And another 2: 1.Shields could be done like this: They have Coverage, Strength, and Resistances: Coverage determines how much area a shield can cover. Shields can be mounted on turrets and be pointed in all directions to compensate, but be careful where you point it; you might get shot from an unexpected direction.(This could also be used for forcefields for various uses; doors and bridges, say.) Strength concerns how much energy the shield can store(it loses energy when it's blocking something). It also has a limited ability to pull in energy, so you can't just give it a powerful energy source and be invincible. When it's fully drained, it short circuits for a bit before reactivating. Resistances determines what it's good at blocking; A shield could be good at blocking kinetic force, but less so against heat. Shields block against EVERYTHING, so you have to drop them to get something through. 2.You should be able to write simple scripts into computers and link them to various subsystems of your ship or base. So that when you fire a weapon at another ship, it knows to drop the shield first to let the shot through, then reactivate the shield. Among many, many other things, of course.
Trading and assisting in repairs would be a nice idea. The rest sounds aswell nice. But donno, if the space combat would become so complex. This would be more like a space simulation you suggest and would much more complex like FTL. Don't think the devs would take so much work in this part of the game, because it isn't a top priority.
Well, I don't think we really should rule out mechanics because it's "more complex". Priority or not, space combat is post-release addition anyway, so they might as well make it so they add a huge portion of the game to keep player's interest. I skipped reading the whole thread for now, but once I'm done with it, I might compile my own wall of text of a suggestion. Assuming no one said what I want to say about space combat mechanics.
Why is the point of combat always to kill maim destroy? Why can't the winner just get a pat on the back and be on their way? IMO the only reward/penalty for any sort of PvP should just be a Winner/Loser notification of some sort. People play a lot of competitive games just to feel the joy of victory, and they will always try to avoid the pain of defeat. Also worth mentioning, you should never force players into a mini-game that they aren't interested in. Since PvP in general is not the default game mode, you should only be able to battle players who accept the battle or have PvP settings turned on. There are many ways to do ship2ship PvP, and there are many threads about it on these forums.
Ah ok, well i think we have actually some different understanding of ship beeing safe here. My personal thinking was, that safe would be, that the ship coudn't be damaged and nobody could get onboard to destroy, sabotage or steal something. Having the ship undestroyable was something i was thinking about aswell. Therefore the idea, that the ship can crash onto a planet to get out of the combat. So its not destroyed then but has to be repaired by the owner to get it flyable again. Only problem would be between the stars in a non planet orbit. The possibilities would be to have no combats there, or giving the ship the wrack status, that it can't be damaged any further, but the player can repair it.
This isn't functionally different that destroying the ship and being forced to build a new one, assuming the cost is the same. If you lose, you have to spend resources or time doing repairs or rebuilding. What's the point of that? Just to waste everyone's time? What if I just lost a really close match and I want a rematch? Let's face it, the truth is everyone who's suggesting this stuff is focusing on two ideas here: getting stranded, and stealing stuff. Getting stranded seems like something that should be part of a quest, not a penalty for losing in PvP. Also, I'm not opposed to the possibility of stealing stuff off of an NPC ship as part of a quest, but stealing from other players as part of PvP is a strict no-no. As for the actual combat, everyone's mentioned FTL about a dozen times, including the developers. You'll still probably control your own character personally, and it might be designed with multiplayer crews for each ship in mind. I've said what I have to say about all of this in other threads.
I actually haven't thought about rebuilding it with much cost. Possible some metals to get it fixed up and some running around and using some toys to get it fixed up. So funny minigame. But not to cost intense. The ship should have an engine/power grid failure but should survive the crash without much major damage. Think about it as some emergency landing. And then you have to make some repairs first to start again. But not rebuild the whole ship. This would be a total lost and not very funny i think. No, not stranded. You yust go down to be out of the combat field again. You should be able to get the ship running without large problems. Otherwise combats would become annoying And stealing is aswell such a thing. With bording there would be stealing. Therefore i suggested the safes. Stuff inside would be pretected against stealing. I aswell woudn't want to loose some real expansive stuff, because somebody would get my ship down.
Mrjeje and I are working together (with the help of the community), he abandonned this thread. If you want us to read your comments, you'll need to post them on the spaceship-more than what you might think page.
