What can docked entities do?

[Lord_Greyscale]

Panpiper I think it is instantaneous*. I remember building several turrets that would drain the barrel and the base trying to fire, and once installed on a ship would fire without issue.

* assuming, naturally, that server lag isn't being a horrific pain-in-the-butt.

 

[Crashmaster]

I think there is a short delay. I noticed some cannon-beam shaped shots would de-synch on turrets with split power after a while when the AI was firing continuously. That was before innate punch I think though.

 

[Jojomo]

This thread is really interesting.

Seem to be missing docked armor. There's two types to consider:

• Regular docked armor connected on top of shield entity:

Armor
|
Shield
|
Ship

This setup makes the armor kick in once you're down to 25% shield. Keeps your regen active and protects very effectively against ion weapons. It does not protect turrets though.

• Shieldless docked armor connected belo9w shield entity:

Armor Shield

\ /
Ship​

This armor needs to be destroyed in order to reach the shields, providing perfect defense against ion weapons that also protects turrets. Doesn't help regen much, unless it's allready been penetrated and means your titan will start taking damage immediately, but if you dont mind repairing the armor it should have a huge impact in battles against things strong enough to take your shields down, like titan vs titan.

Can also be used as a very light exoskeleton without covering the entire ship; adding plates from this entity to the sides will mitigate a lot of missile damage.

Biggest advantage to docked armor though is moving it off other entities since it's typically a huge part of ship mass, so it won't impact passive effect cost.

Raisinbat, in your second example above, am I correct in thinking the "Ship" is unshielded, and only the "Shield" entity has shields?

Does anyone know what Schine's position on docked plating is? Is it considered exploitative, and therefore likely to be changed?
I want to take advantage of best design practice, but not if it's going to be rendered useless later.

 

[Calhoun]

This thread is really interesting.
Does anyone know what Schine's position on docked plating is? Is it considered exploitative, and therefore likely to be changed?
I wan't to take advantage of best design practice, but not if it's going to be rendered useless later.

It is considered an exploit AFAIK. Problem is, how do you fix it? It'll be here for awhile anyway.

 

[Panpiper]

Does anyone know what Schine's position on docked plating is? Is it considered exploitative, and therefore likely to be changed?
I wan't to take advantage of best design practice, but not if it's going to be rendered useless later.

I have no inside knowledge of Schine's 'position' on the matter. I would note however that they are most unlikely to be able to do away with docked hulls and such, without pretty much throwing out their entire docking and turret system completely and starting over from scratch. Given how much else they have to do and how much they have already invested into getting the existing system to work, I dare say the existing system is here to stay.

That said, most people do not use docked hulls and the like, as it remains not just a slightly esoteric concept for most, but it requires a much more detail oriented build style which most players could not be bothered with, let alone have the patience to learn about.

And I am pretty sure that Raisinbat is wrong about ships with docked hulls conferring no shields to entities docked to those hulls. I am pretty sure any shielded entity shares up to 75% of it's shields with all entities above it in the docking chain. Were this not the case, turret barrels would not be protected by ship's shields.

 

[Calhoun]

And I am pretty sure that Raisinbat is wrong about ships with docked hulls conferring no shields to entities docked to those hulls. I am pretty sure any shielded entity shares up to 75% of it's shields with all entities above it in the docking chain. Were this not the case, turret barrels would not be protected by ship's shields.

What Raisin seems to mean, is have the docked armour and the docked shield at the same docking level. So the armour starts taking damage when shields go below 25%, allowing better regen or something. I'm not 100% how that works though.

EDIT: Wait, I think I've got it.

So the entity tree looks like this:

Armour Shield
\ /
Ship

and the actual hull is like:

Amour Shield Ship
| | |

When ship shields go below 25%, the armour is unshielded and absorbs ion damage. Weapons need to punch through the armour to damage the shield docked entity, which basically makes ion useless against it.

 

[StarWars1981]

Something like that, I think; maybe somebody who's built this stuff can come along and explain it.
The other option was to put the armor plate docked to the shield plate, so as to use first 75% of the ship's shields, then 75% of the shield plate's shields, before actually taking any hits.

 

[Jojomo]

And I am pretty sure that Raisinbat is wrong about ships with docked hulls conferring no shields to entities docked to those hulls. I am pretty sure any shielded entity shares up to 75% of it's shields with all entities above it in the docking chain. Were this not the case, turret barrels would not be protected by ship's shields.

Shields lower down the chain protect upstream entities, until they drop to 25%.
At that point the upstream stuff is on its own.

So if the upstream entity is something large that covers the shield generating entity (a shell), at this point the shield will stop taking damage, and the upstream entity will start taking damage.

So the shell sacrifices itself to provide time for the shields to regenerate, and once they have the shields start taking the damage again.

I suppose there's a good reason for that 25% behaviour, does anyone know what it is? Why aren't all shields pooled, and the shields required to go to zero before any entity takes damage?

 

[AtraUnam]

AFAIK it was originally a nerf to turrets to make it possible to pick them off without having to kill the entire ships shield.

 

[Scypio]

Shields lower down the chain protect upstream entities, until they drop to 25%.
At that point the upstream stuff is on its own.

So if the upstream entity is something large that covers the shield generating entity (a shell), at this point the shield will stop taking damage, and the upstream entity will start taking damage.

So the shell sacrifices itself to provide time for the shields to regenerate, and once they have the shields start taking the damage again.

That's how docked hull works. Also note that your ship will have 25% shield so when it will be regenerating a bit you'll have again some shields on your hull. Making it oscillate between thoses two states (wich is a pain). The difference between docked hull and not is that your shield will last longer because of this mechanic. If it's drop to 0 then you'll have a cooldown before it goes up again while using the 25% of docked entities you don't get that problem.

 

[Raisinbat]

Raisinbat, in your second example above, am I correct in thinking the "Ship" is unshielded, and only the "Shield" entity has shields?

Does anyone know what Schine's position on docked plating is? Is it considered exploitative, and therefore likely to be changed?
I want to take advantage of best design practice, but not if it's going to be rendered useless later.

I suppose there's a good reason for that 25% behaviour, does anyone know what it is? Why aren't all shields pooled, and the shields required to go to zero before any entity takes damage?

Schine have zero fucking idea what they're doing, either that or it's a secret. They'll probably nerf all docked non-turret entities at some point, which we'll bypass by using turret docks instead, checkmating their stupid ballancing practice. They wont nerf turrets because the babbies whining about turrets on the forums would throw a hissyfit if turrets were ever nerfed, maybe at that point they'll go back and rework the power system and passive effects to remove the incentives for breaking ships into a million pieces. Until then?

 

[Edymnion]

Yeah, how dare they try to keep the game balanced and fun for everyone to play!