Why I currently think combat and Ramming is rubbish

[Ben Ryder]

Ever see star wars or pretty much any science fiction film? Did star destroyers charge around crashing i to ships? Did Darth Vader say in a strange whispery voice 'ramming speed ahead' as they attacked Alderon or what ever it was called?

Ever watched news footage of real warfare? Do you see planes ramming each other and drones crashing in to enemy troops like pin balls? Soldiers bumping chests and head butting each other before drawing weapons to shoot each at point blank with sniper rifles and bazookas other?

I was hoping that 1.4 would put an end to Elite Bumper Cars.


Fighter pilots you have been warned. In 1.4 you don't even need to score a ranged hit to claim a kill. This is the era of the killer trade bumper car vessel. All hail the blue haired princesses shield

Edit - Looks like the servers are back up. Have fun chaps. Loved the star trek videos and stuff.

 

[W4rSkuLL]

Maybe ramming will be more fatal when we get a better dmg model. But I agree that ramming should be more "deadly" for all involved. When shields are up not so much, but when shields are down. A collision in normal terms are lethal or will cripple your ship depending on your size. Well, thats my meaning

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

It's that way in 1.3 too, found this out by accidentally splatting an Eagle while fighting something else.

Advanced warfare predicts that brute force will be the eventual outcome of weapon development. Between defenses constantly getting stronger and arms treaties continuing to ban the most lethal weapons, we will eventually reach a point where the only way to subdue our opponents is to beat them into submission by brute force.

This ethos is why you see all of the giant mecha-bots in Anime and Japanese Kaiju movies beating on each other with fists and clubs.

I'm in there like swimwear. This is my bread and butter.

Edit: It's possible I lagged and the game registered a hit on him before I rammed him, theoretically, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Maybe that why the rebels needed to take the death star shields offline, so it wouldnt start flying around ramming in to shield-less planets.

 

[Khelder]

Ever see star wars or pretty much any science fiction film? Did star destroyers charge around crashing i to ships? Did Darth Vader say in a strange whispery voice 'ramming speed ahead' as they attacked Alderon or what ever it was called?

In the last big space battle in Return of the Jedi, didn't one of the rebellion craft (small one) slam into the bridge of one of the big Imperial cruisers? Admittedly, I think he was about to blow up anyway so probably wanted to make it count. But it ended up doing a lot of damage. And then that cruiser fell? (I assume the gravitational pull of the Death Star was pretty big) and smashed.

[video=youtube;RW_hGOFukMQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW_hGOFukMQ[/video]

 

[Ben Ryder]

Yup. Didnt he hit some kind of 1 in a billion critical location?


Kamikaze pilots eh. Worked out well for them.

 

[cluelessforumuser65578]

its gets even dafter when you consider how heavy and how fast some of the ships can go, clipper can do almost 1000mph and weighs upwards of 700 tonnes

 

[Daffan]

Ramming is rubbish. Its just not a fun from a gameplay point.

You've got a clipper that has insane shield recharge, that can out-run and ram anybody and you can never escape bar highwaking - which is also another crappy gameplay mechanics.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Make it like Magnets, shields repel. If you have no shields then you run. I'd even go so far that if you have shields up you can't ram which would make it more viable as a last resort, and costly, to use it at all with both having no Shields.
There's no skill in ramming into another player, it's just too easy.
SCB stacking makes this tactic valid as well and it's just ridiculous.

 

[Cliffson]

What I'd propose (complete with handwavium) is:

Shields are very good at repulsing each other: Low damage from shield on shield rams, a large amount of momentum is imparted to both ships as the shield repulse, added fun of trying to bring your ship back under control as it bounces off that 'conda

Shields are all well and good for absorbing lasers and disintegrating small shells but not so much a huge ship: Shield on Hull ramming is not a great idea, shields take a lot more HP damage than Hull in this instance.

There's more to ships then just the hull integrity, Hull HP represent the integrity of your ship, when it's 0 it can no longer hold together but there's still a lot of it there: Hull on Hull ramming potentially deals more damage than just the armour HP amounts, so while ramming is still valid if you've got a massive amount of armour you'll still come off quite badly.

Hopefully something like that would make Ramming a more desperate move than the Go-to way to deal with ships.

