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Author Topic: The one combat mechanic I can't stand  (Read 7683 times)

Gothars

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The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« on: March 07, 2014, 11:09:10 AM »

For the most part Sector's combat system is marvelous, there is almost nothing fundamental I'd want to change, with one exception:

The shockwave from the destruction of a ship. This is the single greatest source of frustration in this game for me.
It is:
- often instantly deadly, without a chance to react. This is a game, it's all about reacting to things, isn't it?
- extremely hard to judge in its range since its invisible, varies with the destroyed ship and (visually) varies with zoom level.
- not understood by AI allies, which will destroy a target regardless of your proximity
- tends to happen most towards the end of a battle, when you have the most to lose by being hit

I suppose it's meant to discourage the use of strike weapons from point blank range (or facehug tactics in general), but it brought my game to an unexpected halt countless times in situations completely unrelated to that. When you use short ranged weapons the difference between your engagement range and your targets explosion radius can be a hairbreadth. Going after a fleeing enemy as fast as you can? Boom, dead. Your target gets knocked towards you by another ship? Boom, dead. Or just misjudging the distance by a few pixels? Boom, dead.  As a remedy the shockwave's side effects are far too strong. 


Some ideas how to alter it:
- The simplest (but imo not enough): change the damage type to kinetic, so shields get overloaded easily but you don't die quiet as often.
- Change the damage into shield-penetrating EMP damage/ knock back.
- Make the actual impacts of strike weapon hits generate shockwaves but reduce the strength of the final explosion. Would actually promote the anti-hug effect.
- A time delay. Possibly in combination with something else. I would not even mind a larger effect radius if I could just react in any way.

My ideal solution, both for gameplay and visuals, would probably be a number of secondary explosions with individual EMP damage shockwaves, culminating in one big explosion with knockback after a short delay.


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ArkAngel

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2014, 11:45:45 AM »

My ideal solution, both for gameplay and visuals, would probably be a number of secondary explosions with individual EMP damage shockwaves, culminating in one big explosion with knockback after a short delay.
I quite like the EMP wave idea.  I really haven't had this problem though, probably because I tend to avoid closer range combat, but I can imagine how it can have a lot of draw backs. However, whats the point of adding a knockback to the explosion other then the added effect of watching frigates spaz out from the knockback of larger ships?
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Megas

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2014, 11:55:02 AM »

AI needs to learn to hold fire if an ally is within the kill radius of a nearly-dead enemy and can neither defend nor escape it (due to shield overload).  Similarly, AI should not force its way into explosion range of an enemy that is about to die.

Otherwise, my only gripe about the explosions is they are merely wimpy fireballs masked by a possible whiteout.  I like to see shockwaves and a shower of ship pieces and particles, in addition to the current effects.
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xenoargh

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2014, 12:10:06 PM »

I don't really get the frustration on this.  Unless you're facehugging, it rarely is a big issue, because the radii are quite small.  I can see the issue with the AI being a bit hapless, in terms of being too close to a dying foe, but that's a hard judgement call and difficult to fix, AI-wise.

Probably the easiest way to resolve it would be to make transition from Ship to Hulk happen on a timer, with a sound effect and special effects and a flag that AIs could read. 

But if that's in there, I'd want the explosions to be consistently more beefy, personally.  I've already made the explosions in Vacuum quite a bit more dangerous; I like that it's a factor that can chain-kill ships and will sometimes cost players a ship; I think that's definitely a feature.
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Gothars

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2014, 12:15:07 PM »

Mh, maybe it is specific to my playstile. It happens most often with Blackrock ships.
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Sundog

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2014, 01:51:06 PM »

It's not so common for me either. I feel like AI improvements from recent patches have improved it a lot. However, it IS annoying to lose ships that way, and I like your suggestions for improving it.

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2014, 02:15:11 PM »

Well, there's oxygen, space, and an enclosed area in the ship itself for an explosion to happen -lots of fire, gibs, and hunks of ship flying at moch-speeds to crash into yours.

Nonetheless, I think that multiple, smaller explosions (purely visual IMO) for the time delay followed by the larger explosion would be a good idea.  You've a small chance to escape before your ship gets mauled.

But, face-hugging right now is still a terrible, terrible idea.  When that ship explodes and you're at high flux and have shields up, that damage stacks in the overload flux-venting time.  I've run into a 14-second overload when I shoved my destroyer into the end of an Eagle when it exploded.  And that leaves a lot of time for the AI to shove as much firepower into armor of your ship.
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Silver Silence

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2014, 07:47:51 PM »


- A time delay. Possibly in combination with something else. I would not even mind a larger effect radius if I could just react in any way.

