Hey ya’ll let’s have a discussion about the state of armor/plating in this game. For a day now I’ve been trying to come up with some fixes for the armor system and have thought of several suggestions. I’m really hoping for community feedback and to flesh these thoughts out or find new alternatives from you all. I may drop more suggestions. I will only bring up one each time though, to be able to give breathing room for conversation and focus on each suggestion. I am currently not in Alpha at the moment so a lot of this info is reading from the discord as well as trying to pick up information through the wiki. Feel free to correct me!
As it stands right now armor is fragile. Because of the overall fragility of plating, the current Meta in game are Small ships that are nimble. The Bigger ships should be imposing war machines that can sway the tide of battle by tanking damage, and providing support for their fleet and putting pressure on the enemy. In reality though they are more like sitting targets to simulate destruction since they neither have the mobility or defense capability to get outta dodge. This stems from what I believe is all plating acting similarly to damage ( A base pool of “100 health” that once drops to 0 then starts to take voxel damage.) This means that past the point of the plate’s total health it is essentially useless.
Finding a solution for the fragility to armor will give purpose to plating ships as well deepening many fronts of gameplay. Giving greater purpose to ship design, creating competition for player made creations in the market, and making the meta more diverse at all Ship sizes; with the end goal to make combat and all endeavors with ship making more skill based and rewarding for the players who understand their build.
Solution #1: “Flexibility”
Much like in the real world different materials are more or less flexible. Durability does not always mean it has to be heavy or dense. For example Trees can be dense, sturdy and strong, which prevents animals and objects from knocking them over for the most part, but in certain climates and circumstances regarding wind, constant gale forces can topple trees. In these environments trees have evolved in order to survive conditions by being more flexible in structure by shedding leaves and having less thick branches or allowing the branches to be torn off by the forces, which frees up weight and allows the tree to withstand more. This same principle is somewhat applied to skyscrapers where buildings have a level of “sway” built into them to deal with high winds so that it doesn’t snap.
This same principle could be used in Starbases’ plating system. By adding the effect of flexibility to each plating material. Plates would act like this; So as of right now once a plate hits 0 it begins to take voxel damage. This would still be true under the current plate system, except for, when a plate is broken the flexibility status would activate. Under this status when a plate reaches 0 and voxel damage begins, each time a small chunk falls off a small bit of health will be given back to the whole plate, taking it out of it’s “broken” status and allowing for it to absorb some hits before being broken again. We can take this mechanic one step further and implement it around the beams so that plates near the beams absorb a little more damage than those that aren’t. As this would simulate the spread of impact throughout the beams and not the entirety of a single plate.
Overall I think this could add some layers to several components of the game. Cheap less dense materials could be more flexible and lighter for speed but have smaller HP pools while denser materials would slow down a ship and need more beams to hold up the structure which would give each plate a higher hp pool and would need relatively less plating to get the job done.
Pros
- This system could really force people to think about the foundational structure of their ship so they can maximize their defense, or risk having less beams for the sake of being more nimble but becoming a glass cannon. For bigger ships, less stacking of plating could mean it saves on material cost as well as overall currency cost and in battle could pose more of a solid threat.
Cons
- A new system like this would need a visual audio cue for when you are striking a more or less flexible material, either that or just make the existing sound effects more defined and people will learn over time what they are striking and how to play against it or with it.
- Another issue is that there is an oversight I'm not seeing and that this design could actually buff the smaller ships. Especially since larger ships would be more likely to run the less flexible materials and this would ultimately lead us back to square one.
Do let me know what you think! I definitely want to hash this out and try and find some kind of solution cuz its killing me.
As it stands right now armor is fragile. Because of the overall fragility of plating, the current Meta in game are Small ships that are nimble. The Bigger ships should be imposing war machines that can sway the tide of battle by tanking damage, and providing support for their fleet and putting pressure on the enemy. In reality though they are more like sitting targets to simulate destruction since they neither have the mobility or defense capability to get outta dodge. This stems from what I believe is all plating acting similarly to damage ( A base pool of “100 health” that once drops to 0 then starts to take voxel damage.) This means that past the point of the plate’s total health it is essentially useless.
Finding a solution for the fragility to armor will give purpose to plating ships as well deepening many fronts of gameplay. Giving greater purpose to ship design, creating competition for player made creations in the market, and making the meta more diverse at all Ship sizes; with the end goal to make combat and all endeavors with ship making more skill based and rewarding for the players who understand their build.
Solution #1: “Flexibility”
Much like in the real world different materials are more or less flexible. Durability does not always mean it has to be heavy or dense. For example Trees can be dense, sturdy and strong, which prevents animals and objects from knocking them over for the most part, but in certain climates and circumstances regarding wind, constant gale forces can topple trees. In these environments trees have evolved in order to survive conditions by being more flexible in structure by shedding leaves and having less thick branches or allowing the branches to be torn off by the forces, which frees up weight and allows the tree to withstand more. This same principle is somewhat applied to skyscrapers where buildings have a level of “sway” built into them to deal with high winds so that it doesn’t snap.
This same principle could be used in Starbases’ plating system. By adding the effect of flexibility to each plating material. Plates would act like this; So as of right now once a plate hits 0 it begins to take voxel damage. This would still be true under the current plate system, except for, when a plate is broken the flexibility status would activate. Under this status when a plate reaches 0 and voxel damage begins, each time a small chunk falls off a small bit of health will be given back to the whole plate, taking it out of it’s “broken” status and allowing for it to absorb some hits before being broken again. We can take this mechanic one step further and implement it around the beams so that plates near the beams absorb a little more damage than those that aren’t. As this would simulate the spread of impact throughout the beams and not the entirety of a single plate.
Overall I think this could add some layers to several components of the game. Cheap less dense materials could be more flexible and lighter for speed but have smaller HP pools while denser materials would slow down a ship and need more beams to hold up the structure which would give each plate a higher hp pool and would need relatively less plating to get the job done.
Pros
- This system could really force people to think about the foundational structure of their ship so they can maximize their defense, or risk having less beams for the sake of being more nimble but becoming a glass cannon. For bigger ships, less stacking of plating could mean it saves on material cost as well as overall currency cost and in battle could pose more of a solid threat.
Cons
- A new system like this would need a visual audio cue for when you are striking a more or less flexible material, either that or just make the existing sound effects more defined and people will learn over time what they are striking and how to play against it or with it.
- Another issue is that there is an oversight I'm not seeing and that this design could actually buff the smaller ships. Especially since larger ships would be more likely to run the less flexible materials and this would ultimately lead us back to square one.
Do let me know what you think! I definitely want to hash this out and try and find some kind of solution cuz its killing me.
