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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Additional variables for explosion size  (Read 3083 times)

Jazwana

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Additional variables for explosion size
« on: July 18, 2013, 05:25:31 PM »

So this is something that's been bugging me for a little while.  Every time I take out a Dram I expect a massive explosion as those lovely fuel tanks are breached.  Sadly, all I see is the standard tiny frigate sized explosion :(

My suggestion:  Make explosion size dependent on a few more variables in addition to ship size.  My list would include:
-current fuel
-current supplies (i.e. ammo)

Some other ideas I'm not wedded to but could be fun:
-armor (more armor = smaller explosion as it would be contained, this would add to the 'pop' of civilian vessels)
-flux capacity (more flux = more boom)
-burn speed (more engines = more boom???)

There should be some probability function to modify the original explosion size for each of these, so sometimes you get a big boom, sometimes the normal or smaller.
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Gotcha!

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2013, 05:54:35 PM »

Future fuel cannisters are entirely explosion proof!
Want proof? You can pick them up after the battle. ;D
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Jazwana

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2013, 05:58:59 PM »

I always assume that while some fuel doesn't burn, the majority does :)
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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2013, 06:18:33 PM »

There's also the lack of oxygen. You can blow up a tanker, but maybe space would prohibit the burning/exploding of the fuel?
*shrug*
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2013, 06:41:26 PM »

Alex said that the player nor the enemy is supposed to know what cargo is in what ship - otherwise if you've got a Tarsus and the enemy destroys that, POOF there goes all your supplies. :P Same goes for Fuel.
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Thaago

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2013, 07:33:56 PM »

I like this - you could also make suicide drones. They fly around the enemy spamming laser fire, and when taken out have a huge explosion that again damages the enemy (or you... dun dun duuuuun).
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Jazwana

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2013, 08:20:42 PM »

Alex said that the player nor the enemy is supposed to know what cargo is in what ship - otherwise if you've got a Tarsus and the enemy destroys that, POOF there goes all your supplies. :P Same goes for Fuel.

Well, using all these variables would be fancy and would mean seeing into a fleet's inventory, but I guess one hacky way to do it is just code fuel tanker ships to explode larger than their ship size.  At the end of the day, my main complaint is that a small explosion from a fuel tanker ship seems immersion-breaking for me.
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Histidine

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2013, 12:06:59 AM »

Well, it depends on what the fuel is actually made of. Simple chemical fuels could go up quite spectacularly if the oxidizer and fuel are close enough together, or in the case of monopropellant (no oxidizer required) fuels. But there's no way the Starsector fuel is a chemical one of the sort we know, that's for primitive barbarians who can barely escape their own gravity well.

Fission and fusion fuels require specific conditions to undergo their respective nuclear reactions, and aren't going to spontaneously go boom just from being shot. Antimatter, on the other hand...

So, the question is: How does that infernium stuff behave?
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GUNINANRUNIN

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #8 on: July 27, 2013, 03:48:53 PM »

Bigger explosions are always nice. I always dreamed of the ships having a chance to go critical a la Mechwarrior.

Hull smacks zero. Instead of going up right away the ship crackles with energy and then FWOOM!! Extra big explosion that wipes out stuff real close to it and tosses everyone back a bit. Utterly no chance of seeing that here, but its always good to have dreams.
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PCCL

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2013, 08:48:40 PM »

Quote
Utterly no chance of seeing that here

don't speak too soon, if you make a plugin that triggers when a ship's health hits 0 that can do the following:

1) give the ship one health
2) disable its engines and weapons
3) make it invulnerable
4) start a countdown of x frames
5) play some energy crackling effects
6) turn health to 0 at end of countdown
7) cull all targets in the area, take their mass and vector to the ship, and change their velocity depending on that


all of these are possible afaik. I do love better explosion effects though, maybe I'll whip something up at some point, likely not until 0.6 though
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GUNINANRUNIN

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #10 on: July 28, 2013, 02:46:50 AM »

Heh. I'm no good at that sort of thing. I can't even sprite let alone code.
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FasterThanSleepyfish

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Re: Additional variables for explosion size
« Reply #11 on: July 28, 2013, 08:24:38 AM »

Well, I remember somewhere thet Alex said explosion strength is based of the ships max flux capacity.

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