Stop docked entity undock due to damage

    Zyrr

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    Fairly straightforward proposal - lets get rid of the fact that turrets and docked entities undock when the rail they're docked to/their docker gets destroyed.

    It's completely ridiculous for numerous reasons, primarily the fact that client performance immediately crashes worse than 1929 when a large amount of turrets undock OR when a tightly fit docked entity does. I cannot put into words how absolutely annoying it is when massive amounts of docked entities start getting lost. It practically disables AI ships - they'll spin in place like a 3D top and be almost 100% combat ineffective until what's undocked warps away for collision or overheats.

    Two, let's look to other examples like real life or sci-fi. How many times can you remember turrets being popped off, for example? Losing a turret is a very clear sign that something has gone horribly, terribly, possibly catastrophically wrong, like a tank losing its turret to an ammo explosion for example. The HMS Hood lost one of her rear turrets - after the infamous explosion of her ammo rack and torpedoes that ripped her in two and caused her to sink in three (3) minutes. It doesn't happen commonly, at all.

    Until we have general ship breakoff working to a degree that it doesn't cause massive amounts of problems, I don't see any reason why we should have this minute form of breakoff enabled. How do we supplement until then, though?

    There's a couple ways. First, allow rails and dockers to be like cores in that they can remain functional but become intangible when destroyed. However, don't let them be affected by logic when destroyed, and if any docked entity is moving along rails, have them stop on the last non-destroyed block, or their current one if it is destroyed. For turrets, you could also disable their Bobby AI, so sniping rails/dockers is still viable.

    Really, I'd just like one solid reason from Schine or anyone else as to why turrets and docked entities can undock due to damage. I don't think I've ever talked to anyone in almost four years of playing this game that has liked or even agreed with this feature.
     
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    Aesthetics

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    I am in complete agreement with this suggestion. As a matter of fact, I've found it rather peculiar that noone has suggested this before - not even myself. It just seems like common sense, at this point, to have this suggested.
     
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    It honestly looks cool to have shit blown off the mothership, but not worth the performance loss. Let's know our limits with the game engine and collision detection.
     

    jayman38

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    To be fair, this has been suggested in the past. It was as good an idea then as it is now. There were also similar suggestions, such as making the detached rail entity a phantom entity to pass through the mother entity until it cleared the bounding box. I like this suggestion better.

    Real "Breakoff" can be optimized later, and then, we can have cool stuff like bits of a ship breaking away in battle. However, that's for a future optimization.
     
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    madman Captain

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    I suggested it in another general turret disscussion and I still want it.
     
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    Maybe a quick temporary fix would be to convert the rail to a pickup rail the moment the standard rail is destroyed? This would keep rail integrity but still allow visible destruction.
     
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    This needs to be an option in the server configs. In fact, this should have been an essential available option when rails came out. There's no need for stuff to go flying if it's going to slow down servers the way it does. The turrets themselves can still be easily destroyed, there's no need for them to pop off. Additionally, rail pieces should have no hull or armor values so people aren't tempted to try to use them as a form of armor.

    In addition to this, I think there should be some kind of protection against collisions with turrets, similar to the undo/redo, protection where it would disable a turret if too many collisions were detected.
     
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    What about the issue of docked plate?

    If they undock they slam dunk the server
    If they dont undock it means 0 punishment for having a docked plate the size of your literal ship (Roninx "demonstrated" it on Brierie by losing his docked plate mid fight..... and well.. welcome to crash land)
     

    Zyrr

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    What about the issue of docked plate?

    If they undock they slam dunk the server
    If they dont undock it means 0 punishment for having a docked plate the size of your literal ship (Roninx "demonstrated" it on Brierie by losing his docked plate mid fight..... and well.. welcome to crash land)
    There's definitely a tradeoff. It would undoubtedly make docked hulls stronger as they wouldn't be able to be shot off, but I think from a performance perspective that's a reasonable trade as when they undock right now it, as you said, can very easily crash an entire server. Like I said, this is more of an interim solution - hopefully in the not-too-distant future Schine remedies how docked hulls work and can make breakoff smoother. For now, though, I'd just like to be able to fight and not topple servers.
     
