Does ship ramming cause plausible damage?

[UFO Reality]

Hi, just wondering if the devs and players would agree to ship ramming causing equal detrimental damage to both ships?

I encountered a battle in which an NPC vulture used a ramming attack against my Gunship.

I realized that ship ramming is somewhat an interesting tactic, although I feel that this concept is an immersion/realism breaker.

ED is a space-game and I think that if spaceships collide that it would be detrimental in a vacuum and that all pilots should only use this option as a kamikazee tactic.

I already find it weird that you can scoop up materials in space while the shields are up, but ramming, as a battle tactic seems poor and unrealistic.

I think that ship to ship collisions should be something to be avoided at all costs and that such damage results in a extremely high chance of canopy breach to both ships and that is where life support becomes a factor.

Would it be a good thing to have ship ramming damage given some attention to?

Surely it wouldn't be too much trouble tweaking the ship vs ship sprite collision damage factor and AI behaviour.

I think it would make dog fighting scenarios a lot more interesting and realistic.

I understand that it might make having a collision annoying due to a cracked/destroyed canopy but then it will force pilots to avoid collisions as a high priority.

Anyway, my two bits, once again.

I have plenty of ideas and concepts as I play the game way too much for what it is. Unfortunately, I am not a coder so I can't apply for a job. [haha] [alien]

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Giving players the ability to smash each other's canopies. Yeah, that won't be abused.

 

[UFO Reality]

Giving players the ability to smash each other's canopies. Yeah, that won't be abused.

If the clash is head to head then both players will get damaged canopies so it will balance out. Plus critical damage to hull with the weaker or smaller ship most likely not survive the clash. Bigger ships might try to use ramming against smaller ships but the smaller ships are more quick/nimble and probably shouldn't be going after a big ship with a dangerous or elite pilot. A ramming clash with equal ships will render both similar canopy damage and due to the damage the loss of HUD and reliance on their life support.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Plausible damage? No, nowhere near.

An Eagle has a mass of around 80 tonnes and boosts to around 380m/s (standard A-rated drives before engineering). This gives it a kinetic energy of 11.5 GJ.

A huge beam laser does 41.4MJ of damage per second [1] (ignoring resistances)

In other words, the Eagle ramming you once should "realistically" do about as much damage in a fraction of a second as being hit by a huge beam laser for 4.5 minutes - enough to destroy almost all ships instantly. A heavily engineered Cutter would survive the impact - but would still be destroyed if hit by a Cobra III instead.

[1] Which is four times as much energy as the power plant and distributor put into it, and the distributor itself charges ten times as fast as the power plant puts energy into it. "Realistic energy transfers" was clearly not a game design objective, which is probably a good thing.

 

[space voyager]

What he said.

 

[UFO Reality]

What he said.

LOL.

There is a thing called hull reinforcements. But like I said if canopies are weak then ramming will be a last option. But as for realism, I now see why "Yamiks" on YouTube makes the squeeky duck sound effects on his ED vids.
Anyway, I gotta keep in mind that its just another pew pew space game.

 

[MUSKETEER]

Ramming as tactics is what adds variety to PvP by making low shielded but more tanky vessels useful in PvP.. take that away and we all will be flying same combat ships.

Sometimes you have to forget about realism to improve the gameplay. Supercruise is one example here.

 

[znôrt]

An Eagle has a mass of around 80 tonnes and boosts to around 380m/s (standard A-rated drives before engineering). This gives it a kinetic energy of 11.5 GJ.

more like 5776 GJ? also, this energy doesn't distribute evenly among the two objects. anyway, good point.

i also find ramming pretty lame as it is (and, yes, immersion breaking). i'm with op, it should definitively be a kamikaze tactic.

 

[space voyager]

There is another reason why ramming gives off far less energy than it should. If it was even slightly realistic every touch of the ship with basically anything, be it another ship, debris in space or planetary ground, would result in death, unless you were more or less stationary. I prefer not to blow up too often.

 

[UFO Reality]

There is another reason why ramming gives off far less energy than it should. If it was even slightly realistic every touch of the ship with basically anything, be it another ship, debris in space or planetary ground, would result in death, unless you were more or less stationary. I prefer not to blow up too often.

Actually, It could be a good idea to have a just bit more simulation dynamic to this game. For example, with collision sensitive ships. Frontier could actually make extra money by selling proximity alarms coupled with ship auto anti-collision thruster packs that will auto engage and prevent or soften the collision. Collision sensitivity could possibly encourage better pilots.