Ship Damage

[Spats]

I've been thinking.

I feel that the subsystem, erm, system could do with some work. At present, I don't see a huge benefit for targeting subsystems- save for the quicker death of the ship when you target the power plant.

now, chances are I may just be missing the effects somehow, but I think adding some love to this would spice things up immeasurably, especially combat.

targeting the power distributor for example should reduce the amount of power you have available. If it's at 80%, then you only have 80% for all your modules/weapons.

targetting fsd, can obviously disable fsd.

Thrusters, affect manoeuvring (rather than a binary working/not working), so again, you can get random bursts, unresponsive sectors etc etc.

would add another level and greatly increase the benefit of subsystem targeting. Being attacked by a viper? Chances are it's running close to it's power limit, hit it's power plant to take out some of it's weapons.
anaconda? Take out power distribution to lower response times of turrets. Annnnnnd so on.

i can't see that this would take a huge amount of work (based of absolutely nothing and assuming I'm not just being a prat and missing it...) and would really add another dimension to the already excellent combat.

finally, leaks. Seriously, I hit someone with a rail gun, I expect atmosphere to leak- with the resultant piloting issues.

imagine trying to dock through a letter box, whilst wanted, with a ship steadily drifting left from a leak and intermittent power failures from a damaged power plant and power distributor......

 

[Spats]

Shameless bump

 

[igor37]

I think too much complexity wouldn't be good, but I think it's an interesting concept. Maybe damaged systems below a certain percentage of health could start to be unreliable, e.g. fail when they get used too much while they're damaged, so in case of the power plant you'd have to be cautious when it goes to using too much weapons energy. Or (lateral) thrusters that start to "flicker" and thus can affect how the ship behaves when rolling, accelerating etc. I am sure there are many possibilities, but I wouldn't overdo it.

Now something just came to me: is it possible to defeat an enemy ship to destroy their life support and then waiting until their oxygen is depleted? If not, this would be cool for shortening battles against large ships.

 

[Spats]

Oh yes I agree, too much complexity would probably take it from cool to annoying real quick.

It could be as simple as once subsystem gets below 50% then it has a 25% chance to fail at each use or something like that.

I like your oxygen idea, the subsystems are there but power plant and thrusters aside they're not really a viable target- yet!

 

[OBoile]

Yeah, I'd like to see damaged sub-systems perform sub-optimally. Privateer had this back in the day and I thought it worked great.

 

[Twelvefield]

Yup, I agree with OP. Anything that makes piloting worthwhile is A-OK with me. Otherwise the player is just the co-pilot for the docking computer. You could introduce purchasing some sub-system redundancies, say backup power distributors, that would add to the ship's weight and cost, but would remain unpowered until activated for exactly this emergency. Of course, these redundant systems could also take damage, no? Switch all power to main bus B! Now switching to alternate shield emitter!

I also really, really like the idea of thrusters that have been malformed or crushed, giving you reduced attitude control. If things got bad enough, why, you'd have to eject! Although I suppose you'd also have to introduce some sort of mechanic to at least attempt a repair in space - fun!

Now given the communication level with players Frontier has maintained regarding their game plan for the future... I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any of this to come true. It's interesting to speculate, though.

 

[knowles2]

I like the idea of better damage models and adding a lot more depth to the ship systems. It be good if we could also divert the maintenance module to focus on repairing certain systems as well.

I know in one of the updates included sensors code being made ready for damage, so I think better damage modelling is on it way.

 

[Ideas Man]

I'd love to see dynamic damage modelling, it'd fit in really well with the gritty atmosphere of the ships if done well, imagine this:

[video=youtube;9dqEH7T0Z04]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dqEH7T0Z04[/video]

But toned down a bit maybe.

 

[CMDR Holycow]

OPs ideas are solid. The thought of fighting vent drift while trying to dock sounds terrifying. I'd totally be on board.

 

[realdragnet]

I'd love to see dynamic damage modelling, it'd fit in really well with the gritty atmosphere of the ships if done well, imagine this:

But toned down a bit maybe.

^^reminds me of good old "Stunt Car Racer"

[video=youtube;KMgjmIW8fd8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMgjmIW8fd8[/video]

 

[AluminumAlloy]

Sounds good. Let's take BeamNG.drive as an example, where damaged parts (dynamic) would actually damage the functions and vitals of the vehicle.