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    Wholeheartedly agree.

    If I cut a ship in half it doesn't fall apart. We accept such massive suspension of disbelief for the sake of performance, why should turrets be any exception. Turrets get waxed, they go dead. They don't need to go flying.

    Not only would this protect our servers from mass DE detachment necrosis, but it would greatly advance the entire notion of modular ship-building.
     
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    What about the issue of docked plate?

    If they undock they slam dunk the server
    If they dont undock it means 0 punishment for having a docked plate the size of your literal ship (Roninx "demonstrated" it on Brierie by losing his docked plate mid fight..... and well.. welcome to crash land)
    After shooting your enemy enough it won't matter whether he has docked armor or not. As long as the blocks attached to any entity can be destroyed, that's the most important thing. Docked armor that can't be shot off? MOAR DPS and Alpha! All you have to do is put enough holes and craters in anything and your good.
     
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    Az14el

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    I like that I can have turrets that can act as semi efficient drones after being shot off, maybe that's another thing that's just a consequence of the current power system & not something thats desired/can be relied on forever though, so thats w/e, but definitely agree fundamentally. The things really can be hell coming out, a few seconds of non phys should (as far as i understand) fix a lot of the lag involved in shedding a bunch of entities at once.
     
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    I actually agree with this, why not just have the turret be disabled like any normal entity when it goes under 50% shp or the bobby is destroyed. Turrets popping off a large entity just isnt worth the performance downsides
     
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    There's definitely a tradeoff. It would undoubtedly make docked hulls stronger as they wouldn't be able to be shot off, but I think from a performance perspective that's a reasonable trade as when they undock right now it, as you said, can very easily crash an entire server. Like I said, this is more of an interim solution - hopefully in the not-too-distant future Schine remedies how docked hulls work and can make breakoff smoother. For now, though, I'd just like to be able to fight and not topple servers.
    I think when collision damage is enabled the docked entities simply evaporate upon undocking
     

    Lancake

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    It's one of those things I remember reading about a long time ago, it's a good suggestion and one that the player has full control over with a simple config option to enable/disable forced undocking.

    We'll have to do a few more things than just "don't undock if you lose rail" as that could lead to several weird situations such as unable to undock entities as the rail docker is gone. Back when I thought about it, I didn't stumble upon anything that was undoable though.

    We could re-use parts of the ship core system, where it can still be destroyed yet doesn't disappear and just becomes non physical to weapons. Rebooting would restore its HP etc.
    Pair this together with rail functionality loss for any rail entity that lost its rail or the rail its docked to, and you have a decent amount of options what to do with it.

    I believe a hybrid system was also talked about in the past, where things still undock yet are completely non physical for the entities they were docked to (and of course the docks of them). Or something similar where they do become completely physical after X seconds and doing a small, crude collision check to stall if needed. wasn't a big fan of this hybrid one though as it results in some really odd situations where you could potentially pile up several entities in each other.
     

    Zyrr

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    I'd prefer the former suggestion over the latter - from experience, turning entire entities nonphysical gets real weird real quick.
     

    Lone_Puppy

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    There were also similar suggestions, such as making the detached rail entity a phantom entity to pass through the mother entity until it cleared the bounding box
    Yeah, I remember making this suggestion a while back.
    We could re-use parts of the ship core system, where it can still be destroyed yet doesn't disappear and just becomes non physical to weapons. Rebooting would restore its HP etc.
    This would be cool to.

    I personally would prefer the entities detach, but if it prevents the clipping issues Zyrr's suggestion would be fine with me.
     
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    To "break" docked armor I think overheated entity just need to lose shield, power and thrust regen.