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Engine Damage

#1
I have an idea for engine damage if the engine of a ship is destroyed or damaged irreparably because of the environment or due to an attack, it should work at 1/4 capacity (400 m/s top speed for a certain fighter engine down to 100 m/s) and will have smoke and fire pouring out (too much realism is boring) the back and the same applies to more than one engine. the victim can limp away to a carrier or station with a shipyard dock and replace the engine (the destroyed engine is obviously worthless but can be salvaged for 70% resources). this should solve the problem of debating on whether to tow the ship or some other solution and hopefully provide a real solution to the implementation of engine damage.

For the aesthetics of engine damage if a player puts max power on the destroyed engine there should be a lot of smoke and fire coming from the overexerted engine (because well its Destroyed), but if they have 50% power there should be some smoke and a little fire coming from that engine (s) engine damage could also give an advantage to pirates who are looking for potential prey.

Edit: if a system or part that has been destroyed (engine, turret) it can repair itself it should repair up to 10% and work at a fraction of its capacity maybe 1/4 or 1/8 FOREVER and be marked irreparable therefore you must replace that part but you have the option to salvage the part for 70% resources.

if an engine is destroyed twice or multiple times it should function at 1/10 and can repair only to 5% for the time you have it.

(In my opinion, it would be senseless to make a part fully functional and repairable if it has hit 0 out of 100 or 1000 health that makes it too easy and even boring to some people. but of course, there could be an on/off in the options menu to allow the full repair of parts that have hit ZERO).
Last edited by jonathanredden on Sun Jul 29, 2018 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Engine Damage

#2
jonathanredden wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:01 pm
I have an idea for engine damage if the engine of a ship is destroyed or damaged irreparably because of the environment or due to an attack, it should work at 1/4 capacity (400 m/s top speed for a certain fighter engine down to 100 m/s) and will have smoke and fire pouring out (too much realism is boring) the back and the same applies to more than one engine. the victim can limp away to a carrier or station with a shipyard dock and replace the engine (the destroyed engine is obviously worthless but can be salvaged for 70% resources). this should solve the problem of debating on whether to tow the ship or some other solution and hopefully provide a real solution to the implementation of engine damage.

For the aesthetics of engine damage if a player puts max power on the destroyed engine there should be a lot of smoke and fire coming from the overexerted engine (because well its Destroyed), but if they have 50% power there should be some smoke and a little fire coming from that engine (s) engine damage could also give an advantage to pirates who are looking for potential prey.
What space games have you played? Why did you choose 1/4 of max speed as the point at which a destroyed engine should function entirely? Why not 1/8 or 1/16 of the max speed? Why not come to a dead stop and let "nanobots" repair your engines for free? Or what about just losing directional control as opposed to speed?
Last edited by BFett on Sat Jul 28, 2018 11:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Engine Damage

#3
jonathanredden wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:01 pm
I have an idea for engine damage if the engine of a ship is destroyed or damaged irreparably because of the environment or due to an attack, it should work at 1/4 capacity (400 m/s top speed for a certain fighter engine down to 100 m/s) and will have smoke and fire pouring out (too much realism is boring) the back and the same applies to more than one engine. the victim can limp away to a carrier or station with a shipyard dock and replace the engine (the destroyed engine is obviously worthless but can be salvaged for 70% resources). this should solve the problem of debating on whether to tow the ship or some other solution and hopefully provide a real solution to the implementation of engine damage.

For the aesthetics of engine damage if a player puts max power on the destroyed engine there should be a lot of smoke and fire coming from the overexerted engine (because well its Destroyed), but if they have 50% power there should be some smoke and a little fire coming from that engine (s) engine damage could also give an advantage to pirates who are looking for potential prey.

There is nothing at all wrong with any part of this suggestion.

Sure, we could debate how the numbers should be tweaked, but is that really the most important thing?

