Cosmoteer 0.14.2

Dalas120

Walt The reason I don't think I want to use the same part is because, in singleplayer, almost every ship will have an FTL drive, and I don't want every ship to be able to blink -- that should be a much more special, expensive, deliberate design choice.

Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense for FTL and blink drives to be the same part, both for realism and for balance. But a ship optimized for FTL travel only would have a blink so clumsy it would be basically useless in combat. I have lots of thoughts on blink and FTL in general, but there's probably no point talking about it until the blink update gets closer.

Walt
Dalas120 Railgun Suggestion: I like nop's suggestion from a while ago about making railguns start a fire when they run out of penetration. Little balance impact, but fire has been forgotten for too long and it fits the theme that ammo weapons start fires. Just a random suggestion, nothing important.

If they only start fires when they run out of penetration, is that not a bit weird since cannons start fires for their full penetration length?

Err... that's a good point. Maybe initially the railgun projectile is moving too quickly ¯_(ツ)_/¯ So it's only when it slows down (and spends more time in contact with the parts it's penetrating) that it starts fires Actually, that could be an interesting mechanic for cannons too - increase fire % as penetration drops.

Speaking of which, back in the rcs someone (nop?) suggested that projectiles should visually slow down as they run out of penetration. I think this makes a lot of sense, both because of the fire % idea and because it gives players a great visual cue that damage is dropping.

nop Railgun barges are the new laser triangles, to beat them you need to either outfly them or have a better railgun.

I haven't been able to test things out much recently, but which part of railguns do you think are too strong and what do you think should be changed to fix it? Personally, I think it's ok if a very large railgun has the advantage in a 1v1, as long as they're particularly vulnerable to multiple ships or splitters (like missile barges are), which laser triangles or walls aren't. But I don't know how extreme things are right now, or what area is the problem.
.

Some (probably controversial) thoughts about the gatling laser/plasma blaster/mass disintegrator/[next name here]:

Armor vs Shields: Currently, I think that the balance of armor vs shields is in a reasonable place. I don't think that armor needs a super-hard counter, at least not on the level of electrobolts vs shields. Armor is, at least IMO, a more interesting and challenging defense to design with than shields are, because you can't shoot through armor. Designs that take heavy advantage of armor are usually more interesting than designs that stack shields, and for that reason I think that armor should always be more durable than shields - if you can manage to work it into a design. I also don't think that armor has been oppressively strong in any meta so far, and thus does not need a super-hard counter. I have nothing against a weapon being good against armor (say, +50% damage), I just don't think it needs to have electro-bolt levels of effectiveness.

Of course, making the mass disintegrator damage + vs armor less extreme makes it a lot less unique, and IMO weapon diversity is already a growing issue.

Weapon count and diversity: There are currently far more energy weapons than ammo or missile weapons, and far more small, frontal weapons than any other type. Judging by the trello description, the mass disintigrator would be both an energy weapon and a small, frontal weapon, which IMO is not a good thing. Too many similar weapons both gives the game a big difficulty curve for new players (even if the weapons are introduced 1 by 1, there's still a lot to wrap your head around), and also makes ship design less interesting for experienced players, because players can replace challenging ship design with simpler weapon choices (e.g. put the long range laser in the back, instead of changing ship geometry).

Basically, I'm worried that defining mechanics/qualities are getting too diluted among the weapon pool, and that weapons (particularly small, front-line energy weapons) will have trouble being sufficiently unique and interesting.

Suggestions: I suggest renaming the heavy laser, and merging it's functionality with the gatling laser/plasma blaster/mass disintegrator. The result could end up having the interesting parts of both weapons, without as much design overlap. Graphically, the heavy laser is already a good fit for gatling, and it's projectiles look a lot like plasma.

Or, maybe make the mass disintegrator so exotic that it feels completely different from anything we've had before (like the railgun, for example), and balance the heavy laser separately. Also, the planned sniper laser could be interesting if combined with the mass disintegrator anti-armor concept.

Walt

Dalas120 But a ship optimized for FTL travel only would have a blink so clumsy it would be basically useless in combat.

I'd be curious to hear more about your idea for how this would work.

