Ship Fires

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Basic premise is that under certain conditions, modules can catch fire.

When a module is on fire, not only does that modules health drop slowly, your ships temperature also increases. There's also a chance for fires to spread to other modules. Modules on fire also have reduced effectiveness, and/or can malfunction more often.

Now all ships have built in fire suppression, but it can take a moment to kick in, and can't handle too much at once.
You can also manually activate the fire suppression system using the modules panel, which can be more effective.
Modules on fire will have a flame icon next to them.

You can also install improved fire suppression modules, which can activate autonatically quicker, handle more fires at once, and prevent spreading, based on module class and rating.

All forms of fire suppression require ammo, similar to the AFMU, which can be synthesized if needed, from very basic materials.

What can cause a fire?

• Heat:- obviously, heat sources can trigger fires, including that from external, internal, and even other fires onboard.
• Damaged Modules:- Fires are more likely to start in modules that are heavily damaged. (But they won't spontaneous combust!)
• Incoming Damage:- Taking fire can trigger a fire too.

Not sure what it would add, maybe a sense of panic, similar to low oxygen, which is a good thing, and can be exciting.
Having a catastrophic fire would be quite unlikely. You would have had to run out of fire suppression ammo, and basically set fire to so much that your ship goes above 200% heat to cause hull damage. Lol
But it could happen to a careless CMDR.

I believe it would add another level of danger to combat, and even exploration.

Thoughts?

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Lestat]

I would think the only few areas that would have Air on the ship is the Cockpit and living quarters space.

 

[Foos]

I would think the only few areas that would have Air on the ship is the Cockpit and living quarters space.

Lestat is correct. All it would take to put out fires, even those in the cockpit, would be to purge the atmosphere from the ship...which is done by toggling off life support. But very few systems would be prone to catching fire in the first place because most would be permanently oxygen-less.

 

[Allchemyst]

Lestat is correct. All it would take to put out fires, even those in the cockpit, would be to purge the atmosphere from the ship...which is done by toggling off life support. But very few systems would be prone to catching fire in the first place because most would be permanently oxygen-less.

Not all fires require oxygen, thought.

I could see that some high-tech compounds used in whatever-techno-babble-things might combust and fuel eachother if some modules suffer enough damage.

FSDs, being the most advanced tech thing on the ships, might just be a very good case for non-oxygen fires.

Also, you wouldn't necessarily need flames, just a massive exothermal reaction that starts to devour a part of your ship as the compound leaks out of its enclosure, corroding the hull into plasma...

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I was just going on the assumption that all areas of the ship are accessible and have life support, so you can move around freely (Like star trek).
Of course, we currently don't leave our seats. But y'know. Lol

Maybe ship fires would be more pressing if we had space legs, and can run around venting rooms or using a fire extinguisher. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[DocLooshkin]

Hello, all.

The question of whether all parts of the ship should be pressurised is an interesting one. On the one hand, having an open atmosphere full of flammable oxygen is obviously a serious fire hazard, particularly in an unoccupied area of a ship. On the other hand, maintaining a patchwork of pressurised and unpressurised environments carries the risk of explosive decompressions inside the ship.

Consider: one good railgun hit destroys a door, the superheated debris from which is then blasted at speed into the airless section, conceivably causing even more damage than a simple fire would have done - and since the formerly vacuum-sealed area now has plenty of oxygen, along with superheated debris chunks embedded in every wall, you'll presumably get fires anyway.

Moreover, since the debris could potentially destroy the next door along, a single lucky shot could, depending on the layout, theoretically wreck the entire ship and kill everyone on board. That's a bit much. Funny as hell, certainly, but a bit much.

If I were building a ship to meet the needs of ED's dangerous galaxy, I would want:
• either no breathable atmosphere at all, anywhere, relying instead on connector-fed spacesuits and the like to keep people alive (passenger cabins notwithstanding);
• or I would want two distinct atmospheric systems: one with a normal air supply to keep humans alive wherever they happen to be - and another for the unoccupied sections, supplying non-flammable gasses intended to maintain equal pressure, suppress fires and absorb radiation and energy beams going through the ship.

In the end, though, I think it'll come down to whatever FD thinks is going to be most practical to develop and most fun to play. I'm good with that.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

<snip>
In the end, though, I think it'll come down to whatever FD thinks is going to be most practical to develop and most fun to play. I'm good with that.

Hey Doc,
You make good points!

Also, what if a railgun shot pierced your fuel tank, and inner hull, leaking fuel in to the main compartments? That'd be highly flammable.

It all really does come down to if it would be interesting as a mechanic, over exactly how real it is.
Would it be fun using the module panel to suppress fires during combat, or annoying?

If we had access to a full schematic of the ship, instead of a list of modules, it would be a lot more interesting, and things like the cargo bay, passenger cabins, fuel tanks and other non-selectable modules could be at risk from outbreaks of fire, and you could even watch it spread in a realistic manner.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Jenny Harper]

Interesting suggestion. Just as an additional point, this could be an another aspect of multi-crew, maybe creating an entire new role (engineer) who is responsible for things like putting out fires and repairs.

 

[Foos]

Interesting suggestion. Just as an additional point, this could be an another aspect of multi-crew, maybe creating an entire new role (engineer) who is responsible for things like putting out fires and repairs.

Now this is an idea I can get behind.
If expanding the comprehensiveness/detail of damage is done in service to gameplay - specifically MultiCrew - then I'm all for it.

 

[StiTch]

In concept it's a really nice idea from an immershun perspective.

Unfortunately I have found from experience that the fewer combat mechanics you can have based on uncontrolled RNG factors the better. The only way you could stop this occurring would be to avoid module damage, and with how crippling as a mechanic this could be, would force players away from using anything other than shield builds.

Malfunctions are consistent but for the most part uncrippling. Something like this would have to be relatively infrequent - and not many people, PvE CMDRs included, would be happy with a skin-of-the-teeth fight being lost because when both players happened to be at a few % health, the CMDR's ship just happened to catch fire where the foe's didn't.

Tie it into a different part of the game and it becomes much more viable. It's a really crude example, but it could be a RNG-based side effect of thermal weapons (beams most effective down to pulse) laying down sustained fire on a single module. As a rough concept, the ability to activate this mechanic would therefore be the result of an attacker making a sacrifice - using a thermal weapon to shoot subsystems, which under standard ED logic would be much better performed by a kinetic weapon instead. So attackers have the choice to inflict greater flat module/hull damage, OR the chance to set thy foe alight.