Weapons do Damage to an Area Proportional to the Size of the Front of the Weapon

[1adog1]

Hey guys, I've got a small simple idea that would make the game just a bit more realistic looking. When you fire a larger weapon, the damage the weapon does is spread out over an area equal to the size of the front of the weapon. So say you have a cannon with a 3x3 block firing surface that does 3,000 damage a hit. That damage would be spread out over the 3x3 area that the bullet hit for 333 damage per block that the bullet hit. If only part of the bullet hit, then the weapon still does 333 damage a hit, but only the hit blocks receive damage. (Balancing Factor!) The same thing applies whether shields are up or down. This would only apply to beams and cannons, not pulses. Also, the beam/cannon firing visual would have to be scaled to the size of the weapon as well. (So you can actually see the size of the bullet/beam that's fired.)

This would also balance out large vs small ship combat a bit, so that if you fire a massive weapon at a small ship, the ship receives less damage because only part of the bullet/beam hits the ship. Oh, and all you people against death cubes, this would mean that those kinds of ships receive MORE damage then if you were firing at an uneven ship.

Any feedback?

 

[IsApro2000]

but if you make that 3x3 canon, that means the whole thing is one canon so it shoot one bullet not 9 and you also receive grouping bonus by putting them all together so its ment to be that way that the whole thing becomes one and it would also be a bonus for death cubes since they can basicly make their whole front from canon, lets say you have a 50x50 front then you would have 2500 bullets coming towards you :/

 

[NeonSturm]

thoughts:

1. LAG
2. it should also pierce based on radius (to not 1-hit precious hull blocks and give repairs a chance).
   1. even more LAG
   2. useless pierce/explosive effect
      1. maybe multiply explosion-radius by weapon radius.

Do you know:

• 110% scale = 133% volume
• 200% scale = 800% volume
  • 2x hull thickness, 4x hull area, 8x volume

This is what makes balance such a hard thing.

A perfect balance doubles radius (A= r*r *PI) and divides damage through 4 for each time the number is multiplied by 8.

1. maybe multiply effect with pierce-length as 2x hull thickness (because of 8x weapon size) needs 2x pierce length.

 

[1adog1]

but if you make that 3x3 canon, that means the whole thing is one canon so it shoot one bullet not 9 and you also receive grouping bonus by putting them all together so its ment to be that way that the whole thing becomes one and it would also be a bonus for death cubes since they can basicly make their whole front from canon, lets say you have a 50x50 front then you would have 2500 bullets coming towards you :/

Yes the whole thing would be one cannon, this would eliminate the need for checker board styled cannons. Also, deathcubes can make the whole front of their ships cannons right now, they just need the checkerboard style. The key difference is that if you have 2500 different cannons with 1 block thickness each (About 20 damage a cannon if I recall correctly), it would do more damage than one 2500 block cannon with damage split by 2500 (About 4 Damage a Block if I did my math right).

thoughts:

1. LAG
2. it should also pierce based on radius (to not 1-hit precious hull blocks and give repairs a chance).
   1. even more LAG
   2. useless pierce/explosive effect
      1. maybe multiply explosion-radius by weapon radius.

Do you know:

• 110% scale = 133% volume
• 200% scale = 800% volume
  • 2x hull thickness, 4x hull area, 8x volume

This is what makes balance such a hard thing.

A perfect balance doubles radius (A= r*r *PI) and divides damage through 4 for each time the number is multiplied by 8.

1. maybe multiply effect with pierce-length as 2x hull thickness (because of 8x weapon size) needs 2x pierce length.

Lag would definitely be an issue, but because the whole thing acts as one cannon it wouldn't be as laggy as a checkerboard cannon of similar size. And there are ways to work around lag. Also, I wouldn't add the whole pierce thing, THAT would cause lag, and we already have a built in system for it.

 

[NeonSturm]

I thought of pierce as a way to give surface blocks more hp.
If you don't want a chance to repair damaged hull - fine, forget about it :p

 

[1adog1]

I thought of pierce as a way to give surface blocks more hp.
If you don't want a chance to repair damaged hull - fine, forget about it :p

Sorry I'm a bit confused on your idea for the pierce system. I'm usually good with the technical stuff but can you just re-explain that?

 

[NeonSturm]

If you increase scale to 200% (2*x, 2*y, 2*z), hull thickness statistically doubles.
Weapon damage multiplies by 8 (2x*2y*2z= 8^(3=xyz) currently).

That means that a weapon is 4 times too strong, deals damage to 1 block instead of 2 in depth and has only 1/4 area of effect (1/2x * I/2y) when it hits the same absolute number of blocks.

Spoiler: details

You suggested to let the weapon output decide for more radius but decreased damage. you compensated 2 variables (area and damage)
But only if weapons are perfect cubes.

I suggested to let the weapon deal 50,50 to first blocks rather than pierce's 50 -> 25 -> 12.5....
both together: 25,25 -> 12.5,12,5 -> 6,6 : 3,3 -> x,x -> x,x
(( but I described it wrong, my fault ))

1x1x1 weapon = 15 damage to 1 block.
3x3x3 weapon = 15 damage to 3x3 blocks & 3 blocks depth (but evenly distributed damage rather than pierce linear fall-down, then continue again for 3 blocks with reduced damage if you have pierce equipped too)

 

[1adog1]

If you increase scale to 200% (2*x, 2*y, 2*z), hull thickness statistically doubles.
Weapon damage multiplies by 8 (2x*2y*2z= 8^(3=xyz) currently).

That means that a weapon is 4 times too strong, deals damage to 1 block instead of 2 in depth and has only 1/4 area of effect (1/2x * I/2y) when it hits the same absolute number of blocks.

Spoiler: details

You suggested to let the weapon output decide for more radius but decreased damage. you compensated 2 variables (area and damage)
But only if weapons are perfect cubes.

I suggested to let the weapon deal 50,50 to first blocks rather than pierce's 50 -> 25 -> 12.5....
both together: 25,25 -> 12.5,12,5 -> 6,6 : 3,3 -> x,x -> x,x
(( but I described it wrong, my fault ))

1x1x1 weapon = 15 damage to 1 block.
3x3x3 weapon = 15 damage to 3x3 blocks & 3 blocks depth (but evenly distributed damage rather than pierce linear fall-down, then continue again for 3 blocks with reduced damage if you have pierce equipped too)

Oh I see! You want to add piercing damage based on the length of the weapon. I think it should be more like .125 block piercing damage per block length. So for every 8 blocks length, the weapon pierce damages one extra block. (I've got a cannon that's 250 blocks long, so a 1/1 ration would be a bit unbalanced lol)

 

[MineCatFTW]

I suggested something similar a while back: http://starmadedock.net/threads/bigger-bullets-the-quest-for-a-more-epic-starmade.1105/
It's good to see others think the same way about this!

 

[1adog1]

I suggested something similar a while back: http://starmadedock.net/threads/bigger-bullets-the-quest-for-a-more-epic-starmade.1105/
It's good to see others think the same way about this!

It seems like there are actually 3 threads discussing this, one on the old site (http://oldsite.star-made.org/content/my-take-new-amc-system), and two (Yours and Mine) on here. All the ideas essentially are saying the same thing. So I guess this is something that a lot of people want. Devs, implement please!