Well, the truth is boarding doesn't happen all that much on a ship that still has its shields. Honestly though, I don't think shields should be a concern anymore once you get inside of a ship. Some coding needs to be done so that a ship is not protected from weapons fired from within. Shields could still recover and protect a hull breach from outside weapons, but once you're "under the ship's skin" so to speak, shields should be irrelevant. This would be very hard to code with the current setup, but seems like the best solution.
Here's what I think should happen: Take down shields long enough to get a boarding party in, then they're on their own and self-sufficient. The boarding party fights their way through the ship's interior to the bridge where they kill the crew, shoot out or hack the faction module, and take over.
I'm thinking that if you want to be able to board a ship, you need more orb-like shields, so they make a barrier 'around' the ship instead of shielding every block. This shield would block weapons fired from outside, but would allow physical objects to pass through. Hell, that would even help the problem of fighters being useless! Just fly up to the ship and go through the shields! Why didn't i think of this before! You could even have shield orbs be proportional in size and location from the groups they are placed in, and even make separate barriers entirely for each shield group so that you could turn your ship if one bank of shields failed. Hang on, i'm gonna go make a real suggestion for this...
There's a whole boatload of problems with bubble shields, check out some of the older threads on it.
I think a simpler solution to breaching hulls and forced boarding is to make personal weapons simply bypass shields. They're so weak (in their current incarnation at least) that I see little harm in them ignoring shields. In game explanation could be that they're too weak to even be detected by shields that they slip through, like a bait fish slipping through a wide net. If weapons get mods and augments though that could be a problem.
There's a whole boatload of problems with bubble shields, check out some of the older threads on it.
I think a simpler solution to breaching hulls and forced boarding is to make personal weapons simply bypass shields. They're so weak (in their current incarnation at least) that I see little harm in them ignoring shields. In game explanation could be that they're too weak to even be detected by shields that they slip through, like a bait fish slipping through a wide net. If weapons get mods and augments though that could be a problem.
Yeah, you're probably right about the problems that spherical shields would entail. Looked at some of the older threads, apparently that's how the game used to be, but it was removed because it was way too performance heavy, mostly. Oh well.
There's a whole boatload of problems with bubble shields, check out some of the older threads on it.
I think a simpler solution to breaching hulls and forced boarding is to make personal weapons simply bypass shields. They're so weak (in their current incarnation at least) that I see little harm in them ignoring shields. In game explanation could be that they're too weak to even be detected by shields that they slip through, like a bait fish slipping through a wide net. If weapons get mods and augments though that could be a problem.
The idea of personal weapons bypassing shields presents its own problems. Can you imagine the graffiti kids would shoot in hulls all the time? Plus it's one thing if the ship's manned, but if the owner is offline it would be very easy for a penniless astronaut to steal a titan. It would only take a little time.
The idea of personal weapons bypassing shields presents its own problems. Can you imagine the graffiti kids would shoot in hulls all the time? Plus it's one thing if the ship's manned, but if the owner is offline it would be very easy for a penniless astronaut to steal a titan. It would only take a little time.
I can see where you are coming from with that. I was mostly thinking with mid combat in mind, how no one would ever land a dumbfire missile standing on a moving ship aiming at a moving ship, etc. Heh, guess that idea sucks then.
I posted a thread suggesting that personal weapons go through ships. It was not met kindly. However, hacking is planned, so there's that. Also, warheads.
I posted a thread suggesting that personal weapons go through ships. It was not met kindly. However, hacking is planned, so there's that. Also, warheads.
The idea of personal weapons bypassing shields presents its own problems. Can you imagine the graffiti kids would shoot in hulls all the time? Plus it's one thing if the ship's manned, but if the owner is offline it would be very easy for a penniless astronaut to steal a titan. It would only take a little time.
Speaking generally in response to the OP, this is all things Schema and I have discussed and have plans for. The real questions is... do you want modular (pre-modeled peices) parts for your weapons, or a voxel system (look at planet explorers and ... cubeworld for examples of how these may look.)
Schema loves FPS games, so that's certainly something that has been considered. But it all needs to be done within the universe of Starmade. As for the latest step towards this goal, Schema is working on a major graphics optimization to reduce server lag and personal pc rendering lag. Also try using a warhead sometime in the next patch... we've added a small capacity to "direct" their damage (it really just does less to the player than to blocks.) This should allow for some manual detenations, until the trade guild can figure out a remote detonator.
