and basically everything *except* systems optimization.

 

[Comradecolonel]

I would suggest a radical solution: All defensive effects are based on total entity mass (entire docking chain), and affect all of it (in both directions). Then there would not be a benefit for splitting a build into several entities (and not a drawback either!) if these are not meant to be moving/decorative. Docking IMHO should be used for turrets, doors, decoration, actual ships, and basically everything *except* systems optimization.

This seems to me like the way to go. No matter where the modules are they should effect all docked entities. I think it would be an improvement to the system all around. Sadly this wouldn't address many of the exploits with docked entities but it is definitely an important part of it.

 

[nightrune]

I think the base issue is actually how docked entities are used versus how we expect them to be used. The only way I see forward is using a Share All or Share nothing paradigm. This mixture is just awful and has caused more problems then its solved and makes fun builds harder without the fun.

Share all, all characteristics are shared. Everything. Mass, thrust base power, aux power, ion, shields, all of it.

Share nothing. A child entity gets none of the bonuses from the parent entity. No power sharing, no shield sharing, and no defense sharing. Completely separate except for physics. Obviously they have to have a cumulative mass, and dimensions.

I think stations/asteroids/planets should be a share nothing type entity, and ships become a share everything entity.

After that you enable ghost docking for docked entities, that go into a powered down state, and re-enable power supply, shield supply for none share entities.

This actually gives stations a massive boost and forces you to design your stations in a way to protect you docked entities, likely with forcefield.

Sorry just something I've been thinking about for awhile.

 

[Ithirahad]

I think the issue is that the proposal doesn't actually incentivize putting everything on the main entity, as far as I can understand it.

For example, we'll use Ion because that's a popular one to put on a docked shell. The shell, having no shield capacitors, has a shield capacity of 220. Multiplied by your example value of 0.025, this would require a mere 11 blocks to reach maximum effect, and the power blocks to support it would not affect the required Ion module count at all.

In comparison, the number of Ion modules to reach max effect on an entity with significant shield capacity (we'll say 100,000, which is still comparatively small to my knowledge) would be a lot more; (0.025*100,000=2,500 modules).

Changes in the actual numbers will not change this imbalance; unless I misunderstood what effect this will have, this implementation will not help things. Indeed, as DrTarDIS stated, it will allow one docked entity to handle all of these effects, as their defining variables do not overlap like mass does currently.

Technically, this would be a reduction in lag as one entity can pull all of the weight (as opposed to individual entities per effect), but it does not resolve any of the arguable balance issues with docked entities.

You could always make shield sharing different from onboard shielding. In that case, shared shielding would have its Ion effect applied from the main ship, and ion on the docked entity would only affect damage to the docked entity's own shields. Or, alternatively, we could go with Nightrune's approach, where EVERYTHING is global and docked ion effects would share down the chain (and would not stack with ion on other entities)

 

[Jojomo]

Thoughts?

Thanks guys

Sounds good.
I'm a big fan of multiple entity ships, but using them to make the cost of effects cheaper than intended for a ship of a given mass is definitely gimmicky, and is probably the largest single impact on ship ability (relative to cost) that multiple entities has.
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Maybe my perspective is off, and I'm looking at this wrong?
why would you have a bunch of docked entities if it doesn't give you an advantage?

For starters just because it's so much more interesting to design. There are so many more possibilities.

And for RP reasons - there are many more than I can ever imagine by myself, I'm sure. A few examples:
- Giving recharge priority to different weapon groups (or systems) with tiered reactors
- Having separate shields for different hull areas (e.g. fwd, aft, port starboard)
- Having readouts in the bridge for recharge levels of individual power capacitor groups

And for reasons that although possibly fall into the "advantageous" category, don't provide any *combat* advantage. For example:
- Repairing hull damage by hotswapping already built spare hulls
- Salvaging undamaged or lightly damaged entities from "destroyed" ships
- Using shipyards to build components that you know will be used in future ships, even when you don't know the final design of a ship, or don't have the resources to currently build the whole thing - shipyard time isn't wasted

 

[NeonSturm]

Why do you want docked entities?

For re-using complex shapes on different ships.
​

So should it be equal wether something is docked or not?

No, docked things can be modules (thrusters only) or docked fighter-ships which should be independent.
​

Should a docked fighter try to support the mothership's thrust, using it's own power-regen or ion effects?

This would be realistic for thrust not ion, if it is docked on the exterior.
I am not sure wether it creates a good balance - but the new power system is under construction.
​

Should the ion effect buff the modules, the main ship or both?

I would like ionized shield plates which once penetrated don't protect the stuff underneath.
But armour ships might want to shield the reactor only to have it last until more armour blocks are destroyed.

I think that some "hardened/ionized" attack angles are a good thing.​

 

[Raisinbat]

Currently a defensive system's effect is based off of it's percent of mass to the total mass of the entity it's on.
Because most systems are based off of mass, the result is allot of docked modular components which make more efficient use of power and space such as docked shields, armor/hull, and engines.

YES!!!

I think it would be a good idea to base these systems off the strength of the systems they are enhancing instead. For example base Ion off of shield capacity instead of ship mass. Base Over Drive off of thrust capacity instead of ship mass. Not only would this suggestion reduce the amount of docked entities and also reduce lag; I think it also makes more logical sense.

This would be an improvement but i'm more in favor of reworking passive effects to have their own scales, like linear damage mitigation for armor/ion effects to open up ships for more different designs; like armored ships with shallow armor but high mitigation that are completely immune to fighter weapons...

... How would that reduce the docked entities? In principle, It's still worth it to give a sheild-plate ion effect, and scale it to the shield pool of the shield plate, likewise with an armor/hull plate. All you've done is swap out a value that tries to prevent you from having every trick in the book at once for one that LETS you have every trick in the book at once.

...does this even work?

New I think the issue is that the proposal doesn't actually incentivize putting everything on the main entity, as far as I can understand it.

That isn't necessary. Rewarding single entity is the same as punishing multiple entities, like hangar doors or turrets, you'd just end up screwing with that.

As long as there aren't incentives to multiple entities, why build them?

I would suggest a radical solution: All defensive effects are based on total entity mass (entire docking chain), and affect all of it (in both directions). Then there would not be a benefit for splitting a build into several entities (and not a drawback either!) if these are not meant to be moving/decorative. Docking IMHO should be used for turrets, doors, decoration, actual ships, and basically everything *except* systems optimization.

Both impractical and missing the point of OP; Why should a ship with little shielding pay 3x the mass it has in shields for ion effect? This maintains the current paradigm where armor is a huge waste of time because you can fit 2x the dps or 2x the shield by replacing heavy armor with cosmetic blocks. That advantage leaves you at 50% shield when your opponent loses theirs, and then you get lots of time to disable them, so who cares if your armor is trash. This is also a huge reason RP ships are so bad; ships are heavily penalized for adding heavy armor, getting rid of the mass percentile would make ship building much better.