The Ternion is a dirty cheat! :)

[Scoob]

Hey all,

Ok, I'm joking around here BUT the Ternion ship is actively cheating / exploiting lol I'm sure it's not limited to this ship, but it's the most blatant one I've encountered thus far. Why is it cheating?

Well, this ship has three Large Cannons on the front, and its standard approach has been repeatedly, over several encounters, to RAM my ship. Not an issue in isolation but the barrels of the Large Cannons are able to phase THROUGH my ship's Shields and Armour to DIRECTLY destroy its internals.

I'm guessing this is a bug or incomplete feature that Cannon barrels do not appear to be physicalised in terms of collision, so just pass right through whatever they come up against. In this case, my armour.

Basically, while the body of the Large Cannon hits my ship's armour and goes no further, the barrel is able to pass through two layers of armour. This means the projectile "spawns" *inside* my ship, causing catastrophic damage to the ship's internals.

I've quite early-game, so a basic shield and a double-layered hull is generally pretty good. Shields shrug off Cannon rounds, and the armour can withstand a couple of hits if it comes to it.

This is on the list of things to improve, right?

The Ternion seems to be forward-thrust heavy, with FOUR Standard Thrusters pushing it forwards, with only two for breaking and NONE for left/right strafing. It's sorta cool how it charges you - we nee a "lance" module for proper melee damage lol - but that clipping barrel is a not so fun problem.

[Scoob]

The Austral suffers from the same issue - first ship I encountered when going to a higher-level area.

Gonna put "spikes" on the front of the ship to try to counter this. They'll get blown up, but hopefully will last long enough each encounter.

[Chenza]

This is working as intended. it's not a bug. suggestion. Go faster backwards, use tractor beams (on push away mode) or a combo of both. There's a whole bunch of ships that attempt to ram you to get under your shields. It's a viable strategy. Adapt my friend because in later levels it only gets worse.

[YellowKnight]

I agree, it's urealistic and kind of annoying that a cannon can go inside the ship and spawn bullets there even though the part with a hitbox is outside the armour.

[1030]

Originally posted by Chenza:

This is working as intended. it's not a bug. suggestion. Go faster backwards, use tractor beams (on push away mode) or a combo of both. There's a whole bunch of ships that attempt to ram you to get under your shields. It's a viable strategy. Adapt my friend because in later levels it only gets worse.

mosquito ahh ship

[Scoob]

Originally posted by Chenza:

This is working as intended. it's not a bug. suggestion. Go faster backwards, use tractor beams (on push away mode) or a combo of both. There's a whole bunch of ships that attempt to ram you to get under your shields. It's a viable strategy. Adapt my friend because in later levels it only gets worse.

Not a bug? Really? Ship parts able to pass right through other ships is INTENDED behaviour? Nah, that's can't be true. If it is true, it needs to change.

Considering this a bug in an early-access title I was quite good humoured about it - bugs can be hilarious. If this is working as intended however, it's potentially a game-breaker. After this happened to me a couple of times last night, I simply stopped playing. The game stopped being fun. Designing a decent early-game ship and having its defences simply bypassed and the internals shot out due to clipping, is BAD. Having to work-around the issue with additional layers of armour is viable, but it's just that a work-around.

I did joke about fitting spikes (of armour) to the ship to fend off this deadly "clipping attack", it'd likely work. However, this issues needs to be addressed. It's fine if it takes time but, to me at least, it massively upsets the ship balance.

Imagine in the future where we're fielding AI controlled ships, and we either have to embrace the "clipping META" ourselves, or accept that some ships will ALWAYS be the rock to others scissors due to this "special" ability.

Issues like this, which aren't unique to Cosmoteer of course, nullify much of the design element of the game, which is a HUGE part of it. Designing ships and testing them out against others is a huge part of the game, alongside good tactics to employ with those ships.

I really hope Walt does address this, as it massively changes the balance between ships. I could build several cheap Cannon-equipped ships and exploit this with ease. I'd rather not.

I wonder why the barrel isn't currently physicalised? It's not like it can be blown off or anything. I assume it's because it can move, and the collision mesh isn't dynamic. As a temporary shot-cut, a collision mesh covering the barrels entire firing arc would be better than the clipping. Sure, it might make the Cannons a little easier to hit, give them a little more armour to compensate. This is better than clipping.

I'd love to hear what Walt has to say on this subject. It's totally cool if it's just WIP, but I don't think this can be a thing forever while still maintaining a decent inter-ship balance.