To begin, this suggestion builds off of the previous suggestion I made (essentially, all damage is real voxel or fracture so it is visible and not dependent on the size of the object). It may however work with the current damage system.
Problem:
Currently, explosions in the game, from the smaller ones caused by batteries to the larger generators explosions, are absolute in their destruction. The explosion causes a spherical area around the exploding object to be deleted. It doesn't matter how much armor is around the explosion, the explosion will destroy anything inside its sphere. See fig. 1 for example of how much damage a single generator explosion is on a normal ship:
Figure 1. A normal, non-combat ship before and after a single generator exploded inside it.
Because explosions are so powerful, it means that there is no way of defending against them besides avoiding them through lots of armor to reduce the possibility of taking damage from enemies or through placing explosive parts of the ship far enough apart from each other that they do not cause chain explosions that destroy the entire ship.
Having gig, satisfying explosions to mark the defeat of an enemy is great, but in this universe with so much of the damage being physicalized, a "delete sphere" feels out of place.
Proposed Solution:
Make explosions produce damaging fragmentation. This fragmentation comes in two forms: a high damage, medium range, voxel damage type and a very high damage, short range fracture damage type. Together, these two damage types can simulate the effects of the long range fragmentation effects of an explosion and the short range concussive effects.
Let's take for example a normal rocket hitting a medium sized fighter. The rocket has a thin metal shell but lots of explosive filler. When the rocket explodes, the object is destroyed and shows the normal effects but along side that is an expanding sphere of "bullets" that are of either the fracture or voxel damage variety. Since the rocket doesn't have very much material, and more explosive, the damaging fragments will mostly be of the short range fracture damage kind. The fracture fragments punch through the outer plating and destroy beams and devices inside the hull. A few pieces of the voxel damage fragments pepper small holes into the other parts of the ship that are visible to the explosion.
Now we can imagine another kind of rocket that is intended for flak purposes. It misses the target and all the fracture damage fragments disappear before they hit anything since they have such a short range. However, this rocket has many voxel damage fragments that are dispersed and the fighter takes many hits to it all over as though someone was shooting it with a small machine gun. The ship is mostly fine, but any patches of light armor have been penetrated and the components inside at risk for more damage. See fig. 2 for some clarification on the differences between these two explosions, notice the different lengths and quantities of the fragment dispersion.
Figure 2. A rocket exploding in an HE and Flak type explosion. Different fragmentation effects result from each.
The balance of these two fragment types' ranges, damage, dispersion pattern (think HEAT warheads vs. normal HE), and ratio of voxel to fracture damage could lead to many types of explosive weapons and consequent defenses against them.
Positive Implications:
Negative Implications:
Conclusion
Although there are risks of this being abused to create ships very difficult to destroy, that is not a problem we are without now even under the current explosion system. By making explosions more physicalized, we gin access to interesting explosion types and are given some tools to help defend against explosive weapons which are the most devastating in the game*.
*If rockets weren't so buggy, they would be overpowered and able to one/two-shot even the biggest meta ships right now.
Problem:
Currently, explosions in the game, from the smaller ones caused by batteries to the larger generators explosions, are absolute in their destruction. The explosion causes a spherical area around the exploding object to be deleted. It doesn't matter how much armor is around the explosion, the explosion will destroy anything inside its sphere. See fig. 1 for example of how much damage a single generator explosion is on a normal ship:
Figure 1. A normal, non-combat ship before and after a single generator exploded inside it.
Because explosions are so powerful, it means that there is no way of defending against them besides avoiding them through lots of armor to reduce the possibility of taking damage from enemies or through placing explosive parts of the ship far enough apart from each other that they do not cause chain explosions that destroy the entire ship.
Having gig, satisfying explosions to mark the defeat of an enemy is great, but in this universe with so much of the damage being physicalized, a "delete sphere" feels out of place.
Proposed Solution:
Make explosions produce damaging fragmentation. This fragmentation comes in two forms: a high damage, medium range, voxel damage type and a very high damage, short range fracture damage type. Together, these two damage types can simulate the effects of the long range fragmentation effects of an explosion and the short range concussive effects.
Let's take for example a normal rocket hitting a medium sized fighter. The rocket has a thin metal shell but lots of explosive filler. When the rocket explodes, the object is destroyed and shows the normal effects but along side that is an expanding sphere of "bullets" that are of either the fracture or voxel damage variety. Since the rocket doesn't have very much material, and more explosive, the damaging fragments will mostly be of the short range fracture damage kind. The fracture fragments punch through the outer plating and destroy beams and devices inside the hull. A few pieces of the voxel damage fragments pepper small holes into the other parts of the ship that are visible to the explosion.
Now we can imagine another kind of rocket that is intended for flak purposes. It misses the target and all the fracture damage fragments disappear before they hit anything since they have such a short range. However, this rocket has many voxel damage fragments that are dispersed and the fighter takes many hits to it all over as though someone was shooting it with a small machine gun. The ship is mostly fine, but any patches of light armor have been penetrated and the components inside at risk for more damage. See fig. 2 for some clarification on the differences between these two explosions, notice the different lengths and quantities of the fragment dispersion.
Figure 2. A rocket exploding in an HE and Flak type explosion. Different fragmentation effects result from each.
The balance of these two fragment types' ranges, damage, dispersion pattern (think HEAT warheads vs. normal HE), and ratio of voxel to fracture damage could lead to many types of explosive weapons and consequent defenses against them.
Positive Implications:
- New explosive types like HEAT and Flak are possible
- Ships will be able to withstand explosions more easily if the fragments miss vital structure
- "Fire walls" can be built around explosive components to help reduce the spread or damage of internal explosions
- This will allow ships to be survivable while staying smaller, if parts can be more condensed while still safe, players will not have to make such large ships
- This may also help to increase the time-to-kill, making for more interesting combat
- Handheld rocket launchers will be able to be better balanced instead of having to choose between over powered and underpowered
- Enjoyable moments when players survive an explosion because fragments from an explosion just happened to miss anything vital inside the ship
Negative Implications:
- The unreliable nature of these explosions might turn some players off, even if the fragmentation pattern is fixed (not generated by RNG)
- Ships may become too powerful if their generators can be so well protected that every single one needs to be destroyed for the ship to become inoperable
- Unenjoyable moments when players land missile hits but do no serious damage due to the fragments not hitting anything vital
Conclusion
Although there are risks of this being abused to create ships very difficult to destroy, that is not a problem we are without now even under the current explosion system. By making explosions more physicalized, we gin access to interesting explosion types and are given some tools to help defend against explosive weapons which are the most devastating in the game*.
*If rockets weren't so buggy, they would be overpowered and able to one/two-shot even the biggest meta ships right now.