Weapon/Fleet/Ship Subsystems AI and Random Ideas

[deathsoul097]

Hi, ive been playing a lot of From the Depths recently, and i think a lot of good ideas could be inspired from the game, and would fit very well with Starmade.

Multiblock AI:

Essentially, i think that we should have multiple AI parts that we can connect together and have interact similarly to logic to allow a lot of cool design and awesome features. These blocks could be anywhere on the ship of course, they wouldnt have to be adjacent to the AI core, just linked. In my mind, it would consist of the following blocks:

AI Core (Bobby as we know it. Almost):

Gives basic functionality to a ship, Motion etc, and allows for other AI blocks to connect and control functions and systems, as well as inbuilt faction module. A ship could run and move on this AI core, and this core could operate on its own if a player was in a turret on the ship, etc. The Faction module being inbuilt would allow salvage to be a bit more prevalent, and would mean that winning battles would probably mean more, as you could capture disabled ships and scrap them for good resources or retrofit and repair them to use yourself, especially now that the shipyards are in game.

Localized Weapon AI:

Think of the way that the AI currently works on a turret for how this AI would work. Essentially, no change when on a turret, except you would have to c-v link the weapon systems you wanted it to use on the turret. However, this could be used on the main ship for some interesting interactions. For instance, Main ship based Broadsides would be able to be made with this system. This block would be connected to the AI core, and would then connect to the desired weapon system. Each weapon system would have a certain Field of Fire within which it could fire without turret style turning, based on the orientation of the output block, or the weapon computer. These linked systems would be able to fire independently of the players controls as long as a target was within their FoF. One Weapon AI could control any amount of weapon systems of the same type on the same ship, meaning 2 beam arrays could be controlled by the same Weapon AI, but a cannon array would need another Weapon AI to control it. (Effect systems wouldn't be counted for the purposes of determining if an array was the same, it would just have to be the same primary.) It could also be able to determine targets with the new Point system for ships. For instance, you could prioritize a stop beam to target ships with low Mobility stats.

Fleet Module:

Essentially, the fleet module would come with a fleet management menu as well. A faction/player could assign fleets in an in game menu similar to the faction screen. The Fleet module would have several options within its own GUI. The main setting would be a flagship option. Each fleet could have one flagship, and this flagship would be used to determine the position of all other ships in the fleet. A second setting would be position relative to the flagship's core, based on the core of the ship using grid co-ordinates, probably based on block steps, in x, y and z. Hello fighter wings and fleet formations. This module would not be necessary to use a ship, but a ship could not be part of a fleet without it. In combat or within maybe a set distance of enemies, the ships in the fleet would ignore their settings for fleet positioning of course, for optimal combat. Pretty much all there is to this one, just a way for fleets to work and interact. Fleet speed and jump charge speed would be limited to the lowest speed/accelleration and jump charge rate. A carrier with sub ships that didnt have jump drives, but with a jump drive itself, could jump as part of the fleet, but if the carried ships were deployed, for example, the fleet would not be able to jump until they were recalled. Fleets would be able to be commanded to move, or would fly with the flagship if it was manually piloted, allowing factions for have a much greater presence in the game than they do right now. I think this would revitalize combat a bit, and mean that there would be proper strategy to capturing territory and producing the necessary ships to defend it, as well as finding the weakest patrols and chinks in the armour of your opponents defence for warring factions launching strikes, etc.

Patrol Module:

Essentially, a ship with this module could be given a sector and a radius around that sector within which it would "patrol." If the ship was a flagship for a fleet, the fleet would basically patrol with it. Patrolling would actually just be the ship/fleet sitting unloaded in a designated sector until a ship comes into that sector or into a sector within its patrol radius, at which point, if the entered ship is hostile, to the parent faction or player, then the patrol force would load in and engage in combat with the enemy. Of course, this would require a scanning array on the ship/in the fleet, unless the enemy was in the same sector, so it would probably be beneficial to link a scanning array to the patrol radius, meaning that a patrol would only be able to patrol a single sector if it didn't have a scanning array, but if a patrol had a maxed out scanning array then it could have a much larger patrol radius. It's response time could be based on the mobility points of the ship(fleet), and could be drastically increased by the presence of a jump drive on the ship. (Or every ship in the fleet.) This also means that if your fast enough, you could potentially speed through a patrolled sector with a speedy jump or high acceleration and speed before the patrol had a chance to respond, and potentially lock you down in combat or interdict you with a jump inhibitor.

