Directional Damage Discussion

[Kana]

From another post...

Phoenix-D said:
No. SF had directional armor and (IIRC) shields.

Once SE5 lets you add new slot types (it was apparently supposed to, and MM thought it was working, but it isn't), you could make a limited fully directional hit system.

The problem is the shield "generators" would also be the shield "points", so when your shields fail, there goes the generator too.

..speaking of, I'm still trying to get a Langston Field type system into SE5. Perfect protection until the shield gets too low, then some penetration. And if the shield gets overwhelmed, BANG..no ship.

EDIT: by the way, I should point out SJ and I didn't mention damagetypes when we were explaining the damage system. Layers are a bit more important when complex damage types are involved, as you can have a weapon that is partially blocked by the shields and passes the rest through to the hull, for example.

Now I have to ask the question why didnt all of the Star Fury stuff get included in to SEV?

I kinda like the idea of the shield generator being damaged/destroyed, if it runs out of shield points. Directional armor and shield are a natural need for any form of directional damage. As for adding and modding slots, I do hope that this gets added/fixed in the future.

After thinking about it a bit...I guess all of the directional stuff was left out, because it would be to hard to take in that much information, and do something with it in a RTS battle like enviorment. If it was turn-based, and you could take as much time as you want to mull options over, and see which ship has its *** hanging out so to speak, then you could do something to protect it.

Now of course you could just slow the current combat engine down to 1 sec pause start pause thing, but is that what people really want? How would a completely directional system of damage (a la Star Fury) effect a mass combat engagment, and SEV currently? Other than the AI not being able to exploit and use this system.

It just hard to come from SE3 which I enjoyed, to SE4, which I accepted and enjoyed because of added modding possiblities, to basically being let down on how SE5 works. Yes I came in to SE3 and SE4 late in the game after it was polished abit, and I hope the same will eventually happen to SE5.