Trivial but effective boosts to station survivability

[Jojomo]

Just some thought about making stations harder to kill, without (in theory) any controversy.

Ships can come to max missile range, fire, and then move outside max range and so avoid return fire from the station.
So how about making max missile range longer than lock-on range? So the station missiles that locked and fired when the ship came into max lockon range can still hit the ship even if it immediately moves away after firing.

For something that a station can usefully use, that a ship can't, to balance between the two, how about super-heavy armour?
I mean ridiculously heavy, say 1000 times heavier than advanced, but say 10 or 20 times stronger than advanced.
Ship wouldn't want to use it (although they could in theory) because it'd be too heavy, but stations could without problems. No need to make the cost of this armour any higher than advanced.
Perhaps this idea doesn't fit "non-controversial" as well as the first...

And this third one just occurred to me, and definitely will be controversial (I'm not even 100% convinced on it myself, but I think it's good to just get ideas out there...)
Allow station weapons to use two secondary effects (and the usual 1 tertiary) together instead of just one.

 

[Space Shaman]

I kinda like some of theses. Yessss. Especially the super armor. Anything that makes torpedos more viable is a good idea in my book! The first one is actually great. the last one doesn't make much sense

 

[Az14el]

imho the largest boost to non HB station viability right now would be station-side AI or Logic controlled scanning, cloakers are far more dangerous to a station than an equally well designed ship of equal mass & effective range, the station may well lose in both cases, however against the cloaker it has no chance save for a sudden disconnect or a lag spike causing them a power outage.

keep in mind these stations (and therefore data on their effectiveness in actual play, also meaning any durability concerns) are almost non existent because of simple exploits, not necessarily because they're too weak.

tbh though I think they could use a general buff, from my limited amount of use of exactly 1 model of non HB defensive station, but I can't really say that because it's only really lost to cloaker pokers.

 

[MacThule]

I like the idea of a station plate armor that is so dense it vacuums up thrust like mad, but is near impenetrable. Neutronium, basically.

Something similar could be done for shields - a hyper-dense crystal that acts as a shield super-capacitor (500 times the shields generated by a single capacitor block for 1000 time the mass or something of that general sort).

 

[nightrune]

I like the idea of a station plate armor that is so dense it vacuums up thrust like mad, but is near impenetrable. Neutronium, basically.

Something similar could be done for shields - a hyper-dense crystal that acts as a shield super-capacitor (500 times the shields generated by a single capacitor block for 1000 time the mass or something of that general sort).

We could get that if we upped the strength on ion and pierce?

 

[BDLS]

Super dense station-only armor would be great. Would be nice if it was super cheap too, like manufactured from rock or something. Having their own shield systems from cheap materials would be great too. As everyone knows, the idea of stuffing a lot of valuable blocks in a station is iffy.

Non-HB stations need massive buffs to be considered worthwhile at all. I say buff them to OP levels initially, then scale down from there to balance if required. Give 'em all the tertiary effects with out needing the blocks at least. It should be SCARY to take one on.

And yeah, they obviously need some kind of defense vs cloak sticks too.

 

[Paullus]

It would also be nice if we could use logic or something so that a station could send out an SOS for a friendly or alliance fleet without a player having to send it there. Then a patrol designated fleet in the area could zip down to protect it.

 

[Jojomo]

It would also be nice if we could use logic or something so that a station could send out an SOS for a friendly or alliance fleet without a player having to send it there. Then a patrol designated fleet in the area could zip down to protect it.

Could this be done with a docked entity surrounding the station that uses logic to check for it's shields to drop below 100%?

 

[Paullus]

Could this be done with a docked entity surrounding the station that uses logic to check for it's shields to drop below 100%?

It definitely could. It could also be done by just keeping a fleet stationed in the sector, which I do, and it works, but if we could have fleets moved around, then one fleet could be as efficient as many at each station. The use of providing each station with a constant garrison is only maximized during a full scale attack on every station at once.

I should try setting up some tests with the sensors on the shields though. That's a good idea for drones, and they could all be recalled to the docked entity which acts as a carrier.

 

[MacThule]

It definitely could. It could also be done by just keeping a fleet stationed in the sector, which I do, and it works, but if we could have fleets moved around, then one fleet could be as efficient as many at each station. The use of providing each station with a constant garrison is only maximized during a full scale attack on every station at once.

This situation specifically is one of the top reasons I want logic linked to fleets in some way. If we could logic command fleets then one patrol fleet could be placed in charge of defending several facilities at once - a boon to the player (economically) and a boon to the server.