Dalas120 Speaking of which, back in the rcs someone (nop?) suggested that projectiles should visually slow down as they run out of penetration. I think this makes a lot of sense, both because of the fire % idea and because it gives players a great visual cue that damage is dropping.

Probably easy enough to try.

Dalas120 Judging by the trello description, the mass disintigrator would be both an energy weapon and a small, frontal weapon, which IMO is not a good thing. Too many similar weapons both gives the game a big difficulty curve for new players (even if the weapons are introduced 1 by 1, there's still a lot to wrap your head around), and also makes ship design less interesting for experienced players, because players can replace challenging ship design with simpler weapon choices (e.g. put the long range laser in the back, instead of changing ship geometry).

I hear you. I'm not really concerned about the difficulty curve for new players (I don't see how there being a lot to wrap your head around is a bad thing, as long as you don't have to do it all at once), but making sure ship designs remains (and ideally becomes even more) interesting is obviously extremely important.

I certainly agree that the game is overly-weighted towards energy weapons right now. I've been trying to think of how to make the Mass Disintigrator (or whatever I end up calling it) stand out more, but I'm reluctant to add a whole new resource type just for it, without a plan for how the new resource can be used in other ways in the future.

Also, FWIW, the mass disintigrator will probably be pretty large -- at least as large as a Heavy Laser.

Dalas120 I suggest renaming the heavy laser, and merging it's functionality with the gatling laser/plasma blaster/mass disintigrator. The result could end up having the interesting parts of both weapons, without as much design overlap. Graphically, the heavy laser is already a good fit for gatling, and it's projectiles look a lot like plasma.

I don't think I'm willing to make such a dramatic change to the Heavy Laser. While I concede that this could be the ideal solution for multiplayer balance, I think it's really important to have a "bigger laser" for singleplayer progression and just satisfying that part of the fantasy.

Dalas120 Or, maybe make the mass disintigrator so exotic that it feels completely different from anything we've had before (like the railgun, for example), and balance the heavy laser separately. Also, the planned sniper laser could be interesting if combined with the mass disintigrator anti-armor concept.

This is more the path I want to go down, making the mass disintigrator more exotic. Some ideas I'm considering, in approximate order from least-interesting to most-interesting:

Unusually low shield damage.
Very wide shot spread, with a high total DPS but not very good at taking out specific parts.
Damage scaled by density of hit part.
Making it quite short range and giving it a protective shell that gives it a lot of armor when not firing but opens up when firing, also making it much more vulnerable.
A minigun-style "ramp up" time where it starts firing slowly and speeds up as long as it's firing continuously.
An expandable ammo/power (or whatever resource it uses) storage similar to the capacitors idea discussed previously.

Mc2

Dalas120

Designs that take heavy advantage of armor are usually more interesting than designs that stack shields.

just to understand your mind set, you prefer this:

image https://i.imgur.com/nF1ETSO.png

and dont like this:

image https://i.imgur.com/LTezOLJ.png

EB is not only one weapon agains shields, fire rate of Rail and load rate for shields make rail very effectieve agans any posible number of shield stacken on one spot.
EB were nerfed, lets say noticeably, what makes rail even more stronger in comparison to other weapons, chase end break rail defense by EB + other weapons dont work.

Kiting + rail means that nothing can reach you, and nothing can stop your attacks,, you cannot dodge rail projectile or outturn rail ship, so 1-1 is kiting rail most possible strong solution.

Special antiarmour weapons is not needed, there i agree, because rail has nice damage agains armor.
Just 2 rails + 8 extenders were able to cut trough this before missiles break pd defense, but it was really close.
image https://i.imgur.com/VMLJZJ0.png
(screen is from other battle) .

Large laser work fine, they are different from small one enough for them to make sense, and bot of them will find its usage.

nop

Dalas120 I haven't been able to test things out much recently, but which part of railguns do you think are too strong and what do you think should be changed to fix it?

There's no problem with it, if there's going to be a "strongest" brute-force weapon it should be the railgun. Long railguns beating missile barges makes sense, missile barges have a big firing arc to better deal with multiple foes. To use any other primary weapon you need to split or field multiple ships. Lasers and cannons are both good for shooting thrusters. Ions can fit on anything, and make up for cannon weaknesses at the same range. Life is good.

