Few suggestions on building model, AI and damage model

[gn_leugim]

Hello everyone.

 

From my recent playing I have come with some ideias what I would like to share with you.

 

1- Shared integrity

 

We probably have been troughs this problem before. We build our ship, we want to give it a nice shape, and while doing it so, we use small blocks. For example, antennas come right to my mind. I for once I have created templates for satellite dishes, made of a dozen or so small pieces. Small pieces, that's the problem, because, even if they are made of armour, and beyond integrity generators, these small pieces will almost always blow up in one hit. My idea was, why not be able to group some blocks, up to a given total volume, and make them share all the added integrity, and then, once all its hp/integrity is depleted, make them blow all at the same time? for example: you have 5 cubes together, all with 5hp. only when 25dmg is done to this group, they would all 5 blow up.

 

2- Sloped armour

 

If you ever played a tank war game, you know the value of sloped armour. Or ask German nazi tankers when they found the T-34 for the first time. In short, slopped armour acts in two parts: (1) increases the effective thinness of the armour and (2) increases the chance of bouncing off shells. I thing that the (2) could be applied in Avorion. For all physical projectile weapons, a chance of bouncing from a armour that was meet at an angle, could be added. This would open up a realistic range of building designs as well tactics. and coolness too  8)  ;)

 

3 - AI balance.

 

If you stay for a while in the same region of the galaxy, it will be certain that any pirate or Xzotan you find won't be a threat. at all! Why? because a couple of hours into the server, and you should be able to create a 50k hp craft with 300 om. fire power, while the pirate are still on the <5k hp and 30ish om. fire power. Even when they attack in numbers, chances are you will not face more that 1 or 2, maybe 3 at the same time. and they won't last for more than 10sec each. I know that if you venture forth the galaxy, tougher opponents will appear, but again, I am speaking when staying roughly in the same area. Pirates are pirates, and not dumb, so, if they launch an attack and they see no one coming back, maybe they should upgrade their ships/attack force. How would this translate to changes? Well, why not adapt the attack force to the strength of the highest/strongest ship in the sector? If you are mining all quite, chances are you are not armed to much, so the ally guards of the sector should be enough, if you are instead armed, and looking for a fight, then you will find it. Also, make galaxy sector nomination more challenging.

 

4 - Turret factory - turret templates

 

As far as I can read in the forum, quite some people like to have uniformity in the ship. right now that is only possible by either building our own turrets in numbers, or by buying them from merchants. but what about those we get from battles? why not add a copy turret template option in the turret factory, where we could put that turret, see how much does it cost to produce, and produce as much as we want?

 

5 - Hide blocks

 

The ability to hide a block in building mode, would be very very valuable when we are building a complex ship. I believe I suggested this before, but I will leave this once again :)

 

Open for discussion of these ideas :D

 

Cheers!

[Spacefaring_Guy]

Shared Integrity:

 

Right now I believe the 'join' function only works when the joined blocks have a final shape that matches that of a simple scaled up version of a single block.  I wouldn't mind seeing that relabeled 'simplify' and have a new join function that welds blocks regardless of shape, volume, or type, into a single entity for the purposes of manipulation in the build menu, or for damage during combat... though given different types of blocks respond differently to different types of damage, I can see a lot of issues there for the devs.  Any such function might have to be limited to blocks of the same type and material.

 

Sloped Armour:

 

You're talking about adding a lot more calculations to projectile impacts... ray tracing every particle instead of dropping it upon initial impact.  It'd be nice (especially if you could have reflective blocks for lasers like we have insulating blocks for electrical attacks), but I wouldn't ask the devs to look at it until they've done a million other things first.

 

AI Balance:

 

First, I'd like to see pirates more willing to flee.  They shouldn't generally have the backing of a large fleet (you're seeing random individual pirate groups, not sub-units of an umbrella organization), nor the culture of an organization that has members willing to die as cannon fodder for their leader. Xsotan, sure.  Pirates, not so much.  Factions should have scouts, exploratory expeditions, and strike forces.  Mess with a powerful faction and you should have to flee across the galaxy to escape.

 

But mostly, I see your suggestion as a way to exacerbate the issue with no safe building / log off places... no matter how close to the rim you get, after a while you're going to be plowed under by a tsunami of foes.

 

 

Turret Factory:

 

Turret factories are useless right now, because it's almost impossible to get all the components - even if you try to build your own supply chain you find you can't because the game is incomplete.  It would be nice if you could control the appearance of your weapons (or even if the devs just reduced the varieties and let you choose the colour for beam weapons).  I would certainly prefer more standard ranges, since I hate having different guns of the same class phase in and out of usefulness during battle.

 

 

 

[gn_leugim]

Shared Integrity

 

I am not sure how blocks are built in code, but I could see some shared HP variable been thrown into the system easily, even for different materials/types. But I could agree on the restrain of material type, when creating these groups, but not on the block type restrain, as it would virtually take it's utility out.

 

Sloped Armour

 

I do know it is a hard implementing thing, and not a priority, but again, it is a suggestion, that would be nice to see, in latter development.

 

AI Balance

 

First, I'd like to see pirates more willing to flee (...) (as they are not) the culture of an organization that has members willing to die as cannon fodder for their leader

 

Totally agree here. if they see they are no match to opposing forces, they should retreat. and not only pirates.

 

They shouldn't generally have the backing of a large fleet

Not so much here. We are not talking about a large fleet, in numbers, but a few strong individual ships. After all, they do have shipyards, and if they are capable of producing waves of small ships, they should be able to produce small numbers of strong ships instead. Maybe, instead of using these to attack sectors, as they do now, use them to guard strategic sectors, such as those containing big asteroids, large mining fields or wrecks, as well shipyards.

 

Turrets

 

It would be nice if you could control the appearance of your weapons (or even if the devs just reduced the varieties and let you choose the colour for beam weapons).  I would certainly prefer more standard ranges, since I hate having different guns of the same class phase in and out of usefulness during battle.

 

This is something I have suggested before in time, and dev said (back then) was not willing to change. My suggestion back then was to set weapons parameters in multiples, and not in real range i.e Range would be either 1.0 , 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, or any multiple of 0.5, instead of any value between 0 and 10km. That would reduce the variability to a great extent, uniformizing weapons, as they are in present day, and still give us a lot of variability to chose from.