 

[Unfluffydave]

Ever see star wars or pretty much any science fiction film? Did star destroyers charge around crashing i to ships? Did Darth Vader say in a strange whispery voice 'ramming speed ahead' as they attacked Alderon or what ever it was called?

Ever watched news footage of real warfare? Do you see planes ramming each other and drones crashing in to enemy troops like pin balls? Soldiers bumping chests and head butting each other before drawing weapons to shoot each at point blank with sniper rifles and bazookas other?

I was hoping that 1.4 would put an end to Elite Bumper Cars.


Fighter pilots you have been warned. In 1.4 you don't even need to score a ranged hit to claim a kill. This is the era of the killer trade bumper car vessel. All hail the blue haired princesses shield

Divine wind says "Hai!"

Maybe ramming will be more fatal when we get a better dmg model. But I agree that ramming should be more "deadly" for all involved. When shields are up not so much, but when shields are down. A collision in normal terms are lethal or will cripple your ship depending on your size. Well, thats my meaning

Pretty much this^^ ramming should be a valid tactic against a ship with no shields, but next to useless against a ship withp shields.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

In the last big space battle in Return of the Jedi, didn't one of the rebellion craft (small one) slam into the bridge of one of the big Imperial cruisers? Admittedly, I think he was about to blow up anyway so probably wanted to make it count. But it ended up doing a lot of damage. And then that cruiser fell? (I assume the gravitational pull of the Death Star was pretty big) and smashed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW_hGOFukMQ

It's shields were down.

 

[Kyle Brennan]

Well ramming has been a valid tactic in real life Naval warfare for thousands of years, but I put our space craft into a category closer to aircraft than Naval ships, too fragile to use as a sledge hammer.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Well ramming has been a valid tactic in real life Naval warfare for thousands of years, but I put our space craft into a category closer to aircraft than Naval ships, too fragile to use as a sledge hammer.

Yes it has been a tactic when the ships guns could not fire or were not aligned and it was a tactic that lead to unknown out comes or each side would get locked with the other and both ships would sink and every body would die. That is why the put guns on navy ships, tanks, planes, soliders, police etc. so they dont run around like idiots smashing in to each other

 

[HeavyGroovez]

Rams are fine, given the crazy shield strength we have its sometimes the only way of smashing a ring or 2.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Well ramming has been a valid tactic in real life Naval warfare for thousands of years, but I put our space craft into a category closer to aircraft than Naval ships, too fragile to use as a sledge hammer.

Navy ships didn't have shields.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Navy ships didn't have shields.

Well said and in 1943 ramming was officially called dashed stupid by the royal navy. Something people who were not desperate, suicidal or stupid had known since the invention of the bow and arrow and spears.

 

[Roybe]

I would say that their are a few good reasons for not ramming...but in the scheme of this game, it is allowed and a valid tactic. The main reasons for not ramming in real life are:

1. Unknowable outcome.
2. Cost of ship warrants returning rather than winning.

That said...if a battle is pivotal to a war effort...I can see a reason to ram..rather than run away...or worse, sink. Cost is a RL issue we do not have to deal with here.

This really comes down to a discussion of fair play...and the devs feel that ramming in fights is considered such. This became obvious when ramming was declared illegal in the game around stations. It could be made illegal everywhere...but the game was coded to allow it outside the 'no fire zone'.

I guess, the players could try to influence the devs with a change to make ramming illegal every where...but the outrage to the tactic would need to be near universal for this to occur.

 

[SMcA]

Sometimes it is hard to resist one with the heid as your opponent whizzes by.

 

[The Librarian]

I think the best (and most accurate) description of a collision event between two large space vessels can be found in Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness In The Sky". Although it is dealing with megatonnage vessels, the principle is the same:-

"Ship collisions came in enormous variety, from millimeter-per-second bruisings, chiefly of interest to harbor police...to vast, bright flashes that wreck planetoids and vaporize spacecraft. The Far Regard's encounter with Tarelsk was something in between the extremes. A million tonnes of starship drove downward through pressure domes and multilevel residences, but not much faster than a human might run in a one-gee field.
A million tonnes does not stop easily. The collision went on and on and on, a screaming, twisting fury. The city levels crushed more easily than hull metal and drive core, but the ship and the city around it mingled into a single ruin."