Walt (nop?) suggested that projectiles should visually slow down as they run out of penetration

Mostly to curb the annoying effect where a cannon shell travels at half speed after clipping a piece of structure.

Walt This is more the path I want to go down, making the mass disintigrator more exotic.

It sounds like the MD has a lot of potential to join the Large Cannon as a go-to weapon for ramming/clinging. Needing to hold fire until behind the shields adds some finesse requirement. Short range, high power is missing from the current set, for some reason power keeps increasing with range!

Dalas120

Walt Making it quite short range and giving it a protective shell that gives it a lot of armor when not firing but opens up when firing, also making it much more vulnerable.

nop Short range, high power is missing from the current set, for some reason power keeps increasing with range!

This idea sounds very interesting and definitely unique - I agree that we could use an ultra-short range, high power weapon (especially since the global range buff).

Would probably make shot spread irrelevant though, since it wouldn't matter much at point-blank.

Walt Also, FWIW, the mass disintigrator will probably be pretty large -- at least as large as a Heavy Laser.

Would you consider making it even larger, like 4x4 or 5x4? IMO we could use a mid-sized weapon, and larger size would look better graphically with a protective shell.

Maybe mix a few ideas together and have a 4x4, close-range, shelled weapon with high spread, and low damage vs shields? Instead of having lots of individual projectiles with high spread, it could have a very wide arc turreted beam weapon - that would both look awesome and would give some reason why it's so exotic and short ranged.

Damage scaled by density sounds really cool, but I have no idea if it makes sense or not. What does everyone else think? Another, similar option is to scale damage (partially) based on max HP. I definitely like the idea of some mechanic that makes the mass disintegrator strong vs armor without needing a specific "damage vs armor" bonus.

Ramp up would probably work well, though IMO it could be saved for an ammo-using gatling weapon. Expandable power supply I think would fit better on a different weapon, though I still like the idea of making it an ammo-only feature.

Another random idea - what if the mass disintegrator used vastly more power per dps than usual. I think that the current weapons will really struggle to drain the 3x3 and 4x4 reactors when they get added, and a few weapons with higher power drain per surface area would probably help.

Walt Dalas120 But a ship optimized for FTL travel only would have a blink so clumsy it would be basically useless in combat.
I'd be curious to hear more about your idea for how this would work.

Coming soon! Going to lose internet in a moment

Mc2 just to understand your mind set, you prefer this:
and dont like this:

Just because you can't shoot through armor, while you can stack shields on top of your weapons forever. That knight, for example, has a bunch of complex plates, joints, and interlocking pieces that look like fun to design. The droid just has a central bubble shield.

Mc2 EB were nerfed, lets say noticeably, what makes rail even more stronger in comparison to other weapons, chase end break rail defense by EB + other weapons dont work.

That's a good point, I forgot about the EB nerf. I can imagine that would be pretty significant vs shield stacking over a railgun launcher.

nop There's no problem with it, if there's going to be a "strongest" brute-force weapon it should be the railgun. Long railguns beating missile barges makes sense, missile barges have a big firing arc to better deal with multiple foes. To use any other primary weapon you need to split or field multiple ships. Lasers and cannons are both good for shooting thrusters. Ions can fit on anything, and make up for cannon weaknesses at the same range. Life is good.

Oh, I misunderstood your original post. Glad things are looking well!

Walt

Dalas120 Would you consider making it even larger, like 4x4 or 5x4? IMO we could use a mid-sized weapon, and larger size would look better graphically with a protective shell.

I'll think about it. Such a huge weapon should be pretty damn powerful.

Dalas120 a very wide arc turreted beam weapon

Do you mean the beam itself is very wide (essentially AoE) or that the turret has a large rotation arc?

Dalas120 Another, similar option is to scale damage (partially) based on max HP

It could be something like damage is scaled by health over size. That'd make it good against armor and cannons.

Dalas120 Ramp up would probably work well, though IMO it could be saved for an ammo-using gatling weapon. Expandable power supply I think would fit better on a different weapon, though I still like the idea of making it an ammo-only feature.

