Collision Damage - A Change of Mechanic

[Snarfbuckle]

Yes, a honda civic charging full bore towards an abrahams battle tank would be futile, but so would a battle tank being run over by a cruise liner regardless of armour it has.
For some reason ARMOUR and HP gives us protection against being CRUSHED. We are not talking about fender benders between cars but ships weighting in at up to 1500 tonnes.

Now, those (up to) 1500 tonnes travel at some rather deadly speed, making those tonnes into an UNSTOPPABLE mass.

So while we CAN armour up a Sidewinder into a tough nugget we shouldn't really allow for the armour to be a DEFENSIVE factor for the Sidewinder.

What matters here is the basic HULL and basic hull tonnage.

The fact remain that a 25 tonne Sidewinder will become a pancake against the 1000 tonne hull of a T9.

Ramming should really be a last ditch attemt and if your ships hull is lighter it will simply be crushed by the larger mass and momentum of the other larger ship.

Hell, going face first into a ship having twice your weight should make you pause because sure, you MIGHT take him out - but imagine being 4 feet high and deciding to tackle someone 8 feet tall and having twice your weight.

See the little guy in white shirt and tie, that's you in your little ship - the other guy, he is waay bigger than you.

Sure, wear some armour, take a helmet to make sure but I bet that you will fail to tackle the guy.

 

[bigian12]

Too true, +1. The only thing that would strengthen your ship from crushing forces would be stronger bulkheads, structural beams and struts and of course the thickness and rigidity of the hull. As you said, a tank with all the armour in the world would not survive being rammed by a cruise ship or vice versa it crashing into the side of the ship. Yes it may create a nice hole in the ships side but the ship with survive.

 

[G in the Fl]

I would appreciate this mechanic changed. It will have no effect on combat for a big ship, but seeing foolish SDFs splatter against my hull while docking would be entertaining.

A simple way of calculating damage is D=s*m+ s1*m1and then for each side receiving damage the mass of the larger ship m1. So %=D*1(m/m1).

Meaning that the larger ship would take that amount of damage, and the smaller ship would receive the rest. So if a 25 ton sidey vs a 1000 ton t-9, the t9 would take 1/40 of the collision damage, creating a nice splatter.

Or just a 50/50 split in damage, but ^ makes large ship ramming always bad for a small ship