RELEASED Ships aren't safe 1.2

bk3k submitted a new mod:

Ships aren't safe - Strips the damage protection you normally have on ships. It is possible to take damage and die.

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Wut? There is no combat or enemies or anything in space....the f*** you talking about taking damage on your ship? Makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

bk3k updated Ships aren't safe with a new update entry:

stupid error fixed

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No there is not normally fighting in space in vanilla Starbound(which I call an oversight). And who would make a mod that added all that... when you can't take damage anyhow? Fact is, a server admin could summon any boss onto the bridge of your ship and you'd never be in any danger. Hull breach alien invasions... who cares?! There would be no danger in it. So call this step one.

Or how about a ship that runs low on power, or is damaged again after a story mission? The life support is down. Even if you have breathing equipment, it is very cold. You can spend very little time on your ship until addressing this. But that sort of thing isn't possible when the player is immune to damage. I mean I could go on about mod ideas that aren't viable because of this.

Is there really a good reason for you to be immune to damage while on a ship anyhow? I'll point out that the ships have gravity generators, yet but you can jump from any height without damage. No need to be careful at all. It is more noteworthy in the shipyard mod(you can reach max fall speed with engine loading lag and land without a scratch), but any many fully upgraded vanilla ships have heights that SHOULD invite caution. I think it is somewhat immersion breaking.

 

Fantastic! This was an even bigger problem earlier on when mod authors made objects that could summon bosses, only to have them be easily beatable if summoned on your ship. That was where I first noticed the invincibility. Once noticed, it's hard to ignore, especially when jumping around on bigger ships.

This is definitely something that we've needed for a long time. I'm glad a smart coder has come along to finally fix it. Thanks a lot!

 

Wait, seriously? This was, truly, such a problem?

I'd rather put the blame on the servers and server admins there... But if bk3k made it, I am sure it was for good reasons and has more to come.

PS: You might want to be careful here if you also use FU. I recently ran into a bug where porting back to your ship, despite having the proper protective equipment, bugged out and applied global debuffs (like lethal radiation) anyway in the moment you arrive.
This means you could end up dying on your ship for nonsensical reasons. Maybe that seems harmless, but I for my part play hardcore, and am not sure what would have happened if my medic lass wouldn't have immediately rushed over to help.

 

bk3k updated Ships aren't safe with a new update entry:

Easy detection for modders

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bk3k updated Ships aren't safe with a new update entry:

Compatible with 1.1.1 and 1.2.0

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Hopefully we can see what can be done with this sometime in the future.

 

I can see the logic of why they made players immune to damage on ships. What it boils down to is making the ship absolutely stupid-proof, as well as avoiding issues with players sabotaging the ship of another player in multiplayer.

For the following two scenarios I'm assuming a world where the devs allowed players to be damaged on their own ships, just for the sake of demonstrating the logic.

For the stupid-proof scenario: new player collects some lava for the first time. While fiddling around with it, they dump it in their ship (most likely accidentally). Let's say for the sake of argument, enough lava has been dropped to cover the teleporter. The player's character dies in the ensuing fiery bath. Then they re-spawn on the teleporter, in the very same lava that killed them. This would likely continue over and over again while the lava is being cleaned up.

Now for player sabotage: Player A leaves player B on their ship while exploring or something. Player B decides to be a jerk and completely fills Player A's ship with lava as a practical joke. Player A is very annoyed and probably spends the next 10-20 minutes cleaning up the mess while dying over and over, like in the previous scenario.

Well, that re-spawn cinematic...how long is it? They've probably died again while it's still playing, right? I'd love to see someone try this as an experiment, with this mod installed (it's got my scientific curiosity tingling) And while the cinematic is playing, we can't actually do anything, right?

So, this might actually explain why they made this intentional design choice. If you have no where else to go when you die, it makes taking damage on your own ship a (potentially) giant problem.

 

I know they need to have some griefing protection, but I don't think this is the answer. What solves that issue is giving players a shield protection like dungeons have - activated/deactivated through S.A.I.L. and only accessible to the owner of the ship themselves.

Having a small period of invulnerability after death wouldn't be so bad. And considering the space update coming(the exact details of which they're being silent about... maybe on-ship combat/boarding is going to be a vanilla thing(otherwise on my stack of unimplemented ideas). This mod may well become obsolete soon and I'd be glad for it. Or it maybe it won't be. We'll see.