In my head, the Mass Disintigrator is a minigun/gatling weapon. But yeah, I might want to save that idea for a different weapon.

Dalas120 Another random idea - what if the mass disintegrator used vastly more power per dps than usual. I think that the current weapons will really struggle to drain the 3x3 and 4x4 reactors when they get added, and a few weapons with higher power drain per surface area would probably help.

I think if it ramps up as it shoots, it could potentially use power very fast.

Mc2

Walt Just about special antiarmor weapon, it could be really cool idea when we will have more armor types.
Lest think about armor specially designed to reflect or completely negate any energetic attack, but medium vulnerable to physical projectiles and totally weak against special armor melting weapons, or armor which is extremely strong against projectiles, medium strong against energy attack and totally weak against armor metling weapon, than special antiarmor weapon have sense.
And standart armor we already have can have same durtability against everything no extras.

Dalas120

Just because you can't shoot through armor, while you can stack shields on top of your weapons forever. That knight, for example, has a bunch of complex plates, joints, and interlocking pieces that look like fun to design. The droid just has a central bubble shield.

Well, 1 you are by mind somewhere in medieval (nothing against it, just statement) , 2 designing something like this (picture below) seem like more fun. And where are you totally wrong is, that armor can be stacked for ever and nothing limit you, placing shields is more challenging due to their energy and crew demands, limited arc size and forbidden area.
But I do understand you, and actually being blacksmith is nice dream of many, and honestly I still play with idea of building forge in garden after I finish cellar.
image https://i.imgur.com/0mGVfsm.png

nop

Walt I'll think about it. Such a huge weapon should be pretty damn powerful.

I like where you're going with the capacitor thing, it would be like railgun scaling except just extending the length of burst. Otherwise a single reactor $100k ship can mount it and have the same burst potential as a larger ship dedicated to the weapon.

A "general purpose" capacitor seems like a big complication compared to a dedicated "Mass Disintegrator Capacitor" buff block which can be connected to the Mass Disintegrator in some cool way (like being able to make a snake-like chain through your ship, e.g. that mod that lets you add 90deg. railgun accelerators).

Or maybe instead of extending the energy capacity, buff blocks add range. This way it needs buff blocks to have enough range to get "hard kills" on control rooms and reactors (but still makes a hole in the crust).

I like the theme of avoiding "general purpose" buff blocks in favor of specific buffs for different types of thing. Buffs are then a tool for thoughtful scaling instead of creating unintentional bad (design trap) or broken (unbalanced) combinations or complications for future additions.

Dalas120

Walt Do you mean the beam itself is very wide (essentially AoE) or that the turret has a large rotation arc?

I was thinking a very wide AOE beam, maybe something like 15 degrees to each side. So the beam would form a triangle, instead of a rectangle like the ion beam. It would still need some kind of turret arc though, otherwise it would probably be very difficult to hit anything.

Walt It could be something like damage is scaled by health over size. That'd make it good against armor and cannons.

That sounds reasonable to me.

Walt Dalas120 Ramp up would probably work well, though IMO it could be saved for an ammo-using gatling weapon. Expandable power supply I think would fit better on a different weapon, though I still like the idea of making it an ammo-only feature.

In my head, the Mass Disintigrator is a minigun/gatling weapon. But yeah, I might want to save that idea for a different weapon.

On second thought, ramp up might work very well with a shell. If you autofired (to ramp up damage early) you'd lose the shell protection in addition to draining power, which IMO is a reasonable tradeoff (depending on how strong the shell is and significant the damage ramp is). Without the shell there would be little incentive not to autofire.

Of course on the other hand, staying close enough for damage to ramp up will probably be very difficult with a short range weapon. And if you manage to cling on for that long you'll probably win anyways, regardless of how much damage ramp you get.

Nop's the expert on ramming though, so he probably has a better understanding of how ramp-up+shell+CQC would/wouldn't work.

And it probably wouldn't hurt to have multiple weapons with ramp up, as long as the weapons and ramp up stats are different enough.

Bubbet

Walt I hope this is going to be a moddable feature not hardcoded like ftl. We can all have dreams.

