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[Brainbread]

From a discussion with my friend; he was complaining about frigates and fighters just chilling in the engine wake of his capital ship.

His suggestion and wish was for the wake to be something a bit more violent, something that you'd not want to bask in. What he came up with a small amount of Fragmentation and EMP damage (something that would have little to no actual effect on shields or the armour, but would wreak havoc on unshielded and unprotected ships).

It'd have to be scaled on ships for size and actual damage, and would only start actually showing up for larger ships (so nothing from a Frigate or a Destroyer, their engines would lack the sort of power that would damage ships).

But in any case, it'd stop frigates from sticking their noses into the engines of your Onslaught without their shields up. More fancy than anything else =P

[Thaago]

I really like this - it would have to be a very obvious effect though, so that it isn't too confusing for the player.

[PCCL]

gonna have to -1 on the ground that it's a mechanic that would require a potentially copious amount of AI programming

not a coding expert though so if that's not the case, +1 from me

[Cypher]

Id have to agree with gunnyfreak on that, sounds like too much programming for the payoff

[Upgradecap]

How would this be too much programming? All you need is an formula for the ai logic to make if stay away from the engines of a bigger ship.

[Alex]

I actually tried this very early on in development. Let's leave fighters aside, since they're conceptually flying "above" the battlefield, so wouldn't be affected.

Turns out in actual gameplay, this almost never comes up. (In large part that's because a ship firing its engines is moving away from whatever those engines might potentially hurt.)

But in any case, it'd stop frigates from sticking their noses into the engines of your Onslaught without their shields up. More fancy than anything else =P

Honestly, how many times have you seen that? If the frigate is in the Onslaught's wake (already pretty rare) and it doesn't have shields up, it's got other things to worry about.


Not that this isn't a cool idea - it is. Unfortunately, due to how the game works, the "bang for buck" ratio on it is approaching zero.

[Brainbread]

I actually tried this very early on in development. Let's leave fighters aside, since they're conceptually flying "above" the battlefield, so wouldn't be affected.

Turns out in actual gameplay, this almost never comes up. (In large part that's because a ship firing its engines is moving away from whatever those engines might potentially hurt.)

But in any case, it'd stop frigates from sticking their noses into the engines of your Onslaught without their shields up. More fancy than anything else =P

Honestly, how many times have you seen that? If the frigate is in the Onslaught's wake (already pretty rare) and it doesn't have shields up, it's got other things to worry about.


Not that this isn't a cool idea - it is. Unfortunately, due to how the game works, the "bang for buck" ratio on it is approaching zero.

That issue is mostly when I'm flying around as a Lasher loaded out with bomb bays. Makes sense though! The only time I can "really" say I can see any real effect of it, is with missiles. Especially after they've been weakened by PD. Depending on the damage output of the engines, I can see it killing off a missile or two that might have knocked out the engines entirely.

But then thats a balancing issue in itself.

Makes sense though! I'll keep hunting for UI stuff in the meantime!

[CrashToDesktop]

If it's hard to implement this, just use the code from being near a star in mission mode.  Does damage to your ship by just being there.

[Verrius]

Lol, it can't be THAT hard to implement, considering he already did. And then removed it.

Thing is, I'll agree that I've never really seen it happening where frigates sit IN the engines of my capital ships. It can be annoying when they sit behind my onslaught, but usually they're a decent range away, just... Being annoying.

[armoredcookie]

It would get Hounds off your tail for sure

[Reshy]

Why not?

[xanderh]

This makes me want to "hot dog" an enemy ship in an onslaught: put engines right in front of the enemy, and activate the burn drive.
If you give the burn drive quite a lot of damage when you're caught in the wake, it would balance the risk of disabling your engines. Not to mention it would be an awesome way to taunt an overloaded ship.