[Scuddie]

Hey guys...  Been a while.  OK, here's the deal...  I dont like the situation where ships have hitpoints, and the blow up if, and only if, hitpoints are below 0.  My idea is to remove this and have a threshold value of how much damage is taken before it is considered dead by the game.  For example, if a Fenris takes a hit from a (forgot the name of FS2 equivelant Phoenx V) torpedo, and it falls under the threshold, the fenris is dead.  However, this doesnt mean it's destroyed.  The ship can just be adrift in space, floating a random direction with no active subsystems.  On the other hand, if it's hit with a BFRed, it is destroyed.  Do you get my drift?  No?  Awww...  I never can explain anything correctly .  OK, let me try a different example.

An Orion is hit until it reaches 5% hull, and it's not dead yet.  Suddenly a wave of bombers come in and demolish the hell out of it with a barrage of torpedos, normally only causing an additional 3% of damage, but it's just enough to push it over the line.  The Orion is now adrift, and cant do a thing, further low damage attacks would do nothing to it.  You can fire your HL-7 at it all day long and it wouldnt blow.  But it might be destroyed if hit with a BGreen or several Helioses at once.  Another Orion on the other edge of the system is at full health until a sathanis hits it with all four BFReds and it reaches maybe 10% hull, but it'd be destroyed before that occurs.

Ofcourse, for compatibilitys sake, it should be a FRED option, as to preserve the main campaign.  I also believe fighters shouldnt have this attribute, as they are fragile things anyway.

Anyway, with that said, I believe it would add atmosphere to the game, and it'd save of time by clicking a simple mission flag instead of doing countless hours of SEXP manipulation that probably wont work right anyway.  What do you guys think?

[Tiara]

*points towards "Disable my target order"*



That disables your target without destroying it. However, if a BFred tries to disable it it goes BOOM!.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Tiara
However, if a BFred tries to disable it it goes BOOM!.

[color=66ff00]Is that not a conflict of terms, BFred and disable should not be used in the same sentence.
[/color]

[Scuddie]

Ummm, is it just me, or did my idea go completely over everyones head?

[Liberator]

Didn't go over my head.  But I have to point out:

If a player-piloted bomber can kill a destroyer, but can't destroy it, in a large battle framerates will tank.

I also point out that when a ship reaches 0% hull strength left it means that the ship has absorbed more energy than it's hull can withstand and the onboard heat/energy sinks can absorbs so the ship sufferers a catastrophic hull failure.  The rippling explosions are indicative of the heat/energy sinks/stores releasing their pent up energy all at once.  The shockwave(s) come from the main reactors, which are probably based on some kind of fusion.

[Scuddie]

Originally posted by Liberator
If a player-piloted bomber can kill a destroyer, but can't destroy it, in a large battle framerates will tank.

Well, this may be a problem, but in BoE type missions, it would actually be beneficial if the ships didnt blow when they died.  When a ship explodes, it takes a HUGE resource to pull it off.  On slower systems, it may crash if more than one mid-sized capital ships explode at once.  Take it from me, I know .

I also point out that when a ship reaches 0% hull strength left it means that the ship has absorbed more energy than it's hull can withstand and the onboard heat/energy sinks can absorbs so the ship sufferers a catastrophic hull failure.  The rippling explosions are indicative of the heat/energy sinks/stores releasing their pent up energy all at once.  The shockwave(s) come from the main reactors, which are probably based on some kind of fusion. [/B]

Well, this is where my idea comes from.  I know very little about metal fatigue, but I do know that on the physical aspect, the heavier load is received, the more stress it takes, in addition to damage.  You drop a whole bunch of marbles on a car hood over the matter of some five seconds, nothing is likely to happen, except maybe a few paint chips.  On the other hand, if you drop a boulder on the hood that weighs the same as the marbles, it might make a pretty nice dent.  Thats why I say four BFReds on an Orion should make it blow before it drops below 10%, and a bunch of HL-7 shots would do very little to it after a while, unless they are concentrated.  I know nothing about the interior of the ships, but I know that if the hull fails the vacuum of space would kill everyone, thus rendering the ship "Dead".  If something like a generator was hit, the ship would obviously blow.  Truth is, I'd like the whole effect to be luck of the draw, and if something like an orion would be hit with a volley of trebuchets (Yay!  I remembered ), it might explode, it might not.  Something like two helioses would have a much better chance of making it go boom, and the contrary a few furys would have much less of a chance.  Once again, I don't know the internals of a capital ship, but if the colossus could handle that one mission where the heat sinks were stressed beyond capacity, I figure they have some tolerance to internal explosions.

[Sandwich]

*likes idea*

[NecroBob]

I second that, also thinking about something with ship atmosphere....

with a set of SEXPs, think it would be possible to render certain parts of the ship "dead" if the whole thing isn't dead and still has some life left in it?

(not taking into account physical locations of damage)
like....say.......if it were below 12%, the engines and some other stuff would blow out and leave a massive shooting sitting duck? or if it got to below 12, the weapons control command center (whatever) depressurized, killing everyone in there, leaving all weapons dead, or until some auxiliary weapons control thing kicked in, bringing a few of them back on line?
or if it dropped below 5, some random number region was hit in, turning the ship to "dead", i.e. adrift, the lights are on but no one is home.  

just a thought, can't think of anything else, this has probably been mentioned before, hasn't it?  oh well, getting it out again
I shouldn't have so much caffeine in the morning

bob

[LAW ENFORCER]

Wouldn't ships, in the future,  be able to have independantly controled turrets! like... emm..... NOW! Every thing wont be like business... centrlised....


Back up systems = key

[NecroBob]

eh, true

Bob
going on 28 hours without sleep

[SadisticSid]

Just have a SEXP that disables, locks the turrets, and renders the ship invisible to sensors. You could make it invulnerable if you didn't want small weapons to destroy the hull.

Sid.

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by SadisticSid
Just have a SEXP that disables, locks the turrets, and renders the ship invisible to sensors. You could make it invulnerable if you didn't want small weapons to destroy the hull.

Sid.

Set-subsytem-strength, turret-lock-all, ship-invisible, and ship-invulnerable...

[Scuddie]

Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Set-subsytem-strength, turret-lock-all, ship-invisible, and ship-invulnerable...

Well, this would be OK, but not for what I am thinking of.  If I wanted to do that, I would need atleast seven SEXPs for each ship, let alone how many I would need in order for it to work right.  Plus, it wouldnt work correctly anyway because this is a random effect, not a static one.  My idea is to make a RANDOM decision WHEN the ship dies, and IF it blows up.  The ship can also be destroyed once it's dead.  I keep pointing this out, but people keep pestering me to use SEXPs, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOT AN OPTION!  Besides, I'd rather spend 20 seconds by checking a mission flag, over spending several hours on SEXP tweaking.  Now I'm in a bad mood, so I'm gonna play INF with Max Sterling.  Good night, and death to Carl!  That jerk took too many of my lunches!  OK, time to stop rambling.

[Galemp]

Originally posted by Scuddie
  Besides, I'd rather spend 20 seconds by checking a mission flag, over spending several hours on SEXP tweaking.  

Oh my God.

Think about it from the coder's point of view! They'd rather you tweak the SEXPs than spend hours working on this and possibly breaking something! It's much easier to do this with sexps (and the Random variable, foo) than to code something like this in.