Walt

Bubbet not hardcoded like ftl

What's hardcoded about the FTL?

Bubbet

Walt Cant really add a new system that uses that fancy ui element or coverage effect like ftl, unless somethings changed recently that i haven't noticed.

SpaceCat

@Walt
FTL Blink Drive combo - Go!

Allthough i'm generally against dual funcion of parts - in the case of the Blink&FTL combo i'm totally for it!

Simply because the FTL drive alone serves a very minimal role - only used to get from one "map" to another but has absolutely no "in map / in game" feature. Thus it is ballast the whole game unless you want to do long distance space travel. So i think it should simply also be able to do "short distance travel" = from one point to another but on the same map = Blink.

(FTL Drives right now feel like: required as default in singleplayer but not much else ...)

+1 for FTL Blink Drive combo!

Ps.: Fantasizing about mining and perhaps also "farming" in cosmoteer - like you can plant spacefruit on an asteroid and then later harvest it! 🍓

Mc2

SpaceCat @Walt
Dual function + special part (but not so much budget demanding) for capability to perform short range very accurate jumps sounds reasonable.
Special part attached to FTL, and every % of not covered ship will make prolong calculation time for accuracy, after loaded FTL , (t+1) cu. .
something like that could be nice.
anyway, time between blinks have to figured very carefully. With turning capability of even the heaviest ships, too short time to blink will make thrusters useless and blink to op.

IVIemories

Mc2 I know you're probably getting error messages when you're posting, but please refrain from hitting the post reply button over and over again. Your posts get flagged as spam and moderators will end up deleting what could potentially be something you wanted to post.

Instead, just copy your text and refresh the page after you get the error message and if your post still isn't there then post again.

Mc2

IVIemories Thanks for nice advice.

nop

Dalas120 I was thinking a very wide AOE beam, maybe something like 15 degrees to each side. So the beam would form a triangle, instead of a rectangle like the ion beam. It would still need some kind of turret arc though, otherwise it would probably be very difficult to hit anything.

Triangular, aimable short ranged beam
Armored turret opens while firing
High energy use and burst damage
Energy capacity buffed by specific capacitors
Damage multiplier == density

That's a unique weapon!

Walt

Dalas120 Of course on the other hand, staying close enough for damage to ramp up will probably be very difficult with a short range weapon. And if you manage to cling on for that long you'll probably win anyways, regardless of how much damage ramp you get.

I guess it depends on how short range it is. I was thinking Electro-Bolter range, but I get the impression you're thinking even shorter than that?

Also, remember tractor beams are probably coming soon-ish.

Dalas120 Low Efficiency Penalties: The core concept I have for blink/ftl is that once blink is initiated, the ship dissapears instantly (in hyperspace or some such) and a "wormhole exit" (or "ship ghost"?) appears at the blink/ftl target position. After some period of time, influenced by distance, the blinking ship would come out of the exit. FTL efficiency would heavily influence how long the ship spends in "hyperspace", so while ships with only a few FTL drives could still blink/ftl, it would take forever and any enemy could easily anticipate and avoid the blink. A ship designed for blinking could enter and exit blink/ftl before an enemy could react, probably depending on range.

Certainly an interesting idea. I think it'd have to be a pretty short amount of time though, especially if you have to wait for the FTL drives to charge up before blinking, otherwise it'd be faster just to move there.

Dalas120 Or maybe the FTL drive consumes power at a fixed (variable based on efficiency?) rate, and slowly builds progress towards being ready for an FTL jump, with the time needed based on the overall ship size vs # of powered FTL drives (and FTL efficiency?).

This makes sense for a short-range blink, but I'm not sure makes sense for long-range FTL jumps, where I really like how it works right now. (I just like the aesthetics of having to spin up the FTL drive, and it also has the potential of creating tense moments where you're racing to spin up FTL before jumping out of a dangerous situation.) And if blink charge-up is mechanically different from long-range FTL charge-up, I think that's an argument for keeping them separate.

Dalas120 Maybe ships can initiate blink instantly with any orientation and velocity, or maybe they need to slow down/stop first (max speed based on FTL efficiency?).

