Microwaves – Can the be stopped?

[и∀! // Reading Rambo]

My fellow Citizens,

I'm flying along and then some friend who forgot to turn on their transponder pops by and to my surprise offers hot-pockets. To my dismay. my friend seems decides to reheat the hot pockets a little more but left the microwave door open. I left unable to give him teach him Cronian salute, Ship loose power, insides are now on the outsides, and hot-pockets become cold pockets.

Is there any Microwave shielding or method to properly spec my electrical systems? I am ever so desperate want to rectify this state of affairs and customary greetings with a railgun.

~ Dr. Sir. Beaconsfield

[и∀! // Reading Rambo]

Joking aside, is there a way to counter microwaves or do I need something better than the starting ship.

[Uriel]

The Colothon... Cothon... Damn I can never remember the exact name of that thing... The freaking behemoth of a ship that handles like a garbage truck on ice has a built-in Farraday cage and is basically impervious to microwaves. So if "safety first" is your main priority, fly this :)

Aside from that, microwaves fry your computer, they're basically your best mean of dealing with enemy ships, so of course enemies can deal with you the same way.

The trick is, most of the time enemies are not really good at keeping you in the beam for a long time. You have to cleverly use those moments when you're back in control to outmanoeuver the enemy. Burn your main torch to evade behind a big enough ringroid, give your foe instant saturnism (aka excessive amount of lead in the organism) / fire your laser, or just GTFO. Because you won't have full control of your ship at all time, expect collisions, but if you hit something with the front side of the ship, you should be mostly fine. Just avoid smashing the reactor at the back, that's not the same repair bill at the end of the day.

Generally speaking, though, if anything approaches you without a transponder, either shoot first like Han Solo did, or make a run for it. A ship without a transponder is always illegal, and very often hostile. As anything illegal is always considered fair game and will never result into a bounty, your best defense is not giving them the opportunity to even trap you in a microwave beam.

[и∀! // Reading Rambo]

Thanks!

[Lurkily]

We're looking at methods of rebalancing microwaves entirely. The power loss is interesting on paper, but not fun in terms of gameplay. We're considering ways to address that.

[Uriel]

Originally posted by Lurkily:

We're looking at methods of rebalancing microwaves entirely. The power loss is interesting on paper, but not fun in terms of gameplay. We're considering ways to address that.

If I may... A possibility would be to have it fry the autopilot only. That way, you can still make an escape with manual controls. Of course, that means fly by wire is offline, and gimballed thruster can no longer make use of their angles. Might be good to have them built with a safety mechanism that resets them to standard alignment in case of electronic failure.

Another possibility would be to overheat the target ship without the disabling effect, at least not until heat builds up sufficiently to permanently fry the computer, at which point you're basically F***ed. I mean, real life microwaves heat up water by increasing kinetic energy on a micro level... And the ship's propellant is water. Also, if the ore processor hasn't finished working, or isn't installed at all, there is a large amount of water inside the hold. BUT this would basically mean we have a death ray. Constantly overheating a target reactor means the ship would go boom. But at least we would have to pilot to keep the ship targetted instead of freezing it in place. And ships can move unimpeded and escape the death ray with good piloting skill. Still seems quite overpowered because of the sheer destructive power. Well handled, it's a delayed "big red button" for everyone.

Also, if the computer frying effect is removed from the microwaves, we'll need something to do just that. Maybe a jammer of sort, an EMP blast or whatever. Something that doesn't do damage to ships, but renders them inactive for a bit. Somehow it still has to be usable for mining, else it's strictly a weapon and it would probably be illegal on a mining rig. It could have the drawback of rendering ALL weapons and mining equipment ineffective, including those mounted on the ship firing it, so the target ship isn't a sitting duck. Some sort of ceasefire bomb, to make a run for it safely while the other ship reboots its system.

Actually, I could see it along other things in its own category of upgrade, "defensive equipments". Microwave point defense emitter, EMP disabling pulse, Farraday cage and whatnot, which you can equip to boost your ship's defense and survivability at the cost of one less slots for mining equipment. Whichever way, the immobilisation effect of microwaves is too good not to have it in game, but it doesn't need to be coupled with a damage dealing system on a single upgrade like it is today.