Speaking generally in response to the OP, this is all things Schema and I have discussed and have plans for. The real questions is... do you want modular (pre-modeled peices) parts for your weapons, or a voxel system (look at planet explorers and ... cubeworld for examples of how these may look.)
Schema loves FPS games, so that's certainly something that has been considered. But it all needs to be done within the universe of Starmade. As for the latest step towards this goal, Schema is working on a major graphics optimization to reduce server lag and personal pc rendering lag. Also try using a warhead sometime in the next patch... we've added a small capacity to "direct" their damage (it really just does less to the player than to blocks.) This should allow for some manual detenations, until the trade guild can figure out a remote detonator.
as much as I would love being able to design my own small arms, Planet Explorers has opened my eyes to something. The potential to have Doom Cube Weapons. I mean doom cube ships are bad enough but if we don't balance this right this could be very bad. The only thing worst then being blown away by a dude flying a OP brick its another to be one shotted by a guy using a machine gun in the form of a solid block, which in my opinion is way more personal.
Limiting how many blocks we can use wouldn't be very Starmade-y so i though maybe we could just build our own "skins" for our weapons. I.E just make our own custom models for the guns while keeping all the stats the same. That way we get a fair compromise, weapon customization and balanced gameplay
Hmm, pointing again at Cubeworld as the other extreme, you might have a variety of weapon models on which you could place some blocks to customize it. Several sections of these, combined to form a single weapon, along with allowing up to 1 or two layers of blocks to be attached onto the base peice at any point, and you start having a fairly flexible system that avoids the "doomcube" or "phalic" weapon styles.
Hmm, pointing again at Cubeworld as the other extreme, you might have a variety of weapon models on which you could place some blocks to customize it. Several sections of these, combined to form a single weapon, along with allowing up to 1 or two layers of blocks to be attached onto the base peice at any point, and you start having a fairly flexible system that avoids the "doomcube" or "phalic" weapon styles.
I dunno how i feel about having premade parts, I think that would stifle creativity a bit.
you can reduce the impact of the doomcube weapons by slowing the turning/aiming of a weapon and player movement speed as the mass of the weapon increases.
The real questions is... do you want modular (pre-modeled peices) parts for your weapons, or a voxel system (look at planet explorers and ... cubeworld for examples of how these may look.)
Do you think a hybrid of both would work out? Voxel for the base shape itself with many different looking blocks, and modular meta items that are used in slots/expansion slots that effect stats and can be modified at a work bench or something? Maybe the meta items can have restrictions, like a long powerful rifle barrel requiring a certain dimension of length in the gun? Gun dimensions themselves like The_Onion said effecting things like long guns having heavy recoil, more massive guns decreasing running speed, etc. That way guns can look different and have different stats for different roles, but it stops a tiny block from being a BFG in stats. Just throwing ideas out there.
Do you think a hybrid of both would work out? Voxel for the base shape itself with many different looking blocks, and modular meta items that are used in slots/expansion slots that effect stats and can be modified at a work bench or something? Maybe the meta items can have restrictions, like a long powerful rifle barrel requiring a certain dimension of length in the gun? Gun dimensions themselves like The_Onion said effecting things like long guns having heavy recoil, more massive guns decreasing running speed, etc. That way guns can look different and have different stats for different roles, but it stops a tiny block from being a BFG in stats. Just throwing ideas out there.
What about having the number of blocks in the gun "model" determine the number of blocks that can be put on the frame? And then the statistics determining recoil, run speed, etc.
What about having the number of blocks in the gun "model" determine the number of blocks that can be put on the frame? And then the statistics determining recoil, run speed, etc.
My thoughts around that is it could encourage doom cube weapons especially if there is a cap on how long each axis can be (I don't think the devs will let us make handheld guns that can have an unlimited range in each axis like ships theoretically are). If each axis had it's pros and cons then it could encourage players to build out more so in one or two directions for specialized guns instead of just making BFG cubes to put on as many stat boosting modules as possible. It might be a little too restrictive, but the system needs something that makes guns look like, well, guns and other firearms.
If a system that combines both is too hard to balance out, I'd be fine with a totally modular system provided that we get a large diversity of weapon frame and other pre-made modules to customize.
I was thinking more of:
Build the functional parts of your gun. This determines all the stats, including the turn rate, recoil, output locations, etc.
Build a shell for the gun. This is just cosmetic, but must have at least the same number of blocks as the functional model.
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