My current thinking is that your ship keeps its orientation (and probably velocity too, now that I think about it). That could create some interesting challenges/strategies where you need to think about how you design your ship because after you blink it'll have a different side exposed to the enemy.

Dalas120 maybe they need to slow down/stop first (max speed based on FTL efficiency?).

My instinct is having to slow/stop first would probably be too debilitating.

Dalas120 Once blink is ready, maybe the ship would blink immediately, or maybe the player can choose when to initiate it (and the FTL drives should continue draining power while waiting, or else you could hold onto a blink forever).

I think this depends on whether the drive only charges up once a blink order is given. If it only charges once the blink order is given, then I think it should blink instantly when fully charged. If it charges constantly (acting as more of a cooldown timer) then of course it should wait for the player to initiate the blink.

Dalas120 Maybe the wormhole exit would be fixed grid-relative, or maybe it would be fixed ship-relative, or maybe it would even be fixed enemy-relative.

Hmm, either of these could be problematic. If it's grid-relative, that might make blink very difficult to use in combat. If it's enemy-relative, that might be kind of strange to see a "wormhole exit" moving with the enemy, and it definitely complicates the U.I. for initiating a blink.

Dalas120 The general idea behind low efficiency penalties is that both long-range FTL and short-range blink would be affected equally by low FTL efficiency, but the penalties would only matter in combat. For example, who cares if I spend 10 or 15 seconds in warp space (with a wormhole exit visible) if I'm blinking out of space-dock? But 10 or 15 seconds makes my blink nearly useless in combat. Similarly, it's no big deal if a freighter spends time charging FTL on a trade run. But a battleship fleeing from a fight will take heavy damage if it's FTL drives take too long to spin up.

Right now, FTL efficiency impacts fuel usage when making FTL jumps. Are you proposing getting rid of that? Because that'd be a major change. I realize FTL fuel isn't a very major mechanic right now in singleplayer, but eventually it probably will be (once you have to collect and store it on your ship).

Now that I think of it, here's another argument in favor of keeping blink and FTL separate: In the future, FTL won't use power, it'll use fuel or crystals or some resource that you need to collect and store on your ship. But blink will probably still just use power.

Dalas120 Assorted notes: There could also be a direct penalty, such as energy drain from all parts (in addition to shields). Higher FTL efficiency would reduce or remove the energy drain.

Draining power on low-efficiency ships is a pretty interesting idea. It could make low-efficiency blink a viable decision on predominantly cannon/missile ships.

One of the more, er, extreme ideas I've had is that ships will literally take damage when blinking with anything less than 100% efficiency. Or even any parts outside the radius of a blink drive just get ripped off and left behind. 😛

Dalas120 It would be interesting if sensors could reveal additional or more detailed information about FTL/blink or "wormhole exits".

Yeah, they could also maybe buff blink drives, extending their range. (Would probably work best if blink efficiency isn't a factor of blink range, which it probably should be.)

Dalas120 When blink drives are added, IMO FTL drives should be changed so that ships that currently have 100% efficiency would only have 50%, or lower - but reduce FTL fuel costs in bounty hunter (or boost FTL fuel drops) so that fuel usage is unchanged. This is effectively the same thing as allowing ships to have more than 100% FTL efficiency.

Honestly, FTL fuel is probably too plentiful in Bounty Hunter right now, so nerfing FTL efficiency with only a partial compensation in fuel usage/drops might not be a horrible idea.

Dalas120 On a related note, I think it would make a lot of sense to have more interesting FTL efficiency design choices. Right now FTL efficiency is circular around each FTL drive and cannot stack to buff range, so the only effective strategy for FTL efficiency is to space out FTL drives evenly around the middle of your ship. But in science fiction universes (e.g. Star Trek), efficient FTL travel demands specific ship geometries.

FTL drives do stack, though they max out at 100% efficiency per tile, so putting FTL drives near each other will waste of a lot of efficiency.