Sub-Ship Module

This one is a little bit on the edge for me though I think it is possible to be implemented with the recent intership logic was addition. I think this could be done using similar methods. Essentially, it would simply act as a way to have carrier ships or dedicated defence ships on a station etc. Essentially, you could link this module to the AI core of the ship you wanted to be carried and deployed in combat. This module would link to a single docking module on the sub ship, and then that docking module could be c-v linked to a rail on the mothership. The module would ensure that when out of combat, if it was undocked and had a recieving rail within range, it would automatically try to dock, would limit the sub-ships active range from the mothership, forcing it to stay within a set distance of the mothership, set in the module. It would also control ejection distance, speed, and a safe distance before the sub ship can take control of it's mobility on undocking, as well as a delay for combat deployment if wanted to ensure that there are little to no problems with deployment. Probably would also allow the ship to auto deploy/undock if enemies are detected within its operational range.

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Firing Arcs:

Currently turrets run into problems when trying to turn a certain way and then colliding mid turn with another object, turret or the mothership. Essentially, i think that you should be able to set a minimum and maximum angle for the rail docker to be able to turn before it just wont turn, as a degree of up to 180 max and -180 min from the dockers forward neutral position. This would solve turrets getting stuck and causing lots of collision physics lag with its own ship. Not much else to this one, just a couple of sliders in a GUI for turret rail dockers to limit its turning, at max, there would be no limit and the turning would always be uninhibited by the docker, and this would be the default setting.

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Capturing Territory:

Currently, capturing simply works by laying claim to an area and ensuring you have enough people in your faction to keep up your FP to not loose the area. Personally, i think you should have to have a permanent garrison in any region you wish to control. I think that if you claim an area, you should have to construct a firebase station within that sector cluster to maintain your control. if you ran out of points, you would have a firebase in neutral territory, but i personally think that you should have to be able to claim the region using the establishment of a station. You wouldnt be able to build your homebase in a region controlled by another faction but you could build warstations and frontline shipyards and the like, but to claim an area, you would first have to destroy or capture your enemies station that controls that region, and then claim it with your own station.

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Thank you for reading my suggestions, and please tell me if you think these would be good ideas. I personally this these are going to be incredibly necessary in the future, mainly the fleet control and sub-ship.

(Sorry for the Wall of text XD)

 

[deathsoul097]

I had another Idea today. Missile Salvos.

As it stands, missiles have a huge reload time that makes them almost unusable if they have any decent amount of damage. Instead, i think it might work better if missiles load in clips of varying sizes and reload times depending on the secondary and potentially tertiary modules. Of course, because there would be a low downtime in between shots, individual missile damage should go down, but overall damage would go up slightly, so DPS should stay the same, ish.

Just for example, with a bit of thought off the top of my head, it could set up something like this: (All proposed stats are the maxed out stats, they would scale up to something similar to these numbers like the secondary bonuses already do, and also, all numbers can be changed for balance.)

Missile-None:

Dumbfire Rockets. 5 missle Salvo, 0.1 sec inbetween missiles, 9.5 seconds reload time, 10 seconds between salvos. Because these are just the base system, this would probably be a cheap weapon only really effective against crippled ships, and stations or planets.

Missile-Cannon:

Rapid Fire Rockets. 10 missile salvo, 0.1 sec inbetween missiles, 4 second reload time, 5 seconds inbetween salvos. Same damage of a Missile-None system of the same size, but a faster travel speed and better DPS. Good for peppering large craft and structures/planets/stations with fire, though still relatively difficult to hit on a moving target like normal missiles.

Missile-Missile:

Thermal Seekers. 3 shot salvo, o.2 seconds inbetween shots, 9.4 second reload time, 10 seconds inbetween salvos. Travels faster than Missile-Cannon, and seeks out any enemy signatures in range. Overall, lower DPS against multiple targets, higher DPS against single targets, but have a short range and average turn rate. Fires in swarms, however, so each missile has very low damage and blast radius, comparatively. a shot could be between 1 and 4 missiles, meaning it could output 12 missiles in 0.6 seconds if maxed out, per array. good for taking out the small fries, fighters, bombers, drones and the like, as well as overwhelming missile defence.

Missile-Beam:

Guided Missiles. 5 missile salvo, 0.2 seconds inbetween missiles, 14 second reload time, 15 seconds inbetween salvos. Ultimate lock on weapon. Long range and good turn rate, but medium speed so can be outrun with a craft that has good acceleration and turn speed. Probably lower DPS overall, but high missile damage and Alpha strike. Very strong against freighters, frigates, anything in a medium size range, because it would have a blast radius similar to the current missiles.

Missile-Pulse:

Torpedoes. 2 missile salvo, 1 second inbetween missiles, 28 second reload time, 30 seconds inbetween salvos. Tactical nukes. Slow, bad turn rate, but HUGE alpha strike and blast radius. Basically, very similar to the current pulse missiles. Will obliterate most anything it hits, but has a huge power requirement and with such a low turn rate and speed, any ship with a reasonable amount of thrust will be able to outmanouver them. Good for completely obliterating any unwanted salvage, debris, or capital ships.

Again, thanks for the read, and let me know what you think.