Ship kits should break off

[SushiCW]

The current situation: ship kit bits have no collision detection at all. This makes them feel wrong and weird when they clip into things or when shots go right through them. My proposal:

* Ship kit elements should have their own (small) health pools and break off when destroyed.
* Damage to a ship kit part does *not* damage the rest of the ship.


So what does this mean?

* No change to combat balance: if you hit the fin instead of the main ship, it won't affect their hull%, but you get the satisfaction of seeing the piece blown off.
* Cool combat scarring: come out of a battle with awesome cosmetic damage.
* Less clipping: in situations where the kit would clip when colliding with geometry, just have it break off rather than clipping and looking dumb. Crash landings and canyon runs just got more immersive (and probably funnier).

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

The current situation: ship kit bits have no collision detection at all. This makes them feel wrong and weird when they clip into things or when shots go right through them. My proposal:

* Ship kit elements should have their own (small) health pools and break off when destroyed.
* Damage to a ship kit part does *not* damage the rest of the ship.


So what does this mean?

* No change to combat balance: if you hit the fin instead of the main ship, it won't affect their hull%, but you get the satisfaction of seeing the piece blown off.
* Cool combat scarring: come out of a battle with awesome cosmetic damage.
* Less clipping: in situations where the kit would clip when colliding with geometry, just have it break off rather than clipping and looking dumb. Crash landings and canyon runs just got more immersive (and probably funnier).

How would a missile hit work?
What happens to the damage assigned to the ship kit? Does it get passed through onto the hull or absorbed? Does the hit location move to the hull or the kit? What impact does this have on the splash radius?
What if the missile wouldn't have hit the main hull, but only hits the kit?
Likewise a canon shell that would hit the body if the ship kit were not present?

 

[DocLooshkin]

Hello, SushiCW.

I love some of the shipkits. My favourite has to be the Raider set for the Asp Explorer. I bought it purely out of curiosity, but then I randomly paired up the Gold skin with the backward-pointing spikes and...

Jesus Christ, it's a hedgehog! It's a giant, flying, golden <expletive deleted>ing hedgehog! I have got to rename this ship the SS Dr Hedgeh, right <expletive deleted>ing now!

That was a good day. I wonder if we can get FD to do feathers...?

+1 for the idea. It might be a bit of an effort to develop, but having proper debris flying about - not to mention having ships that really look like they've been in a battle - would be a very cool thing, IMFAO.

[...] in situations where the kit would clip when colliding with geometry, just have it break off rather than clipping and looking dumb [...]

I can't help but wonder what my ship will actually look like once I've left a Coriolis. I know the shield absorbs the actual damage, but I can't tell if the ship also comes into some physical contact with the station or not. If it does, then given the number of minor scrapes I usually have in anything larger than a Cobra III, I might not have much of a shipkit left, which probably wouldn't look too good. Flying sober, rather than FUI most of the time, would probably avoid the issue, but where's the fun in that?

What happens to the damage assigned to the ship kit?

A fair question. I would just have it so that impacted parts of the shipkit are disintegrated on contact, without affecting the ordnance in any way at all. Anything else would constitute armour, however light - and effectively make shipkits into pay-to-win components, which isn't desirable.

 

[Yure]

The current situation: ship kit bits have no collision detection at all. This makes them feel wrong and weird when they clip into things or when shots go right through them. My proposal:

* Ship kit elements should have their own (small) health pools and break off when destroyed.
* Damage to a ship kit part does *not* damage the rest of the ship.


So what does this mean?

* No change to combat balance: if you hit the fin instead of the main ship, it won't affect their hull%, but you get the satisfaction of seeing the piece blown off.
* Cool combat scarring: come out of a battle with awesome cosmetic damage.
* Less clipping: in situations where the kit would clip when colliding with geometry, just have it break off rather than clipping and looking dumb. Crash landings and canyon runs just got more immersive (and probably funnier).

I see where your going with this, and I like the idea of it. Problem is the way you explained it there is a game balance problem players get by spending money.

Now you pretty much said ship kit should not increase hit box. But still when kit part takes damage the ship hull does not take damage.

This basically becomes a extra shield padding for money and that won't fly. But I like the way your thinking.

 

[SushiCW]

I see where your going with this, and I like the idea of it. Problem is the way you explained it there is a game balance problem players get by spending money.

Now you pretty much said ship kit should not increase hit box. But still when kit part takes damage the ship hull does not take damage.

This basically becomes a extra shield padding for money and that won't fly. But I like the way your thinking.

That's a fair point, but easily fixed by having all shots pass through kits.

So if a shot would have hit you without the kit, it would still hit and do the same amount of damage. If a piece of kit is in line, it would take damage as well. (So the damage would count against the kit, but also count fully against the hull).

If a shot would have missed without the kit, the kit bit would take damage / break off.