The Apparent Cancer That Is Docked Hull

[Spoolooni]

While I personally feel as if docked hull is an interesting concept so to speak, others find this problematic mechanic or "advanced bug" to be game breaking. Several solutions were discussed but I think this particular array of solutions would not hinder ships with moving parts and docked aesthetics as long as they are implemented in unison.

I will keep this fairly simple:

Solution #1​

1) "The parent entity's effects are absolute and overrule all child effects." If a shield of power drain weapon is used on a docked entity, power will be extracted from the main ship.

2) The main ship can inherit entities such as power, power capacity, armor/structure hp, shield and shield capacity from docked entities similarly to how the main ship can inherit thrust from docked entities. The docked entities will also be affected by the parent entity which involves soft caps.

3)Docked entities either than turrets DO NOT UNDOCK even when overheated unless done so through deliberate logic commands/activation and will remain intact as long as the rail it is attached to remains present. This will solve the lag issues that come with ships that have multiple docked entities such as wedge on wedge or tiger lily petals.

Basically the best you can get out of docked entities is fancy moving parts that aren't wasted space. This would solve a rather annoying meta to deal with while putting ships with docked aesthetics at zero disadvantage.


//Also If I may add, turrets are not part of this equation, turrets are fine the way they are until further discussions are brought about them. (It's a different discussion)

Solution #2
​

This solution may seem to be the easier way to not only solve the problem but allow docked hull to be an integral part of the meta while introducing a much for feasible threat. Many PvP titles especially in the MOBA realm integrate a form of balance that follows the structure of rock, paper and scissors. If docked hull counters ion and sniper weapons, then surely there must be a hard counter for docked armor. I propose we discuss a ways to improve some weapon systems that can be dedicated towards countering or punishing the use of docked hull similarly to the way docked hull punished penetration weapon builds.

 

[TBterra]

the inherited power and shields basically re-legitimizes docked reactors and shields (in fact it buffs them as they dont need transfer beams)(unless you have it so all reactors on any number of docked ships are treated as belonging to the master ship, which would remove docked reactors totaly, but would also remove self powered turrets if not done carefuly)

as such i would not use number 2 but the other 2 seem fine

 

[SchnellBier]

I don´t see a reason why turret and regular rail entities should be threated equal. You can have rail entities that belong to the main ship as if they were part of it and turret entities which have some advantages and some disadvantages (less shield sharing but self power capability).

Number 2 is not meant to get advantage out of docked parts. It´s there to get no significant disadvantage from them because of wasted space.

 

[Raisinbat]

What are you trying to solve exactly? The thread name sorta implies you want to remove docked hull but then your suggestions seem to buff them...?

 

[nightrune]

Probably trying to solve undock lag from docked armor, and what looks like overpowered passive effects on each part.

The only issue I have with docked armor is that it ignores physics effects, That's a bug and needs to be fixed.

 

[MrFURB]

There are some rather significant advantages to docked hulls that make them flat out better than their equivalent on the main ship in most circumstances.

Less shield protection = more protective shield.
Having a docked hull on the front of your ship means that once your shields reach 25% the docked hull begins taking physical damage instead of your shields. This severely weakens incoming pierce and ion weaponry which won't be able to fully utilize their specialization because of the compounding layers of shield-physical-shield-physical needed to actually damage the main ship.
Ion weapons will lower the shields to 25% and then be useless against the rest of the shielding because of the blocks of the docked hull. Pierce weapons will be even less useful as you have to deal with the mothership's shields constantly fluctuating around the 25% mark. If you manage to get a good hit against the docked hull you cannot damage the mothership because it still has some shielding.

And I can't stress this a lot; your shields being able to regen behind a layer of armor blocks is such a massive bonus to survivability that it becomes simply inefficient to not use docked hull. Preeeeety much exploit level advantage right there. A good example- I've run a few duels between one of my own ships that is 9k mass on the main entity and an additional 4k mass worth of rotating docked glass doors (both docked hull and spaced armor) and I am nearly immune to multiple types of weapons and am able to act as a 'tank' against ships 2, 3, and even 5 times my total mass.
Take away the docked rotary glass doors and my ship becomes a 'meh, okay' frigate.

There are some other usually minor advantages as well. Docked hulls don't add to your ship's dimensions which increases maneuverability. Passive effects don't take docked mass into account.
All that for the one weakness of being prone to undocking before the fight is over... If badly placed/armored. The ship in my example has only had the docked rotary glass doors undocked due to damage twice in the 50+ slugfests I have brought it to so far.