Letting players limp back to someplace that can fix the engine or replace it, or set them up with a replacement basic ship if they're broke (because players have to be able to fly something) is a perfectly reasonable suggestion. The other parts are chrome, but they're nice chrome -- I particularly like the part that a flamed-out engine should light up sensors like a beacon for that added sense of urgency. :twisted:

I look forward to the day when this forum once again sees lots of suggestions not unlike this one.
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Re: Engine Damage

#4
The most important thing is determining how the game mechanics should function in order to maximize fun. I just gave some examples of what can happen when a ship is critically damaged in X-Wing Alliance, which is the closest thing I know of which pairs a fun mixture of arcade and simulation game mechanics together.
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Re: Engine Damage

#5
The major issue I have with this is from experience with X3.

In X3 the more hull damage you take, the slower your max speed. Of course unregulated scaling rather than a flat decrease (1/4 being flat, inverse hull percentage being unregulated scaling) is more severe but regardless:

This causes an issue with ships not actually being able to make it anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. I've posted before about how I don't like 'long' couple minute travel times but this could potentially make repairing a slow ship's engines take hours of travel. Getting severely damage ships to dock in X3 is a major pain in the ass because they have to slow boat it at a fraction of their max speed to the nearest of your docks.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Engine Damage

#6
In X-wing Alliance when a ship is heavily damaged there is a chance for a system to fail, These failures are temporary and have timers on them before they are fully restored. So, for example a ship could lose directional control after sustaining heavy damage and the pilot would have to wait 15-30 seconds while the system repairs itself. It is possible for multiple systems to be taken off line at the same time, and in that case the pilot can priorities which systems get worked on first. I would let systems auto repair in this way in Limit Theory, and if a ship needs repairs to hull or armor, or to be resupplied with munitions then it would need to go to a dock to have these done.
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Re: Engine Damage

#8
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 1:13 pm
I'll just leave this here.

TL;DR:
Dont allow engines to be completely disabled, but strike them with a lot of more or less impairing effects when damaged.
Speed reductions, flameouts, whatever.
I like this.
Status effects applied via chance are potentially really interesting, and also can be made to not heavily impact travel (Where they become more of a tedious inconvenience than a gameplay mechanic).

For example you could have a partial flameout causing your ship's thrust to be lopsided and knock you off course. Inside battle this could cause you to lose the ship completely but during travel it would be easy to correct and much less annoying than being stuck moving like a snail.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Engine Damage

#9
Black--Snow wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 9:44 pm
I like this.
Status effects applied via chance are potentially really interesting, and also can be made to not heavily impact travel (Where they become more of a tedious inconvenience than a gameplay mechanic).

For example you could have a partial flameout causing your ship's thrust to be lopsided and knock you off course. Inside battle this could cause you to lose the ship completely but during travel it would be easy to correct and much less annoying than being stuck moving like a snail.
But its supposed to be impairing under all conditions.

After all, if its only inconvenient to have a shot up engine why would a freighter pilot ever choose to repair it?
It doesnt impair eir ability to do eir job, so why spend monies on it?

Or if you manage to seriously damage some ship's engines, should they still be as capable of keeping away from you if they manage to escape after the first attack?
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Re: Engine Damage

#10
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 1:12 am
Black--Snow wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 9:44 pm
I like this.
Status effects applied via chance are potentially really interesting, and also can be made to not heavily impact travel (Where they become more of a tedious inconvenience than a gameplay mechanic).

For example you could have a partial flameout causing your ship's thrust to be lopsided and knock you off course. Inside battle this could cause you to lose the ship completely but during travel it would be easy to correct and much less annoying than being stuck moving like a snail.
But its supposed to be impairing under all conditions.

After all, if its only inconvenient to have a shot up engine why would a freighter pilot ever choose to repair it?
It doesnt impair eir ability to do eir job, so why spend monies on it?

Or if you manage to seriously damage some ship's engines, should they still be as capable of keeping away from you if they manage to escape after the first attack?
It should be annoying enough to repair, and debilitating enough to make you an easy target to chase for an equivalent ship. What I don't think it should do is make travel that would normally take 2 minutes take 10-20 instead.

