Module Targeting: Why it's currently bad, and how I suggest we fix it.

[IronGremlin]

Module Targeting is a really neat feature that could add interesting choices to combat.

However, currently, it doesn't, because there is no reason to do anything except target the powerplant for a faster kill.

I suggest the following changes:

Remove the ability to target the power plant entirely.
Reduce all module health by 75%, except for in the case of Thrusters.

Here is the reasoning:

Targeting the powerplant will always be the desired goal as long as you can reduce the module health to 0 faster than you can reduce hull health to 0 - the primary goal of all combat is to destroy your opponents ship, so doing anything other than going for the throat is wasting time.

By eliminating the powerplant as an option, you are stuck chewing through hull to eliminate you opponent. This doesn't significantly affect combat between ships of similar size, as generally it takes about as much time to kill the PP as it does to reduce hull to 0. However, in battles in which you're outclassed, now you have interesting choices of what to target to try to cripple your opponent and level the playing field. Module health is reduced so that it becomes logical to try to go for multiple systems over the course of an engagement, instead of picking one and having the target be near hulldeath by the time it's out. Thrusters remain difficult to eliminate because the target is essentially dead once they can't maneuver.

 

[Ozzie F Isaacs]

Agree... needs poll.

How about replacing the powerplant with another component, one that would cripple but not destroy the ship. All these ships would have a heatsink right?

 

[Chann3l]

I like the idea of having an incentive to target weapons to cripple opponents. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I noticed at least when targeting a cargo hatch but if you are aiming at the module you are trying to take out and only hitting that module doesn't it not so damage to the hull? I guess I'm saying is, whether the hull gets taken out before you are able to take out a specific module comes down to aim more than anything does it not?

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

Remove the ability to target the power plant entirely.

I agree 100%!

 

[Darrett]

Sounds fine to me. I'd probably allow armor to protect internal modules as well to encourage firing on weapons and thrusters as well. Possibly further reduce module health and increase the benefit given by B-rated modules to compensate based on testing.

 

[KaizoMK]

I like this because it also gives more options to pirates...you can now shoot out the fsd and the cargo hatch, or the thrusters and the cargo hatch, without killing the ship.

 

[Bertrand Du Guesclin]

Agreed. Killing Anacondas with 75% hull left feels cheap.

Imagine what an open war would look like with the current powerplant-snipe : Capital ships killing each other in seconds once the shields drop because they have enormous weapons.

IMO, we should only be able to target externally visible modules such as weapons, utility modules, canopy, thrusters, cargo hatch, etc...

Of course, the amount of hitpoints of those modules need to be tweaked. Thrusters sould be harder to destroy. For the weapons, is would depend on the size, and the type of weapons mounts : turrets are obviously easier to damage than fixed weapons strongly strapped to the hull. Gimballed somewhere in between.

Being able to target the canopy would give a purpose to high-grade life support modules : currently the meta is to use the D life support, because it is lighter, and 7:30 minutes of oxygen is (generally) enough to find a place to repair.

Overall, not being able to target internals would make fights a little more strategic : do I target thrusters first, then weapons ? do I start with the canopy to make my opponent panic? Is the Vulture still the ultimate fighter if it loses one of its 2 weapons ?

Only thing I'm not sure about is the shield generator, because it is an internal module with an external effect.
Maybe your ship would be able to locate the shield's energy source inside the ship ?

edit :

Just a bit more detail on my idea of destroying Thrusters : destroying the main thrusters should NOT destroy all of the small maneuvering thrusters.
Destroying the main thrusters should only make a ship unable to fly at full speed, but NOT prevent it to maneuver.

 

[Stolas]

I agree as well.

Typical for me in the Combat Zones, at this point anyway, is to attack the Anacondas thruster. This allows me to immobilize the ship assess wait for the swarm if it is going to happen, move to a distance and open on the power plant with my pulse lasers. Effective yes, mitigating the superior firepower with distance and other ships to help soak damage as I am not the only target, the ship is also spinning so it does not have a clear line of sight, absolutely. Kind of a cheap kill, most definitely. The one thing I do think that is worth mentioning is it appears each ship has specific weak points. Clipper is hull strength, Vulture is canopy, Anaconda appears to be thrusters, all of them however is the power plant.