[video=youtube;5T0040ag1us]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T0040ag1us[/video]

 

[DaveB]

I like the idea of a progressive subsystem damage mechanic. Take out 16% of power distributor health and now your target has only 5 pips to allocate, not 6, take it out completely and he's flying with zero pips to everything... Damage the power plant and max available power is reduced (ship still kabooms at 0%)... Damage fsd and you start losing jump range (again don't change the kaboom at 0%)... Sensors start losing range before they go out completely, lifesupport would need to be a little more complex, perhaps start an (initially very long) timer for your atmosphere quality to degrade and thus put you on your emergency oxygen, the lower your lifesupport health the shorter that time. As mentioned above thruster damage could result in reduced max speed, reduced attitude and lateral thruster rates... possibly axis/direction specific. Fancy trying to dock when you can barely roll to port? Have fun landing because your computer might not be able to maintain rotational correction....

 

[Ideas Man]

I really like the idea of cosmetic 'dings' on your ship after a few days docking and undocking, just visible knocks and bumps.

 

[Spats]

Cosmetic dings would be cool. But realistically, we're never going to get close enough to see them. Also, given the predominant shape of ships, it's questionable just how much they'd add (and it'd be a reasonable amount of work to implement I'd imagine).

That said.... Anyone else like he idea of blowing an eagles wing off and watching it spiral (x-wing style) into the void?! Imagine the skill trying to get that back to dock!

 

[Dash]

I agree with your post; I think it would add a bit more depth to combat.

For instance; instead of going straight after the hull or power-plant on a big ship, being able to take out the thrusters would allow you to move in and out of danger whilst picking it off.

I know some AI do try to run, but it would be nice to be able to see why; e.g. I don't know many players who'd hang around with a bust canopy, is this why the AI is running?

 

[igor37]

For instance; instead of going straight after the hull or power-plant on a big ship, being able to take out the thrusters would allow you to move in and out of danger whilst picking it off.

But...you can already take out the thrusters. Just target one of the two drives subsystems, destroy it and the opponent can't flee or control his ship anymore. That's a nice way to defeat Anacondas, as soon as their drives are gone they're just floating around like a stunned whale.

When it goes to cosmetic things I'm in. During combat, e.g. lasers already leave glowing marks on the target, for about 2 seconds. It would be cool if this marks would stay a bit visible until the paintjob is repaired at a station.

 

[Hitsuke]

^^reminds me of good old "Stunt Car Racer"

[video=youtube;KMgjmIW8fd8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMgjmIW8fd8[/video]

Repped for the nostalgia trip! I LOVED that game <3!

 

[Courosant1]

But...you can already take out the thrusters. Just target one of the two drives subsystems, destroy it and the opponent can't flee or control his ship anymore. That's a nice way to defeat Anacondas, as soon as their drives are gone they're just floating around like a stunned whale.

Now imagine if you could select the thrusters individually (forward, backward, roll etc.) - Braben himself mentioned targettable thrusters & their impact on controlling the ship... but he threw the idea out of the window because of the ship getting near to uncontrollable with only a few thrusters down - in a fight you are dead meat, so no big changes there while attacking the Anaconda . (Interview with The Escapist Magazine)

But nevertheless: It'd be awesome to add because it increases the feeling of reality in the game. Combined with natural hazards (meteorite shower, long use without service) and a possibility to exit the ship in order to repair thrusters (and other subsystems) individually (and not "magically" through a repair device on board) it would add so much to exploring, trading etc.

Imagine beeing hundreds of lightyears from the next station and your main thruster suffers a malfunction... *puts spacesuit & jetpack on* - "Can we fix it? YES WE CAN!"

 

[Courosant1]

I like the idea of a progressive subsystem damage mechanic. Take out 16% of power distributor health and now your target has only 5 pips to allocate, not 6, take it out completely and he's flying with zero pips to everything... Damage the power plant and max available power is reduced (ship still kabooms at 0%)... Damage fsd and you start losing jump range (again don't change the kaboom at 0%)... Sensors start losing range before they go out completely, lifesupport would need to be a little more complex, perhaps start an (initially very long) timer for your atmosphere quality to degrade and thus put you on your emergency oxygen, the lower your lifesupport health the shorter that time. As mentioned above thruster damage could result in reduced max speed, reduced attitude and lateral thruster rates... possibly axis/direction specific. Fancy trying to dock when you can barely roll to port? Have fun landing because your computer might not be able to maintain rotational correction....

Love it! - now add a "fix it yourself" possibility and we have a deal