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Author Topic: Hyperspace Storms in Battle  (Read 4646 times)

Sy

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Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« on: November 27, 2015, 11:09:43 PM »

hyperspace storms look really impressive, and getting caught in one is a pretty bad idea. but i think it's sad that they don't seem to have any effects on battles at all (afaik). you'd think that combat inside a giant space lightning storm would be rather dangerous! i'd like to see such battles have significant environmental hazards that make fighting there risky, enough to make you think twice about attacking an enemy fleet inside a storm, even if the battle itself is rather one-sided.

there could be powerful lightning surges that deal armor/hull damage, shield-piercing emp damage and/or generate large amounts of flux, potentially causing long overloads. there could be moving clouds of [insert hyperspacey stuff] floating around the battlefield, causing rapid CR degradation on any ships caught inside. there could be spatial distortions that suck in nearby ships and spit them out at a random location, maybe with crew casualties as nasty sideeffect. there could be huge magnetic fields that disable fighters or reduce the maximum speed and maneuverability of all ships to a set amount, causing frigates to become vulnerable to larger ships and giving slow civilian ships a chance to escape pursuers.

and if there are more dangerous terrain effects in general, a hullmod like Environmental Shielding that negates or reduces these effects might actually be useful. as it stands, Solar Shielding seems far too situational to be worth the OP.
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Schwartz

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #1 on: November 27, 2015, 11:16:26 PM »

I think active damage dealing would be a bit too brutal for a whole battlescape. That'd mean a shieldless fleet could realistically never cross a hyperspace storm or be taken apart. But EMP lightning surges and degraded flux stats would be pretty cool.
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Cik

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2015, 11:18:34 PM »

all for it. throw some ball lightning in there that spits EMP lightning at everything nearby and jumps randomly mite b kewl

likewise, asteroid belts need more asteroids. big ones. moving at high speeds.

:^)
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Sy

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2015, 11:50:31 PM »

I think active damage dealing would be a bit too brutal for a whole battlescape. That'd mean a shieldless fleet could realistically never cross a hyperspace storm or be taken apart. But EMP lightning surges and degraded flux stats would be pretty cool.
i was thinking the damage would go directly to armor or hull, even through shields, with amount and frequency adjusted so that it generally shouldn't kill ships -- unless you get really unlucky. the idea is that just going into battle inside a storm is dangerous in itself. if the only damage your ships suffer is temporary (like emp damage or flux increases) then that isn't really the case.

the power/frequency of the surges could depend on a ship's flux stats, so that combat ships (especially high-tech ones) are at much higher risk than something like a Hound or Tarsus. that could be a great equalizer for battles between very uneven parties, like the player chasing down a merchant fleet (many civilian ships with low flux stats) or some Pirates (many (D) ships with low flux stats).

i think anything that can make an otherwise one-sided battle a bit more even or unpredictable would be good, provided the aggressor can choose to avoid the battle if they feel the risks are too great.

likewise, asteroid belts need more asteroids. big ones. moving at high speeds.

:^)
i haven't had any battle inside an ateroid field yet, but i do think very impactful environmental hazards in general are fun.
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Ranakastrasz

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2015, 11:34:59 AM »

I would think degrading CR faster would make more sense, or higher CR deployment cost would be sane enough.

Applying EMP/increased flux/reduced venting would not be too destablizing. Make sure it bypasses shield however, as said above.

Damaging anything directly is questionable. Damaging armor might be fine, but hull is highly questionable. If it doesn't scale with unit health, or even remaining health, fighters would melt, or else it would only inconvinience fighters and nothing else would care.
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Megas

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2015, 11:41:04 AM »

Direct damage is not good.  I deploy one disposable wimp, and let the AI over-deploy to counter it.  I lose one, they lose five or more.  I win by attrition.
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Cik

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2015, 11:57:17 AM »

if it's EMP damage you'd get blasted first time your engines flamed out anyway.

besides, that can easily be fixed by just teaching the AI to adapt a little to terrain, and/or make heavy terrain battles terrain control based, rather than direct engagements between fleets (as it is now) that way not deploying would be pointless.
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Sy

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #7 on: November 28, 2015, 12:56:46 PM »

Damaging anything directly is questionable. Damaging armor might be fine, but hull is highly questionable. If it doesn't scale with unit health, or even remaining health, fighters would melt, or else it would only inconvinience fighters and nothing else would care.
some scaling would definitely be needed. i think if it scales based on flux capacity, most fighters or frigates shouldn't be at more danger than larger ships.

and i'd say different kinds of ships being affected by differing degrees would be a good thing, so long as the generally more powerful ships are the ones affected more, on average. if your Tempest can suddenly be threatened by a Hound, it could spice things up and create some unique challenges that you don't see in normal battles. fights inside such a storm don't happen all that often anyway, and the aggressor can always simply choose to leave or wait until the storm passes, if the risks are too great.

Direct damage is not good.  I deploy one disposable wimp, and let the AI over-deploy to counter it.  I lose one, they lose five or more.  I win by attrition.
that's a good point :/

hmm. i suppose CR reduction could have significant out-of-combat costs as well. but if it's too much, it's probably abusable in the same manner.

if it's EMP damage you'd get blasted first time your engines flamed out anyway.
in a proper fight, yes. player chasing down some poor freighters with minimal escort? probably not.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2015, 02:44:22 PM »

Hmm, I think the in-battle effects should more directly reflect the campaign terrain.

Since hyperspace storms make you very visible, in battle even the most blind rustbucket should be able to see the whole battlefield as everyone gets lit up by the storm. This could also happen in non-stormy deep hyperspace to a lesser degree.

Instead of a complicated and hard to balance damaging effect, I think the effect should be a flat increase to the rate peak time/CR decreases. This should hurt high-end ships more than low-end ships. Rather than apply it across the whole battlefield, however, I think it would be much more fun if it temporarily affected only parts of the battlefield and massively slowed down ships caught in it. The "glow then storm" effect used on the campaign map is excellent, and would allow both players and AI to avoid the effects intelligently, at least most of the time.

The areas of these localized storms could be as simple as clouds like in-battle nebula. Personally, I'm kind of fond of the idea of dynamically generated "bolts" splitting the battlefield – thin enough that skimmers could get past them in a jump or two, ships with burn drives or maneuvering jets could power through without much CR loss, and of course ships with teleporters could bypass them easily.
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Clockwork Owl

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2015, 01:48:10 AM »

Do note that the storm also lowers sensor strength...
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Sabaton

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2015, 02:59:46 AM »

A hull size based flat decrease in CR time and rate coupled with occasional spikes that increase flux and deal EMP sound like the best way to go.

Being lit up to every sensor on the battlefield also fits the theme.

I don't think it should be too avoidable though, sure being all over the battlefield is brutal but being too spread out is avoidable.
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Sy

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2015, 03:27:03 AM »

only reducing CR or peak performance is, iirc, already what fighting in a star's corona does, so there should be some kind of storm-y effect to differentiate hyperstorm battles.

I don't think it should be too avoidable though, sure being all over the battlefield is brutal but being too spread out is avoidable.
if it is too easily avoided, it also makes mobility even more important than it already is, which probably isn't a good thing. speed and maneuverability are already too important and powerful, at least for player ships.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Hyperspace Storms in Battle
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2015, 08:19:28 AM »

I don't think it should be too avoidable though, sure being all over the battlefield is brutal but being too spread out is avoidable.

Yeah, that's why I suggested the "bolts" AKA lines. They would create sort-of movement-blocking walls, dividing up the battlefield, which could easily change the dynamic of a fight.
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