My thoughts on a fix? Anything on rails need to act in almost all capacities as if they are parts of the main ship. I really don't like the idea of taking away the shield sharing limit at 25% shields, but abusing it holds enough advantages that not doing so becomes inefficient.

 

[Nickizzy]

I really like #3 1 and 2; eh, really doesn't make sense.

A couple of changes: if they have a certain amount of space open to the outside, they will undock. This is for fighters and making things like docked armor not just stick there.

 

[nightrune]

There are some other usually minor advantages as well. Docked hulls don't add to your ship's dimensions which increases maneuverability. Passive effects don't take docked mass into account.

This sounds actually sounds like the culprit to me. I think this is simply the question of balance right now, because there is a depth to designing a ship like this. A depth that makes physical sense and in game sense. I'd like to not lose that if we can avoid it. Ships maneuverability should absolutely take into account docked entities.

Docked entities should all be affected by physics weapons. I would be up for being able to use pull beams to rip off armor plates like that, giving it a hard counter and really using starmade's physics to its advantage, even giving mass enhancers more of a combat use. Stop would also be using in countering that then.

Thoughts?

 

[Spoolooni]

the inherited power and shields basically re-legitimizes docked reactors and shields (in fact it buffs them as they dont need transfer beams)(unless you have it so all reactors on any number of docked ships are treated as belonging to the master ship, which would remove docked reactors totaly, but would also remove self powered turrets if not done carefuly)

as such i would not use number 2 but the other 2 seem fine

You clearly do not understand what I meant by having the parent entity influencing all docked entities excluding turrets. Docked reactors and shields were used in complicated concoctions in order to bypass the soft caps, they were independent units that were some how linked through logic influence. My suggestions wouldn't legitimize past iterations of docked reactors because any docked entity asides from turrets will inherit properties from the parent entity, this involves soft caps as well. If the soft cap affects all docked entities asides from turrets, there will be no reason to use docked reactors again, all we're trying to do is to allow creative individuals to finesse modular ships or ships with complicated moving parts without the disadvantage of wasted space.

[doublepost=1476472916,1476472558][/doublepost]

What are you trying to solve exactly? The thread name sorta implies you want to remove docked hull but then your suggestions seem to buff them...?

No, removing docked hull is not what we're trying to do because many ships use docked hull, whether it's decorative purposes or exploitative as ships we have seen in Blood and Steel season 3. The issue is that self sustaining docked hull effectively creates a secondary health bar, making it mandatory for any ship to apply it. The changes suggested basically treats docked hull as if they're part of the main ship. If a docked portion of the ship gets hit, the entire ship gets hit. This removes the exploitative passive docked hull has to offer while at the same time allowed moving parts to contribute to the parent entity as if they aren't separate ships in the first place.

 

[kiddan]

Sounds like a legitimate idea, just wondering one thing:

2) The main ship can inherit entities such as power, power capacity, armor/structure hp, shield and shield capacity from docked entities similarly to how the main ship can inherit thrust from docked entities.

What happens when an already damaged ship docks to a ship-shape one? Would it still remove structure hp?

 

[Spoolooni]

Sounds like a legitimate idea, just wondering one thing:

What happens when an already damaged ship docks to a ship-shape one? Would it still remove structure hp?

If a damaged ship docks to another ship like a carrier, the carrier being the parent entity takes over the role of receiving damage even if enemies are firing at the damaged ship docked to the carrier. This is exactly why people build carriers as integral parts of their fleets, this change will only give carriers the incentive to exist and be included in any battle strategy.

On the side note the main thread his been updated so people don't think I'm trying to fight for docked reactors. When we meant these changes should affect all but turrets, we really mean it should and this also includes soft/hard caps.

 

[Raisinbat]

And what prevents you from using a turret as docked hull? Oh right, nothing. This would make zero difference unless also applied to turrets, and why should it be ok to have a turret with its own power supply/shielding etc but impose some arbitrary restriction for a non-turret weapon that's just docked in a fixed position?

Every fucking time someone doesn't like what's going on in starmade you bring out this idiot hammer and try to break it, how about instead of that you take a look at the backwards ass mechanics this game is built on; WHY are people using docked hulls/weapons power etc? It's because the game punishes single entity ships with:

• Horrible power efficiency
• Mass cost of passive effects
• Utterly useless armor
• No control over your ship's power flow

With ZERO benefits.

