Is there a way to decrease vehicle self damage?

[Wonkehcheetah!]

I died for the first time in over 200 hours of play. I finally decided to try using the vehicle cannon I put on my nomad hovercraft during the expedition. I fired once at a swarm of the swarm bug things and I instantly died. I didn't know what happened at first. I thought some weird event occured, it wasn't until I respawned that I realized I died.

At first I thought the swarm just had the ability to quickly eat straight through vehicle shields. However, upon testing I realized that if the vehicle cannon projectile lands too closely to the vehicle, it just instantly explodes and you die. The cannon only had 1 S-class upgrade on it. I find that to be a bit extreme. I'm not opposed to the notion of vehicle self damage, but does it need to be a straight up insta-kill? I'm just glad I wasn't running a perma-death save at the time. Could it at least boot me out of the vehicle first before sending me to a Carl Sagan quote?

Fortunately, the minotaur does not have this issue, but that now makes the minotaur the only vehicle not a horrible risk to use in combat. All it takes is for a random sentinel or swarm bug to get a bit too close and *boom* I am ded, no refunds.

[smurfy]

Nope. Even a fully upgraded Exosuit (life and personal shields) won't save you.
Try finding that out on a Permadeath save. ;)

[Nostromo]

I mainly only use my exocraft weapons to blow up depots and blow open secure facility doors, so hopefully will rarely run into that. :)

But.. Did your exocraft have the four environmental shields installed? Probably makes no difference - but would be something good to know for sure (even if it just mitigated the dmg somewhat).

[Johnny in the Clouds]

The minotaur I think is the only exocraft that does not need hazard shields installed. Or it used to be like that. Every other exocar needs the four hazard shield upgrades to protect it from the environment and behave a similar to the exosuit.

It can be easy to miss the shield indicator draining or shields becoming damaged and broken in combat, leaving any player vulnerable to damage with minimal defence. Once shields are damaged life support is soon lost.

The canon and in particular the Plasmas Launcher grenade are devastating against damaged or no shields. If a player begins combat with the max nine defence shields the plasma grenade might not kill on the first strike but will take out them out quickly. The only 'safe' AOE weapon is the Neutron Canon which has no damage effect at all on the player but is sadly not an option for an Exocar or the laser.

Exocar Canon or plasma Launcher used in constricted or confined spaces can be very tricky to avoid damage when things are moving fast. The ricochet upgrade of the plasma launched grenades can gave a bounce effect that might buy a player time to move out of harms way but still must be used with care.

Slightly off topic, the upgraded excoar laser is a very powerful mining beam that seems to avoid terrain deformation. But not sure if that is a bug. I think its meant to do that as it is much more efficient and speedier than the terrain manipulator of the multitool.

[Wonkehcheetah!]

Originally posted by Nostromo:

But.. Did your exocraft have the four environmental shields installed? Probably makes no difference - but would be something good to know for sure (even if it just mitigated the dmg somewhat).

I had all environmental shields installed. I also had 3 S-Class shield upgrades for the exosuit. Other than a few endgame health upgrades, I pretty much maxed out my character and exocraft defense wise.

I tested it outside my base with the roamer as well as the nomad. I did try to test the colossus, but it couldn't aim close enough to the ground to destroy itself. I figured the bike wouldn't fair any better than the car. All in all, if one blast hits too close, you just instantly die even at full health.

[SlayZeKyriarchy]

I died like this in a Permadeath run (lost only, like, 8-16 hours?)

I went to do tests on normal save:

With the best exosuit upgrades, and no cannon upgrades (so just the cannon), while hitting a wall at point-blank range...

The minotaur never damaged me
All other land vehicules insta-killed me
The Nautilus got me to like, 10% health, but it was hard to find something to hit at point blank

Anywayz, I banned cannon from my exocrafts, lol

[Wonkehcheetah!]

I just did testing with the Nautilus as well, and came to the same conclusion. With the best upgrades, and 2 S-Class Submarine cannon upgrades, a single shot brings me down to 2 health points from 7. Fortunately, the Nautilon cannon has a small blast radius, so you have to be jammed up against whatever you're shooting to actually hit yourself.

[Dirak2012]

I don't know if has been changed, but exocrafts don't have shields or health, what you see it's your own shields and health.
Exocrafts don't provide any extra protection.

[Chirico Cuvie]

It's quite hilarious. Visually everything seems ok with my exocraft, then you are greeted with death screen.