Dalas120 IMO it would be a great change if there were more options for FTL coverage area shapes, such as long and thin areas, arcs, areas far away from the FTL drive, sharply defined shapes, or similar. The weirder shapes would have more coverage or efficiency per $, but would be a lot tricker to use. For example, you could build a stargate that projects an FTL field into empty space so that other ships can fly in and jump away. It would also be interesting if adjacent or nearby FTL's (either the drive or the coverage area, or both) could interact - boosting or interfering with each other to alter a ship's overall FTL efficiency.

I think this would be interesting but probably isn't a high priority and can be added later regardless of how blink/FTL mechanics eventually work.

Dalas120

*WARNING: LONG POST*

As for blink drive, basically I was thinking that you would need more than the current 100% of FTL efficiency to blink effectively. With lower efficiencies, blinking would get some sort of penalty - what exactly depends on how blink works.

Low Efficiency Penalties: The core concept I have for blink/ftl is that once blink is initiated, the ship dissapears instantly (in hyperspace or some such) and a "wormhole exit" (or "ship ghost"?) appears at the blink/ftl target position. After some period of time, influenced by distance, the blinking ship would come out of the exit. FTL efficiency would heavily influence how long the ship spends in "hyperspace", so while ships with only a few FTL drives could still blink/ftl, it would take forever and any enemy could easily anticipate and avoid the blink. A ship designed for blinking could enter and exit blink/ftl before an enemy could react, probably depending on range.

Adding "wormhole exits" for non-blink FTL would make a lot of sense for single-player/campaign too, once enemies are able to FTL around the map.

To initiate blink, maybe ships could just have their FTL drives charged like how it currently works. Or maybe the FTL drive consumes power at a fixed (variable based on efficiency?) rate, and slowly builds progress towards being ready for an FTL jump, with the time needed based on the overall ship size vs # of powered FTL drives (and FTL efficiency?). Maybe ships can initiate blink instantly with any orientation and velocity, or maybe they need to slow down/stop first (max speed based on FTL efficiency?).

Once blink is ready, maybe the ship would blink immediately, or maybe the player can choose when to initiate it (and the FTL drives should continue draining power while waiting, or else you could hold onto a blink forever). Maybe the wormhole exit would be invincible, or maybe not and killing the exit pulls the real ship out of hyperspace (wormhole health influenced by FTL efficiency?) Maybe the wormhole exit would be fixed grid-relative, or maybe it would be fixed ship-relative, or maybe it would even be fixed enemy-relative.

Maybe ships would need to set a blink target before they start charging, or maybe you don't have to set a target until the FTLs are already charged. Maybe there are limits on range (determined by FTL efficiency?), or maybe you

.
The general idea behind low efficiency penalties is that both long-range FTL and short-range blink would be affected equally by low FTL efficiency, but the penalties would only matter in combat. For example, who cares if I spend 10 or 15 seconds in warp space (with a wormhole exit visible) if I'm blinking out of space-dock? But 10 or 15 seconds makes my blink nearly useless in combat. Similarly, it's no big deal if a freighter spends time charging FTL on a trade run. But a battleship fleeing from a fight will take heavy damage if it's FTL drives take too long to spin up.

Assorted notes: There could also be a direct penalty, such as energy drain from all parts (in addition to shields). Higher FTL efficiency would reduce or remove the energy drain.

It's also fairly realistic if a ship with many FTL drives has quicker FTL travel than a ship with few FTL drives, in addition to it's effects on blinking.

It would be interesting if sensors could reveal additional or more detailed information about FTL/blink or "wormhole exits".

IMO blink/FTL ramming should definitely be a thing, mostly because it's such a huge science fiction trope (but also because it would be incredibly frustrating if ships could block FTL/blink). I have a few ideas on how to prevent this from being OP.

Determining FTL Efficiency: In the above section, I talked a lot about "low FTL efficiency." But right now, it's relatively easy to build ships with near 100% FTL efficiency, which would still allow nearly every ship access to a combat-ready blink drive. When blink drives are added, IMO FTL drives should be changed so that ships that currently have 100% efficiency would only have 50%, or lower - but reduce FTL fuel costs in bounty hunter (or boost FTL fuel drops) so that fuel usage is unchanged. This is effectively the same thing as allowing ships to have more than 100% FTL efficiency.