Auxilliary power is a pantspissing solution; a 50 mass weapon can penetrate hundreds of blocks, this gets blown up as soon as your shields are down. It's a completely unnecessary addition to the game; just having reactor baseline raised to be the same as these things would've done the same, and it still doesn't solve the underlying power imballance; docked power is still many times faster so of course it's still used.

Passive effects are stupid as hell, how about instead of this percentile bonus where every single ship is running ion, overdrive and scanner and nothing else passive effects stop requiring X% of mass and give a linear bonus instead based on how many you put on, like -X damage taken by armor per punch-through passive block? Might also fix the ridiculous non-stop projectile spam everywhere.

Armor has ZERO stopping power as long as you stack multiple weak projectiles/beams on the same point; the only thing they protect is your structure HP bar, but all the blocks that make your ship able to fight are free pickings, and with power auxilliary blowing up when it's shot (Schine fucking suggested wrapping it in armor, have they even tried their own game?) this just makes armor completely pointless, unless it's docked, since docked armor protects shield HP instead and keeps your regen going.

We have no way to control power flow unless using docked entities. Can't limit power to one part of the ship, can't prioritize certain systems, can't have a weapon with it's own dedicated power storage.

Stop treating the symptoms and start treating the cause ffs.

I'm not against removing docked entities, hell they should be removed, but just eliminating everything with any complexity and not replacing them with anything just kills the game for a lot of people. Docked entities and weapons are the only two design components left that aren't braindead lemonade shit.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that docked entities are only more powerful compared to single entity ships OF THE SAME SIZE; If you compare them to fleets of smaller ships that don't hit the softcaps they're really no stronger at all. If AI wasn't so god damn retarded fleets of small ships would dominate larger ships with impunity because they have all the advantages of docked entities built into them: dealing damage to one ship keeps the rest of the ships fully functional, their power can stay in the sweet spot with no need for auxilliary, the power cost of thrusters is low so even more power efficient and they're much more dificult to hit.

Comparing mass for mass docked entity ships just catch up with small ships.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Also If I may add, turrets are not part of this equation, turrets are fine the way they are until further discussions are brought about them. (It's a different discussion)

Just going to point-out that I could easily make a BIG turret that acts as a "where I need it" slab of hull & shields even with your proposed nerfs. I like the "send it to momma" mentality of what you say, and even agree with the docking bit. I'd even go so far as to make rails/turret-axis/dockers currently in use as invulnerable as a ship core(cannot be destroyed even if zero HP) to stop the de-docking lag.

 

[JinM]

While I personally feel as if docked hull is an interesting concept so to speak, others find this problematic mechanic or "advanced bug" to be game breaking.

The idea of having a very durable shielding outside of the ship is nothing too gamebreaking. It just means that using Cannons on big ships are nerfed. I would not say it is a really bad meta, but it is a too complicated one because without the docked shields you are useless now.

1) "The parent entity's effects are absolute and overrule all child effects." If a shield of power drain weapon is used on a docked entity, power will be extracted from the main ship.

Please, yes, do it.

2) The main ship can inherit entities such as power, power capacity, armor/structure hp, shield and shield capacity from docked entities similarly to how the main ship can inherit thrust from docked entities. The docked entities will also be affected by the parent entity which involves soft caps.

If you use the first rule the second rule is not that important anymore. More importantly it may not be easily implemented. Explanation: For each movement, weaponuse, damage and any other calculation you would need to interchange the variables between the entities. I can imagine that this cross referencing blows the calculation cost.

3)Docked entities either than turrets DO NOT UNDOCK even when overheated unless done so through deliberate logic commands/activation and will remain intact as long as the rail it is attached to remains present. This will solve the lag issues that come with ships that have multiple docked entities such as wedge on wedge or tiger lily petals.
I think this also adds to the gameplay, because then you have the destroyed objects at your ship and not disappearing. Still the game has the easy rule, that overheating parts are meant to disappear. This suggestion does not take this into account and I hope it is implementable. But I think if they vanish from the ship after their countdown when they are docked is fine as well.

This would solve a rather annoying meta to deal with while putting ships with docked aesthetics at zero disadvantage.
The plain idea of docked hull is not that annoying. In its current state it is unbearable ofcourse, I agree.