Ah ok, now i know. Would be possible to use this as a generic space combat talk thread and the other for your work. Ok, for now i also have no ideas to talk about here anymore. ^^
Because if that's what combat was all about, why'd you ever do it in the first place? The whole point of combat is to hurt the enemy, both in morale(Back off!) and material(Darn it, there goes my mineral base), both tactically and on the strategic scale(Losing that mineral base means the group that owned it can't pay for antimatter for better ship drives.) As for why space combat in particular? It adds another level of strategic depth to the game. Consider this scenario: You and your group have just arrived at a rocky, airless planet literally sparkling with valuable metals. A base is set up to mine this, while your ship remains in orbit, having spread some sensor buoys farther out from the star. Suddenly you get an urgent message from one of your buoys. A rival of yours has hypered into the system with a large transport of marines! Would you rather engage the ship before it reaches the planet, or have to deal with superior forces on the ground when it does?
No, the point is to have fun. This is a game. Combat is just a fun way to compete. Deal with it. You may secretly want to hurt and kill other people, but keep your psychotic desires client-side.
Here's another tack: It's Star Trek in a game. Not having space battles would be like having cake without the frosting. It's there all right, but it seems incomplete.
I have to agree with DeadlyLuvdisc here. Its a game and it should be fun aswell. Don't think many people would see it as fun to get their ship completly destroyed, after they have played days to get it on a high level and everything in place. If you now are not very lucky and somebody attacks you and you lose, you shoudn't lose the whole ship. Indeed with only PvE it could be simply make, that the enemy (pirates, other spacies) are only out of boarding you and your ship stays in one piece. But PvP could be funny aswell, if player ships could interact with themself. Only problem is, how prevent people from flying around and kill others like they want. One way would be to give them enough chance to flee and if they got shooted down then, its their fault. Don't think it would be the best way, because some not so experienced player, or somebody who yust made a mistake could lose the ship very fast. So we have to make the ship as itself non destroyable. One way would be to give it a wrack status. It has no power more, its a wrack and the enemy can board it, but can't destroy it, so that the owner can repair it, after the enemy has gone. Would be one way. The other way i would like would be to crash landing the ship. Possible could be, that you could crash on some small dead asteroid, if you are in open space aswell. But the ship shoudn't be destroyed from it either. So repairing should be possible and then the ship should be able to start again. So you won't lose your most valuable property. Second problem is the stuff you have. Possible should be, that the boarding team can bord and damage stuff on your ship, possible aswell steal some things. But they shoudn't be able to take your most value gadgets. So if space combat and boarding is in, you need a safe place in your ship. And a safe nobody could access should do the job. Nice would be aswell, to be able to update the safe.
I had a thought that if the player was on softcore, they could get their components disabled instead of completely destroyed, and can be repaired afterward for relatively cheap(compared to rebuilding the component.) So you wouldn't lose the ship, but you would be inconvenienced financially by it(which would be the point of combat, besides trolling and the lulz.)
I'm not quite sold on the boarding aspect... You should have the ability to make a teleporter jammer. If manned, it prevents boarding. You should also be able to re-enforce the hull of your ship with things that you mine from other planets. AND, there should be a pvp NPC on some planet that gives you access to rare things depending on how many ships you have disabled. Also, if I dont feel like dealing with other players (as I plan to play offline most of the time), I want to avoid being able to be attacked by players... And I really dont think you should be able to come aboard my SAFE HAVEN, and steal my stuff...
Personally i am aswell not to sold on the boarding aspect. Would be funny to board a ship and disable systems, or to defend the own ship, but i don't want aswell to loose my stuff. So i make it similar to Terraria. A safe who can't be opend by other players. So you have a place you can put your most value stuff in. Teleporter jammers would be a nice idea aswell, but should aswell work with not manned, yust with a lower sucessrate then. Possible could be aswell, that the shields could block teleporters as long they are raised. I like the idea about the reinforcing from the ship hull. My idea would be to possible build a second layer over the hull and different from the material, it would take some weapon fire. The pvp NPC is something i don't really like. If you get some rare item, possible one you could only get on this way for disabling player ships, it would boost the pvp extremly, because many people want to get all stuff. Woudn't be good for people, who don't like ship to ship pvp, because they would be attacked by most other player because of the items. Some minerals or pixels from the other ship would be possible, but not to much, otherwise the lost of the attacked player could be to large.