Just my $.02

Edit: On a secondary note and I just thought of this - all this could be mitigated with the implementation of armor that actually protects the modules. Military grade armor should cover the exposed modules and provide some measure of protection against sniping. Being that the power plant is the most vulnerable part of the craft one could make the fair argument that the ship designer would know this and shore up the protection around that module. If and only if armor worked as designed.

 

[Battleship Kickass]

There is a lot of good ideas ITT that could make combat a lot more interesting and strategic.

It is too late though, as with many people's ideas in changes to SCB, the game having been released for over 6 months now I see no chance of such an extreme change to combat mechanics being implemented.

I do like yours and others ideas. I used to write up quite a bit on how combat should be tearing each others ships apart piece by piece in the larger ships many months ago, it would appear that is for another game though, not this one.

 

[Surround]

I approve this! I liked the idea of replacing pp with somekind heat dispenser module. Destroying it would make hot times.

I know that making huge changes to core can feel like illegal move. But my friend said that diablo 3 had huge update that made the game good.

 

[KaizoMK]

I would love to hear a dev's input on this....I think it's a really insightful suggestion that stands to add a lot of south to the game. Is there a reason this shouldn't be implemented?

 

[Ghostickles]

Probably missed the bus on this but here; How about Shield>Armor>Modules and make ship destruction AFTER hull is gone, when an appropriate module becomes destroyed, like Power Plant or Life support. At 0% hull targeting auto switches to power plant, a couple hits, pop. Fun. Then we could have viable armor tanking and module targeting would be semi necessary but impractical until the other two protective layers have been destroyed. If you target a module the damage should be applied to the protective layers until 0%, maybe there could be 2% of that damage to the module, but it should not be destroyed before the hull it is inside is breeched. I think this would make it more fun.

 

[IronGremlin]

I approve this! I liked the idea of replacing pp with somekind heat dispenser module. Destroying it would make hot times.

I know that making huge changes to core can feel like illegal move. But my friend said that diablo 3 had huge update that made the game good.

The idea of making it (pp destruction) a severe heat management debuff instead is very interesting. It might be hard to keep that from being a clear death sentence for some ships though, which should be avoided imo.

As far as large overhauls to mechanics, I think that this will need to come eventually. Dev has made it clear that this isn't the final vision of the game. I think it'll be awhile before they get around to balance passed and polish, but it's still valuable to them to have our feedback.

 

[Bardolin]

I've been thinking about combat in general and there are various areas that I believe need some sort of rebalancing.
In the case of modules, first off exposed ones like weapons need to be a lot more fragile to incentivize trying to knock them out.
I also agree that the current Power Plant hunt mechanic is poorly implemented since currently the way it works is a binary "does my Power Plant have any health left? Yes/No", and I am thinking of a few ways to adress this without negatively impacting gameplay.

 

[GriM_AoD]

Simply having to be in the right position would help the issue. That you can shoot a module from any direction no matter how much of the ship it passes through just seems wrong.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commanders!

Power plant sniping is something we're not overly happy with, it's on the list of things we're looking at (along with armour as well). Obviously, no guarantees or ETAs but it's on the list.

 

[Mark Allen]

I won't go into specifics here (don't want to promise anything that doesn't turn up!) but module damage is a frequent topic of discussion in the office between myself and several of the designers, came up again today actually. There's several issues all competing with each other in that area (such as how long combats should be overall, what *should* armour do, many others) which makes it hard to have clear answers, and often what appears to players as a single mechanic/number/bug/thing is in fact a cluster of related things all interacting - it's often more complex than it looks .

We *are* discussing it though, and have some ideas to experiment with internally that I think will be a big improvement.

Certainly one of the goals (which your suggestion also highlights) is for module damage to not necessarily let you kill things faster, but to give ways to cripple or gain advantages against ships without having to kill them, reward accurate players by giving their victims more malfunctions & unexpected choices to deal with in combat, and to highlight the differences between weapons that penetrate well and those that don't.

edit... Ninja'd by Sandro!

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Ah ha!

N. I. N. J. A. 'D.

 

[Brimstone]

Power plant sniping is definitely a problem, though I'd only suggest that hull reinforcements actually make a difference for internal modules, along with giving all internal modules a general buff in 'hit points' or how ever it's calculated.

edit: oh man I got ninja'd by two devs.

 

[Ghostickles]

Fatality.