# My suggestion:
Why not make each docked entity level weaker to shield and power drain? So any damage on a docked entity gets doubled? Now here comes the deal: You can add a bobby ai like module, that changes this entity into armor. But only one kind of armor, like armor that absorbs emp very well but is still doulbe vulnerable to any other damage source. And this module type could use a big ammount of energy if its activated (via logic!!! :D ). Just my first idea to change docked armor into something fun and complicated instead of a "you must have it or you are weaker" meta.

 

[Spoolooni]

And what prevents you from using a turret as docked hull? Oh right, nothing. This would make zero difference unless also applied to turrets, and why should it be ok to have a turret with its own power supply/shielding etc but impose some arbitrary restriction for a non-turret weapon that's just docked in a fixed position?

Every fucking time someone doesn't like what's going on in starmade you bring out this idiot hammer and try to break it, how about instead of that you take a look at the backwards ass mechanics this game is built on; WHY are people using docked hulls/weapons power etc? It's because the game punishes single entity ships with:

• Horrible power efficiency
• Mass cost of passive effects
• Utterly useless armor
• No control over your ship's power flow

With ZERO benefits.

Auxilliary power is a pantspissing solution; a 50 mass weapon can penetrate hundreds of blocks, this gets blown up as soon as your shields are down. It's a completely unnecessary addition to the game; just having reactor baseline raised to be the same as these things would've done the same, and it still doesn't solve the underlying power imballance; docked power is still many times faster so of course it's still used.

Passive effects are stupid as hell, how about instead of this percentile bonus where every single ship is running ion, overdrive and scanner and nothing else passive effects stop requiring X% of mass and give a linear bonus instead based on how many you put on, like -X damage taken by armor per punch-through passive block? Might also fix the ridiculous non-stop projectile spam everywhere.

Armor has ZERO stopping power as long as you stack multiple weak projectiles/beams on the same point; the only thing they protect is your structure HP bar, but all the blocks that make your ship able to fight are free pickings, and with power auxilliary blowing up when it's shot (Schine fucking suggested wrapping it in armor, have they even tried their own game?) this just makes armor completely pointless, unless it's docked, since docked armor protects shield HP instead and keeps your regen going.

We have no way to control power flow unless using docked entities. Can't limit power to one part of the ship, can't prioritize certain systems, can't have a weapon with it's own dedicated power storage.

Stop treating the symptoms and start treating the cause ffs.

I'm not against removing docked entities, hell they should be removed, but just eliminating everything with any complexity and not replacing them with anything just kills the game for a lot of people. Docked entities and weapons are the only two design components left that aren't braindead lemonade shit.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that docked entities are only more powerful compared to single entity ships OF THE SAME SIZE; If you compare them to fleets of smaller ships that don't hit the softcaps they're really no stronger at all. If AI wasn't so god damn retarded fleets of small ships would dominate larger ships with impunity because they have all the advantages of docked entities built into them: dealing damage to one ship keeps the rest of the ships fully functional, their power can stay in the sweet spot with no need for auxilliary, the power cost of thrusters is low so even more power efficient and they're much more dificult to hit.

Comparing mass for mass docked entity ships just catch up with small ships.

I'm not for removing docked entities as well, others find the meta quite annoying, I find it interesting to be fair. But rather than "removing" docked entities from the game we need to find ways to allow players to overcome a steadily mandatory meta. My point is not to bring Starmade back to the static age. I think a new solution could be generated from this dilemma, we could try a rock paper scissors approach to game balance and find ways to make beam weapons much more effective against docked entities while being weak to independent chassis.

 

[Raisinbat]

I'm not for removing docked entities as well, others find the meta quite annoying, I find it interesting to be fair. But rather than "removing" docked entities from the game we need to find ways to allow players to overcome a steadily mandatory meta. My point is not to bring Starmade back to the static age. I think a new solution could be generated from this dilemma, we could try a rock paper scissors approach to game balance and find ways to make beam weapons much more effective against docked entities while being weak to independent chassis.

I agree that docked hulls shouldn't be part of the game, but you're going about it in the dumbest way possible. Docked hulls are better because of all the mechanics that penalize single entity ships:

• Remove power drain from thrust (Overdrive can add it back in) then remove power bonus: Now there's no power advantage
• Rework passive systems so they aren't static percentile bonusses that demand X amount of mass; Now you don't need to move them to other entities.
• Make armor able to protect internal systems so you don't need docked armor

If you take everything that's broken in the game and run around trying to add exceptions to how the game works to catch them all you end up with a game that's utterly impenetrable for new people to get into. This is also extremely demoralizing for those of us who try to make great combat ships, because every time we try something new we run the risk of having hundreds of hours of work destroyed by the fucking banhammer, because the source of these ballance issues aren't addressed, only the symptoms.