I'm bordering unrealistic sci-fy here, but one could imagine a beam firing Higgs bosons that is used to keep asteroids in place and reduce the velocity of escaping minerals, for easier collecting. Wide beam, rather short range. As it is strictly utilitarian, it would deal no damage, or minimal damage, because technically that beam would be temporarily increasing the apparent mass of what it is fired upon, meaning increased structural constraints and deformations, as quare-cube law would still apply. But couple this with a mining laser, and you have a way to drastically slow a ship while firing at it. Artificially increased apparent mass means more inertia, and would feel like a decrease in thrusters power for the other ship. Actually that's probably the easiest way to code it : while under the effect of that beam, reduce thruster output by a percentage.

Another viable option for microwaves would be to restrict it to high stress hardpoint. Gotta come up with a good ingame reason for that, though, and change the point defense microwave emtter to have a wider arc. But that would mean Eagle and Cothon can't use microwaves at all, and it's not an ideal scenario.

Please understand that those are only suggestions, not me trying to tll you guys how to do make your own ghame. You've been doing a stellar job at it, this game far exceeds the expectations I had when I bought it, and the continued support and improvements is amazing. So whatever idea you guys come up with, I'm fairly certain it will be a good one :)

[Lurkily]

I don't think there's a good reason to put microwaves on a high-stress point, and it's only a band-aid, not a solution.

Right now they already add heat, but computer overheat just slows down computer operations like sensor polling and reboot.

Right now it drains the capacitor until you hit zero, which reboots the computer. We are considering an instant reboot without power drain as one solution. I feel like it's a straight nerf, but I'm coming around to the idea. The AI primarily flies by autopilot, so in most cases, the effect is the same. It'll be nerfed in its usage against the player, but that's kind of what we needed anyway.

[Uriel]

Yeah, I didn't think high stress was a good idea, but since I had it anyway...

I don't understand that part, though :

Originally posted by Lurkily:

Right now it drains capacitor until you hit zero, which reboots the computer. We are considering an instant reboot as one solution.

If the ship can produce more power than is consumed, thus never tapping into the capacitor, wouldn't it mean that microwaves should have no effect then ? Or is it just that, the effect IS draining the capacitor, and when it reaches zero, the computer reboots, and energy production is irrelevant in thaty case ?

[Lurkily]

Not handling the code directly (that's, unsurprisingly, Koder's area), a lot of what goes on under the hood is a bit opaque to me. There are things I do know, but this isn't one of them.

That said, I believe the computer and several other systems draw only from the capacitor, rather than having the ability to tap power from multiple sources, like the capacitors, turbines, and aux systems directly.

You can buy a second or two with the MPD aux systems, which can prop up your power against that drain, briefly.

This is also why pirates being microwaved to death sometimes seem to get a second wind, just as they're about to melt down. The overheating reactor pushes power generation through the roof, and it seems that there's a brief moment where they haven't exploded yet, but the crazy temperatures can out-power the microwave drain.

EDIT: It's worth noting that some thrust generates some of its own power - any thruster described as having an MPD generates some of its own power requirements, and should function (more or less) as long as you have heat to work with.

[Uriel]

This is starting to be a pattern, but thanks for the detailed explanation :)

[Lurkily]

No worries. I like exposing what's going on in the game a bit, because under the hood the simulation goes much deeper than people expect from first glance.

Also, recent updates have switched mikes to rebooting the computer, period, regardless of the capacitor, and abandoning the energy drain.

[Uriel]

Originally posted by Lurkily:

I like exposing what's going on in the game a bit, because under the hood the simulation goes much deeper than people expect from first glance.

Indeed it does. I've been playing for about 100 hours, and there are still things I discover. One thing I do love about this game is that you have to drop "video game logic" and start thinking "real life space ship" to actually get it right.

It's obviously a niche market, but one I have expecting for years now. All the so called "space sims" out there dumb down the physics to appeal to larger audience. They're for the most part good games ine their own rights, but they're not sims. Delta V is.

[WhiskeyNinja]

Originally posted by Lurkily:

We're looking at methods of rebalancing microwaves entirely. The power loss is interesting on paper, but not fun in terms of gameplay. We're considering ways to address that.

For what it's worth, I had a really fun experience with this earlier today, but only because I survived - but it was thrilling trying to wheel my ship around to hit them with no computer active.

If I'd died tho, you bet I'd be complaining, because it was only a fluke that I could rocket away long enough to actually wheel around and get a hit in. Physics of it aside, maybe consider making damage to the computer's stability distance based? Or have some sort of disposable hardening that gives you x seconds of functionality before it cooks off.

[Lurkily]

Just to cap off this discussion, microwaves no longer cause power drain, but instead reboot your computer regardless of power loss.