My ideal solution, both for gameplay and visuals, would probably be a number of secondary explosions with individual EMP damage shockwaves, culminating in one big explosion with knockback after a short delay.


This would be my preferred method. I would be totally fine with much larger explosions in bigger ships if this was the case. I, too, have lost several frigates that have had their shields lowered while shooting a crippled enemy ship that's doing the "Fugg it, I give up" venting and being so close they can smell the toasted peoples on board.

Has anyone here played Halo? If you have played Halo for any length of time, you might know what I mean when I say that I'd like to see ships "flip out" like Covenant vehicles do. For those who have not played Halo, Covenant vehicles would "flip out" when destroyed (I don't know if there's a term for it, that's just what I call it), for example a Ghost would lose parts of it's wings when "destroyed". A second or two later, presumably as the anti-grav technology melts down, the Ghost would lift into the air by itself and throw itself around a little, accompanied by the whine of the engines rapidly increasing in pitch until a second explosion completely destroys the machine, often rendering it in half.

To translate into Starsector, the killing blow should create a small explosion (similar to that of a frigate, but scaled appropriately to the ship's size), after which EM arcs dance across the hull with increasing regularity until a second explosion rips through the hull. This second one is the dangerous one that whites out the screen and causes heavy damage to ships in proximity. The size (preferably pixel size and not class, as some mod ships get pretty fricking big) should be a controlling factor in the delay between the first disabling explosion and the second damaging one, with the bigger the ship meaning the ship takes longer to reach critical failure. Perhaps visual cues such as the EM arcs reaching out to the maximum distance of the explosion.

Then again.... How would you ever explain a ship and a ship's crew surviving BOTH explosions? :P
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firstattak1

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2014, 07:56:29 PM »

It happens, although not all the time, to me, but ussually i never die and just deal with it, but to elaberate on your idea, why not add an implosion effect that shows the radius of the much larger explosion ahead, like the power/flux core melting down or becoming unstable with loss of power.

@Silver_Silence: That would also work, and be extreally cool! I always loved it when the ghosts fliped out :D
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LazyWizard

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2014, 07:58:29 PM »

I like Silver Silence's idea of a small explosion on death followed by a full explosion after a delay. That seems like it'd solve the problem and be entertaining to watch. :)

Then again.... How would you ever explain a ship and a ship's crew surviving BOTH explosions? :P

Maybe the first explosion killed the crew that didn't make it, and the survivors are the ones who managed to make it to escape pods in the short time before the reactor blew?

As for a destroyed ship occasionally being salvageable, there's precedent for that...
« Last Edit: March 07, 2014, 08:00:57 PM by LazyWizard »
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2014, 09:48:11 PM »

I too hate this mechanic, but for a different reason: that damn "white screen" stuff that happens, especially after killing some of the larger ships... To me, this is just a lazy cover up of the sub par explosion and I think Silver Silence's idea rocks
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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2014, 10:39:02 PM »

Mh, maybe it is specific to my playstile. It happens most often with Blackrock ships.
This it constantly happens to the faster ships such as the desinova and the nevermore. It seems to me the AI uses the Man Jets too often and can't get away in time. I kinda leaning to changing the damage from straight explosion to emp+kinetic. It would still give the feeling of a temporary crippling effect and at the same time not punish the player as much as it really discourages attacking ships like the atlas as they are so big and easy but yet dangerous if too close when they die.
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Thaago

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2014, 12:22:44 AM »

To follow up on Silver Silence's idea: what if it didn't happen every time? A small explosion yes, but if you see those extra arcs on the ship, watch out! I think it would far more exciting for the player to suddenly think "Oh ****!!!" and try to book it away than to have to constantly deal with it.
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Cycerin

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2014, 06:34:21 AM »

One short shockwave that knocks things slightly away, followed by a larger explosion after a time delay, with this delay based on hull size (longer for bigger ships) could be pretty cool.
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Vind

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Re: The one combat mechanic I can't stand
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2014, 07:27:18 AM »

But the real cause of this is poor AI not explosion. For some reason AI loves to circle targets at 15-30% own weapons range occasionally ramming all around including other enemy ships. In other words - once amount of proximity ships goes from two to say four - AI begin to struggle with navigation.
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