 

[Lukwan]

I think a new solution could be generated from this dilemma, we could try a rock paper scissors approach to game balance and find ways to make beam weapons much more effective against docked entities while being weak to independent chassis.

Ya, like Beam-slicing with a combat-rated tractor beam:

Docked entities should all be affected by physics weapons. I would be up for being able to use pull beams to rip off armor plates like that, giving it a hard counter and really using Starmade's physics to its advantage, even giving mass enhancers more of a combat use. Stop would also be using in countering that then.

Beam weapon with 50 % Punch/Pierce & 50 %pull. Give these combos a skill-attack whereby a precise sweep of the beam can sever docked entities. The critical hit should require both precise (human) aim and a a lot of luck (roll-off with a low chance of success) so it is not easily abused.

Many classic SCIFI battles have featured giant beams cutting ships in half. That may not be practical for SM in dividing a single entity but it could make for a fun mechanic of 'disarming' an enemy ship's accessories. To further balance the ability Schine could require a minimum ratio of blocks/mass between the tractor beam and the docked armour to achieve a critical separation. They could also set a maximum thickness of blocks that the effect would have a chance to penetrate (between the beam and the rail-docker). This would be a Rock-Paper-Scissors thing I think.

 

[JinM]

I agree that docked hulls shouldn't be part of the game, but you're going about it in the dumbest way possible. Docked hulls are better because of all the mechanics that penalize single entity ships:

• Remove power drain from thrust (Overdrive can add it back in) then remove power bonus: Now there's no power advantage
• Rework passive systems so they aren't static percentile bonusses that demand X amount of mass; Now you don't need to move them to other entities.
• Make armor able to protect internal systems so you don't need docked armor

If you take everything that's broken in the game and run around trying to add exceptions to how the game works to catch them all you end up with a game that's utterly impenetrable for new people to get into.

I understand your intention, but I don't understand the exact new meta you try to state. There are many interactions that this change would change (thx vocuabluary). Can you give more examples or try to explain it with more context?

This is also extremely demoralizing for those of us who try to make great combat ships, because every time we try something new we run the risk of having hundreds of hours of work destroyed by the fucking banhammer, because the source of these ballance issues aren't addressed, only the symptoms
I see that this moves you, you want to know if the design is ready for the future gameplay. But in the alpha stage of a game the devs try to adress new content, and are maybe just happy about the combat stuff even working at all. I think you know how development works: add, add, add, take feedback, remove or balance. Maybe you, as player should be flexible too, and either decide on testing out systems and give feedback, OR dont use systems that are meant to be changed, and you know are not that future ready at all like docked reactors or now docked shields.

I mean Starmade is not a brain dead Call of Duty, for having fun in combat here, you have to be creative and maybe consent on using certain own invented gamerules (like forbid docked armor). Even if the game one day is finished I tell you it still will need you, the player, to consent on the battlerules with other players. Because it is a sandbox that wants to give you freedom for creativity. So other people who want to play combat differently can have their way of playing to. This own-combat-rule making will allways be in Starmade. Just saying.

 

[Spoolooni]

I agree that docked hulls shouldn't be part of the game, but you're going about it in the dumbest way possible. Docked hulls are better because of all the mechanics that penalize single entity ships:

• Remove power drain from thrust (Overdrive can add it back in) then remove power bonus: Now there's no power advantage
• Rework passive systems so they aren't static percentile bonusses that demand X amount of mass; Now you don't need to move them to other entities.
• Make armor able to protect internal systems so you don't need docked armor

If you take everything that's broken in the game and run around trying to add exceptions to how the game works to catch them all you end up with a game that's utterly impenetrable for new people to get into. This is also extremely demoralizing for those of us who try to make great combat ships, because every time we try something new we run the risk of having hundreds of hours of work destroyed by the fucking banhammer, because the source of these ballance issues aren't addressed, only the symptoms.

I do suppose advanced armor needs to be useful, since all we're using it for is the fancy cross hatch shading.

 

[Raisinbat]

I understand your intention, but I don't understand the exact new meta you try to state. There are many interactions that this change would change (thx vocuabluary). Can you give more examples or try to explain it with more context?