The overall effect of this would mean that ships could operate FTLs effectively and cheaply with low efficiencies (e.g. 50%), but their FTL jumps would take a while and their blinks would be basically useless in combat. Only ships that build specifically for ultra-high FTL efficiencies would be able to effectively use blink in combat. A side effect of this would be that ships designed for rapid FTL travel (e.g. a VIP courier) would also be able to use blinks in combat, but IMO that makes sense and is not an issue.

On a related note, I think it would make a lot of sense to have more interesting FTL efficiency design choices. Right now FTL efficiency is circular around each FTL drive and cannot stack to buff range, so the only effective strategy for FTL efficiency is to space out FTL drives evenly around the middle of your ship. But in science fiction universes (e.g. Star Trek), efficient FTL travel demands specific ship geometries.

IMO it would be a great change if there were more options for FTL coverage area shapes, such as long and thin areas, arcs, areas far away from the FTL drive, sharply defined shapes, or similar. The weirder shapes would have more coverage or efficiency per $, but would be a lot tricker to use. For example, you could build a stargate that projects an FTL field into empty space so that other ships can fly in and jump away. It would also be interesting if adjacent or nearby FTL's (either the drive or the coverage area, or both) could interact - boosting or interfering with each other to alter a ship's overall FTL efficiency.

I'm not certain what the best way is to implement more FTL shapes. Maybe put an option on each FTL drive allowing players to choose which shape they want. Or maybe add more FTL drives, each with their own unique shape.

TLDR: anybody with an FTL drive can blink, but useful in-combat blinking requires a lot more FTL drives than useful out-of-combat FTL.

Mc2

Dalas120

But in science fiction universes (e.g. Star Trek), efficient FTL travel demands specific ship geometries.

I especialy love borg cube.
But imho, speaking about real shape for combat space ships, most probable variant will be kind of borg sphere.

Lafiel

Penalty?
It's simple whether it's based on efficiency or the charging level it should result in the ship receiving damage.
I prefer to use charging level so you can initiate a jump anytime with the risks involved.
As a charge could be low or incomplete the jump-field would be bad causing damage to the ship.
All parts should receive the same percentile damage. At a certain charge level the damage would be so bad the ship would be ripped apart. It would be nice to have the UI displace safe levels either in form of coloring or a scale.

Dalas120

Lafiel I thought about damage, but IMO it wouldn't make sense why you take damage from blinks but not long range ftl jumps. And it could be very confusing for new players if they try a cool looking button and their ship blows up

Basically I think that adding ftl drives should make everything about a blink feel faster, or smoother. A ftl-poor ship trying to blink should feel slow and cumbersome - too slow to use in combat

Lafiel

Dalas120 The primary advantage of a displacement drive in combat is moving unseen to another position. Being fast is secondary to that. Actually, whether you reappear fast or not may not matter as believed because it always affords you to be removed from enemy weapons fire atm. You get repositioned and can start a fight again (for good or worse).

Dalas120

Lafiel I think what you're describing is more like cloaking - repositioning silently and picking the ideal time/place to reengage. Blinking (at least IMO) would be more about teleporting behind an enemy before he can turn, or escaping a surround, or dodging a cannon strike, and speed is definitely the critical factor for that.

And giving your enemy too much time to react to a teleport could be very dangerous. Aside from giving your enemy time to regen shields and reload weapons (while you're stuck in hyperspace) they can easily move behind where you'll come out of blink and absolutely destroy you. Even if you end up FTL-ramming them, ramming would be balanced in such a way that the non-rammer has the advantage.

Lafiel

Mc2 Didn't you just used the blink drive? 😆
Dalas120 Definitely not about cloaking. Whether you jump from A to B or run is the same as moving from place to place. Jumping behind an enemy makes you predictable and I'm one of those who loves to drop mines right behind his ship. I should add that to my mod.

The same goes for your ship as you can make repairs while in hyperspace. Your new position is only in danger if you can be detected or the exit point gives itself away or when an enemy tends to mine the place while you're gone.
The non-rammer only has an advantage is he's more ten times more massive and has harder armor which is not the case most of the time. Ramming is a last resort I don't see why it would be less dangerous for one side.