Replace explosive charges with non-destructive "couplings"

mleise

Explosive charges are used for three cases as far as I can see:

swarms and splitters
hinges
suicide ships (usually to detonate a nearby reactor)

They also make it impossible for the game to reason about the ship:

In multiplayer we can limit the number of ships to 1 or 2, but explosive charges make it possible to exceed that limit.
One way to prevent the strong tactic of missile ships running off of cheap storage in small compartments would be to only fill storage if it is connected to a reactor. But players could connect all missiles modules to one central reactor and then blow up the connections with explosives to have their storage only compartments again.

My proposal is to find good replacements for the explosive charges that the game code can better reason about to enforce rules and prevent violent destruction as a way to improve the ship's performance.

mleise

For 1: Couplings replace explosives. They hold ship parts and swarms together, can be released and reconnected at different locations allowing a ship to transform in limited ways. For the game to be able to "reason" about the sections, crew and supplies cannot move across the couplings. This opens up the option to require a connection to a reactor for battery storages to be filled at round start. See this discussion.
Also, right now the ship count setting in MP is effectively defunct as you can have any number of ships that fit into the grid connected with explosives. It is practically impossible for the game to tell how many ships these really are due to the destructive nature of explosives. With couplings, each section with a control room, crew and power counts as an individual ship and the count can be meaningfully limited again (but also set to higher numbers).

mleise

For 2: Actual hinges as parts are already on Trello. They allow for more compact designs than what we currently build and don't suffer from interpenetration issues, i.e. hinges falling apart or causing massive lag.

For 3: I'm not sure if they are actually desirable. Kamikaze is a niche and we probably wouldn't miss them even if there are creative "smart torpedo" designs. Basically to make all the above work out, deliberate self destruction of ship parts should simply not be possible in multi-player, except in the form of ramming attacks if they are implemented.

CGDW

None of those things are problematic though... swarm ships are not cost effective (even if number of allowed ships was set to 20, most people would still only bring 1-3), suicide ships even less so, and hinges will already be coming at some point. So will docking. Is there really a need for immediate changes?

It's only when a regular wall fights a wall that can split in two that there's any advantage to be gained due to flanking, and that's only if the pilot is skilled enough...

mleise

CGDW Immediate changes are not needed in my eyes. I just think that from the perspective of implementing game rules, it enables solutions that are out of reach now, simply because explosives might be used to circumvent them.
I agree with you that most people wont spawn 20 ships, but I did have times where I was overwhelmed in a single ship by a swarm although the setting was "1 ship". Then I thought about how to solve it and the best I came up with was to count CRs. Everything else depends on what explodes in which order and gave me headaches. Not being able to damage your ship on the other hand gives control back to the game code to accurately count the splitter ships. And if it is only for the sake of our 1 on 1 case, to prevent people from spawning functional splitter ships.
The linked "fill battery storage only from connected reactor" issue was just the last drop that made me think that maybe we can live fine without explosions if we gain instead the option to reconnect ships parts during or at the start of the battle.

Walt

I think that once docking & hinges are added, explosive charges will be retooled to make them much more destructive. Possibly useful as kamikaze devices, but really more of a self-destruct device that could be used to prevent an enemy from taking over a ship (once boarding is added).

FireShredder24

Walt Whenever I make a kamikaze ship, I surround a reactor with explosives at the front, like the "spear torpedoes" of very early real-world submarines.

hutonahill

I like this idea, but don't replace explosive charges, just add the couplings and make it more expensive

nop

I like the idea of replacing explosive charges with couplers, for reasons:

You can't change crew access with a decoupling. This makes them useful for tricks like detaching multiple ships/sections (swarm/multi-ship) and detaching armor, but not for "unwanted" effects like detaching crew quarters.
Does anybody really want to fight a kamikaze build? There's already a mechanic for self-destructing an entire ship.

mleise

nop Denying crew access was the point in my proposal that I deemed most controversial for players and I wrote this before we were discussing "no quarter" strategies. I think you are right, that it solves that problematic development, too.

Dalas120

nop You can't change crew access with a decoupling. This makes them useful for tricks like detaching multiple ships/sections (swarm/multi-ship) and detaching armor, but not for "unwanted" effects like detaching crew quarters.

Players could still detach crew by using small lasers to separate compartments. While it would be slightly more tedious, it would cost the same and I think a lot of players would still do it.

nop

Dalas120 Players could still detach crew by using small lasers to separate compartments.

Maybe that should be changed too?