These are the reasons docked entities are stronger, making these changes removes the incentives for docked entities. That's it.

They also cripple cosmetic builds because they tend to have more, heavier armor for texture variety, antennas, interior and curvier builds that have higher surface area, which means they require more thrust and passive effects to maintain identical thrust-to-mass, scanners and passive effects. I've brought this up before but nobody ever cares about balance issues until they're staring them in the face.

Power sucks in this game because it's used to restrict how much thrust a ship can have. This means ships require excessive amounts of power simply to move, which is why there's a power bonus for smaller ships: so small ships can be fast while large ships are slow, but this just ends up backfiring since the power bonus makes power systems super cheap, and what should be limiting your weapons and systems isn't able to because it can't limit both thrust and systems when it's so abundant.
This is why ships with multiple weaponsystems you can choose between don't make a lick of sense; what's the point in a 100k dps ion cannon and a 50k dps punch through cannon when you could use the same mass to fit a 95k dps punchthrough cannon and its power supply?
Making power a more limited resource introduces choice into systems, since you wouldn't be able to run everything non-stop, and if there's no power bonus docked entities don't have a power benefit.

As for passive system rework they're just so lazy right now, and it makes all ships regardless of size operate the exact same way; always overdrive + ion and noone bothers with anything else because they're super unhelpful.
If systems were put on a linear scale instead there'd be more room for different setups, and even small systems would be useful; like 5 blocks emp effect would add 0.0001% reduced emp damage to a ship with current setup, but if it was -200 emp damage from every hit it would provide a decent amount of protection against emp drones, while still doing nothing to protect against larger/slower emp weapons.
Same concept with punch-through reducing incoming damage by a fixed amount would allow capital ships to completely shrug off smaller can/can weapons so these rapid fire fighter weapons would be more specialized against fighters and not effective against everything. If combined with better weapon ballancing like higher damage but much lower range for tiny weapons (100 damage per shot but only 50m range for 1 block turrets for example) you'd have small and fast weapons able to tear through fighters but completely ineffective against capitals that can completely negate 20.000 damage per bullet. Suddenly we could have specialized weapons for different roles.

I see that this moves you, you want to know if the design is ready for the future development. But in the alpha stage of a game the devs try to adress new content, and are maybe just happy about the combat stuff even working at all.

Of course things are going to change, and i'd be happy to see all my stuff rendered worthless (again) if it meant we got a better game out of it, but every fucking patch we get is pantspissing solutions with no long term viability. (First double power, then more thrust required for combat speed, then more power from auxilliary) and this is more kneejerk reactions to percieved imballance. Again, there's no advantage to docked hulls you wont get by just having multiple ships; what's the problem with docking the multiple ships together?
We're well past the point of being happy the stuff is working; schine are building a lot of advanced systems like fleet management and factions that don't affect the core combat in any way whatsoever; there is no reason they can't build a solid foundation for ship design right now without adding more systems on top of it. What's more, if the core systems of the game require large portions to be changed, then the systems built on top of them come crashing down. All those factions ships made in the competitions will need to be changed, any out-of-sector combat will have to change, can't make a solid AI if power management changes, etc etc.

I think you know how development works: add, add, add, take feedback, remove or balance.

That's not how starmade works, all they do is add forever, no ballancing or removal and certainly not listening to feedback unless its hundreds of people at once crying about imballance, in which case we get another kneejerk solution.

Maybe you, as player should be flexible too, and either decide on testing out systems and give feedback, OR dont use systems that are meant to be changed, and you know are not that future ready at all like docked reactors or now docked shields.

I've tested and given feedback, nobody listens. As for systems meant to be changed, what the fuck in this game is even remotely final; aside from logic and cosmetic blocks i can't think of anything in this game that isn't in dire need of an overhaul.

I mean Starmade is not a brain dead Call of Duty, for having fun in combat here, you have to be creative and maybe consent on using certain own invented gamerules (like forbid docked armor). Even if the game one day is finished I tell you it still will need you, the player, to consent on the battlerules with other players. Because it is a sandbox that wants to give you freedom for creativity. So other people who want to play combat differently can have their way of playing to. This own-combat-rule making will allways be in Starmade. Just saying.

Player rules is not a substitute for proper game ballance, and i can guarantee you if it CAN be exploited it WILL be exploited. It's this reactive mindset that kills creativity, it's not enhancing it. If inventing new ways a ship can work results in your work being banned/nerfed, that's not a fun environment to play in.