 

[Jojomo]

It definitely could. It could also be done by just keeping a fleet stationed in the sector, which I do, and it works, but if we could have fleets moved around, then one fleet could be as efficient as many at each station. The use of providing each station with a constant garrison is only maximized during a full scale attack on every station at once.

I should try setting up some tests with the sensors on the shields though. That's a good idea for drones, and they could all be recalled to the docked entity which acts as a carrier.

Another possible way of setting this up would be to just leave a single sentinel ship to watch each station that would attack any incoming enemy and almost certainly be attacked in return, and put the shield sensor on that ship.

So the sentinel calls the fleet to it, rather than the station calling. That way there'd be no need to surround the station with another entity.

 

[alterintel]

I like the idea of more dense/stronger armor. But I think it should be included as part of a Damage Type and Armor Type overhaul maybe?

 

[Batavium]

Super dense station-only armor would be great. Would be nice if it was super cheap too, like manufactured from rock or something.

But I think it should be included as part of a Damage Type and Armor Type overhaul maybe?

If server owners and admins were at bit more up to speed with StarMade's under laying game mechanics and settings. Then things like this could be adopted very easy. Since you can alter the stats of pretty much any block in the game.

You want super heavy cheap Rock as a base material? Just edit the Rock Block in the BlockConfig.xml

StarMade/data/config/BlockConfig.xml

Armor overhaul same thing. I would set Hull to have 1000 armor points. Standard have 10.000 armor points and Advanced 100.000 armor points. You could give blocks millions of armor points. For super heavy blocks you can also change the mass. Just toy with it.

 

[kurosawa]

So basically adding a modifier for stations that multiplies the base hull values a your done

 

[Jojomo]

So basically adding a modifier for stations that multiplies the base hull values a your done

That breaks immersion though. Why should I get a different result when I place a block of armour on a station than I do when I place it on a ship.

 

[Groovrider]

You could place the block on a ship but doing so would make it too heavy. Stations don't move so weight not an issue.

 

[jijiji]

If server owners and admins were at bit more up to speed with StarMade's under laying game mechanics and settings. Then things like this could be adopted very easy. Since you can alter the stats of pretty much any block in the game.

You want super heavy cheap Rock as a base material? Just edit the Rock Block in the BlockConfig.xml

StarMade/data/config/BlockConfig.xml

Armor overhaul same thing. I would set Hull to have 1000 armor points. Standard have 10.000 armor points and Advanced 100.000 armor points. You could give blocks millions of armor points. For super heavy blocks you can also change the mass. Just toy with it.

Is it possible to create new block with new recipe? Cause some players will salvage planets with rock. Cargo full of edited rocks will add a lot mass. That's why I am asking about creating of new blocks.

But I think that it should be implemented by game developers. Addition of just 1 new blocks isn't hard. Also would be great to add heavy shield blocks for station too.
[doublepost=1483505960,1483505791][/doublepost]Let's promote this suggestion!
[doublepost=1483508128][/doublepost]I have one good and one bad news for you:
Good:
You can create your own block.
Bad:
Max hp is 255
And

 

[MacThule]

Is it possible to create new block with new recipe? Cause some players will salvage planets with rock. Cargo full of edited rocks will add a lot mass. That's why I am asking about creating of new blocks.

But I think that it should be implemented by game developers. Addition of just 1 new blocks isn't hard. Also would be great to add heavy shield blocks for station too.
[doublepost=1483505960,1483505791][/doublepost]Let's promote this suggestion!
[doublepost=1483508128][/doublepost]I have one good and one bad news for you:
Good: View attachment 36583
You can create your own block.
Bad:View attachment 36584
Max hp is 255
AndView attachment 36585

What is the block max armor rating though? Maybe this can be used as a multiplier to HP. 255 with 99% armor rating is almost the same as 25,000 hp.

 

[jijiji]

It's better now with 75% resist. 99% resist might be good, but PT will break it. So best way here is increasing of max hp. 255 is a limit
As you see, stations can't turn and move. It may be penetrated too fast...

So how about shields?
[doublepost=1483509845,1483509786][/doublepost]

What is the block max armor rating though? Maybe this can be used as a multiplier to HP. 255 with 99% armor rating is almost the same as 25,000 hp.

PT and piercing effects will reduce resist. It will break armor
[doublepost=1483512465][/doublepost]Can't find any way to create shield block. Because no configuration found. But armor may be created with hp upto 255

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

For "special" Shields, you need to crack open the blockBehaviorConfig.xml

I can't comprehend most of it. (I don't do well with poorly explained formulae), but most of the first section deals with shields.

EDIT: among other things you can do with it, (with ease) is set up a basic regen value for shipcores.
Or futz with how long shields wait before re-generating.