Ship to Ship Combat Feature{s) Request

[Banana Lassi]

This universe could benefit from some attacks which leave the ships components mostly intact for salvage. This would help explain intact wrecks, as well as allow the player to create some intact wrecks of their own. These weapons are more about a slowly affecting the enemy in a way that leaves an intact but slightly banged up derelict behind.

(1) Temperature attacks: heat ray, freeze ray. Countermeasures would be temperature shielding, a common, but mid game ship component. Temperature shielding could also double as a requirement to explore certain extreme temperature zones.

(2) "Puncture" based micro missile. Minimum damage, but it punches a small hole in the hull where it hits. Used to drain ships of oxygen. Smaller sized projectile, which is usually best suited for smaller ships. Minor hull armour or shielding would mostly shield from this, making it more of a weapon to use on weaker targets.

(3) Battery Leeching attacks. Small component launched and attached to your ships conduit system, drains battery slowly. Requires spacewalking to remove. These silent threats require running a diagnostic to discover an extra power drain in the system, then removing them from the outside (or hacking/engineering the wall it attached to). Used to combat smaller scrap pods put together illegally by novices, as an amateur wouldnt be able to notice and fight the battery draining effect. Special hull/shielding or power systems could also make this a non threat.

Big weapons for more instant annihilation

(1) Physically loading torpedos into tubes manually, with some sort of loading procedure having to be performed. Torpedos would then be fired from their own console/however ship combat UI is interfaced. Requires a ship with enough space for a torpedo tube. Various different types and strengths of torpedos could allow for a lot of variety here.

(2) Railgun, punctures the ship through in a straight line. Very damaging, but requires the ship to be steadily aiming in the direction of the target.

Now, something that would expand this gameplay would be the addition of escape pods/shuttles. These small ships would be smaller than the starting ship, and only come with a single battery, and have no offensive/defensive capabilities. Used to get off your larger ship after losing a fight, or to fly over and explore wrecks with a more manoeuvrable ship.

[Blue Bottle Games, LLC]

Interesting suggestions! I can definitely see us experimenting with ship-to-ship encounters as we get more systems to work with in the game.

I think a lot of attention will go into the prelude to exchanging fire, such as detection, identification, and countermeasures (both electronic and physical). But once firing solutions are in and someone pulls the trigger, there's a wide range of trouble that can happen :)

Might be a while longer before we have all the pieces we need to test this out, but it's on my list.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Zoey]

Originally posted by Blue Bottle Games, LLC:

Interesting suggestions! I can definitely see us experimenting with ship-to-ship encounters as we get more systems to work with in the game.

I think a lot of attention will go into the prelude to exchanging fire, such as detection, identification, and countermeasures (both electronic and physical). But once firing solutions are in and someone pulls the trigger, there's a wide range of trouble that can happen :)

Might be a while longer before we have all the pieces we need to test this out, but it's on my list.

Thanks for the feedback!

I dont know if you have heard of barotrauma (The game, not the horrible way to die) but that game has some neat ship to ship encounters for submarines which is pretty neat. good stuff.

Originally posted by reknoiuqS:

(2) "Puncture" based micro missile.

at risk of sounding like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I think you are kinda describing a conventional bullet

[Banana Lassi]

Originally posted by Zoey:

Originally posted by reknoiuqS:

(2) "Puncture" based micro missile.

at risk of sounding like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I think you are kinda describing a conventional bullet

In space, a conventional bullet would do next to nothing to cause large puncturing damage to the outside of a ship. Also it would be impossible to hit a non guided projectile taking into consideration the distance involved.

I am referring to a small guided missile with a shaped charge tip. Shaped charges are explosives designed to explode in such a way that the explosion is direction in a single point.

Wikipedia says "A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Various types are used to cut and form metal, initiate nuclear weapons, penetrate armour , and perforate wells in the oil and gas industry."

[Zoey]

By conventional bullet i meant something more like this https://i.imgur.com/TdaiB58.jpg

This is the cannon on the USS Missouri, easily able to hit a target from upwards of 10k away and able to punch through multiple feet of steel like its made of paper, this is the sort of thing you would put on a spacecraft.
What you are describing with the whole moving shaped charge idea isnt impossible actually, thats how HEAT rounds work. My point wasnt that the explosive is a bad idea and more that the guidance system is. For short-ish ranges (20-30k, or longer as there would be no air slowing the shell down) it would be an expensive, unreliable way to accomplish the same as you could without it, or worse as you would need more space for fuel and engine then you would for actual warhead getting a much smaller blast for the same input.
For longer ranges, or even interplanetary ranges having it may be helpful on a larger missile, but if they where small they would run out of fuel very quickly unless the target was not maneuvering to avoid it, and if that was the case it would be pointless anyways.

One alternitive would be to have them not fire at all on the way to the target and then fire as they get closer, but at longer ranges if the target is maneuvering they will be far away from where the missile is headed so the butterfly effect kind of gets in the way.

DARPA did make a prototype steerable "smart bullet" a few years back (or at least thats when i remember learning about it) but that relied on air resistance.

Actually, on a slightly relevent side note if you want to learn about the physics of real life space combat without any crazy si-fi tech im going to recommend the game children of a dead earth, that game was hardcore about keeping it within the realms of modern physics. I think you might enjoy it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/476530/Children_of_a_Dead_Earth/