If you literally just don't slow down the ship's max speed it should accomplish that last one. Flameouts / loss of maneuvering / random spinning are all viable effects that aren't directly speed related.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Engine Damage

#11
I'm a fan of natural consequences in games. If you lose an engine, the consequences of this should follow directly. If you have multiple engines, you'll have a loss of thrust (which, with space-drag, means a lower top speed) and possibly a torque due to unbalanced thrust. If you have only one engine, I'd expect you to be nearly immobilized (presumably you still have RCS), which means you'd need to repair the engine before you could move.
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Re: Engine Damage

#12
Well this should probably be moved to the suggestions board, but otherwise I like the idea, at least the basics of it.

I'm not so keen on the 1/4 speed bit, that seems a bit arbitrary, however having much reduced speed and difficulty steering when an engine is damaged would be a fun mechanic. I disagree with Cornflakes on the notion that engines should never be completely disabled... if your engine wasn't just damaged but destroyed, you better either have a backup, an onboard nanite-repair module, or a distress beacon. Consequences should matter, and if you don't have a fallback, you should in fact be screwed. Would being stuck in the middle of nowhere, waiting for someone to pick up your distress signal and come to rescue you be fun? Probably not, but it shouldn't be fun, it SHOULD be an annoying pain in the ass; You're being punished for your lack of foresight. If you're stuck and don't feel like waiting, reload your last save and hope you learned your lesson.
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Re: Engine Damage

#13
Hyperion wrote:
Tue Jul 31, 2018 7:27 pm
Well this should probably be moved to the suggestions board, but otherwise I like the idea, at least the basics of it.

I'm not so keen on the 1/4 speed bit, that seems a bit arbitrary, however having much reduced speed and difficulty steering when an engine is damaged would be a fun mechanic. I disagree with Cornflakes on the notion that engines should never be completely disabled... if your engine wasn't just damaged but destroyed, you better either have a backup, an onboard nanite-repair module, or a distress beacon. Consequences should matter, and if you don't have a fallback, you should in fact be screwed. Would being stuck in the middle of nowhere, waiting for someone to pick up your distress signal and come to rescue you be fun? Probably not, but it shouldn't be fun, it SHOULD be an annoying pain in the ass; You're being punished for your lack of foresight. If you're stuck and don't feel like waiting, reload your last save and hope you learned your lesson.
I would agree with reduced acceleration, but I don't think max speed should be affected again for the reasons I mentioned.

I also don't like the destroyed engines with no *default* way to repair them on board. There should be damage control on all ships, you shouldn't be forced to remember to bring items that should be on board permanently.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Engine Damage

#14
Black--Snow wrote:
Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:29 pm

I also don't like the destroyed engines with no *default* way to repair them on board. There should be damage control on all ships, you shouldn't be forced to remember to bring items that should be on board permanently.
So what are the items that should come default and permanently on all ships in LT? Can these systems be damaged, disabled, or destroyed? If so, for how long?

In my limited space game experience, system failures generally last no more than a minute and a half before they are completely restored. Should this be the case in Limit Theory?
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Re: Engine Damage

#15
BFett wrote:
Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:07 pm
Black--Snow wrote:
Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:29 pm

I also don't like the destroyed engines with no *default* way to repair them on board. There should be damage control on all ships, you shouldn't be forced to remember to bring items that should be on board permanently.
So what are the items that should come default and permanently on all ships in LT? Can these systems be damaged, disabled, or destroyed? If so, for how long?

In my limited space game experience, system failures generally last no more than a minute and a half before they are completely restored. Should this be the case in Limit Theory?
A damage control system. Functionally identical no matter what the 'explanation' is. If ships are multi-crewed, it could be the engineering team doing damage control. Or it could be some kind of limited repair nanites than do it.

I reckon a minute is definitely long enough to balance between *Oh shit* in a fight and *Oh my god this is boring* when the fight's over (If your engines are knocked out as your enemy dies for example).
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)

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