Armor is better than warheads

dmm · #1 September 26th, 2000, 09:56 PM

That brings up another very unrealistic thing about ramming. As I'm sure you all remember from high school physics (hehehe!), the formula for kinetic energy (KE, the energy from ramming) is
KE = 0.5 * m * v^2
where m is the mass and v^2 is the relative velocity squared. So an escort rammer with 6 quantum engines blazing that zooms head-on at full speed into another ship that's also moving at full speed ought to do a lot more damage than a crippled medium freighter with only one movement point that bumps into someone at rest. Remember what that comet did to Jupiter, mainly because their relative speed was so high? Didn't the folks at MM take Drivers' Ed? OK, maybe relative speed would be tough to figure out, but the current system could be improved somewhat.

In MM's defense, maybe they are just using remaining damage strength as a measure of remaining ship integrity. Like the difference between getting hit with a handful of sand and getting hit with a canvas bag full of sand.

Baron Munchausen · #2 September 26th, 2000, 11:03 PM

Yes, I have pointed out the real effects of ramming many times. Even moderate sized meteors hitting the earth are more powerful than the entire nuclear arsenal of the super-powers at their height. There's no way that a ship could survive the energies involved. Ramming would realistically be suicide no matter how much armor you crammed into your ship. <shrug> Warp points are not realistic either.

Enough people want the ramming option in the game that it's going to stay. I would prefer that there at least be a "special" tech required to build a ship that can survive a ram, then most ships could not survive and it would really be a Last-resort suicide tactic. Not sure what imaginary science you could invent to make it survivable, though. A ramming-prow made of some incredible substance that can be a "Shock absorber" maybe? It would have to be ablative, meaning you use it once and it's destroyed. A material hard enough to hit another ship and simply "take it" would also be immune to just about any weapon you can imagine.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 26 September 2000).]

Cyrien · #3 September 27th, 2000, 12:33 AM

Perhaps an alternative view for Warheads there? Instead of explosive you could explain them off as forward mounted exotic metals designed to take the forward impact of a ram on the ramming ship while not getting involved with the invincibilty of the component, it only covers the front after all... course that doesn't deal with all the issues involved but...

Psitticine · #4 September 27th, 2000, 04:29 AM

You can conceptualize something like a ramming prow with deflector field tech, if'n you like. An extension of repulser field and/or shield technology could be used to project a tightly focused "force field" ahead of the ship that could soak up incoming kinetic energy before it impacted the hull itself. If you want it one-shot, just say it burns out in the process and requires repair before becoming operative again.

It makes a bit more sense then a "superball" substance that would absorb the physical impact and yet not make the ship invulnerable to normal kinetic-based damage.

I agree that it isn't really realistic that anybody could survive a ram at the speeds involved, but I also agree that it is better to just ignore that and enjoy the space opera flavour!

Sultan · #5 September 27th, 2000, 07:51 AM

Well the game is based on starfire. In starfire the engines also protect the ship by giving off a field of some sort (been a while). This is the reason that a missle with a nuke on it doesnt just totally destroy a ship with a direct hit (in starfire that is) if it has an engine and why mothballed ships go up with one nuke. Rammings the same way. Just an artifact from the board game

E. Albright · #6 September 29th, 2000, 04:32 PM

Umm... No one's mentioned the nastiest trick you can pull as far as ramming's concerned. To wit: yesterday I was playing the .56 demo, and was at war with the red-shipped lizards. I'd an outpost colony in one of their systems with perhaps 10 weapon platforms and 4 Escorts in orbit. They attacked with 4 Cruisers & 1 L. Cruiser. Later that same turn they repeated the effort with 5 L. Cruisers. I lost one Escort and 2 weapon platforms.
And my point is? The escorts had no weapons on them, just 6 engines and 3 Organic Armor III's. They'd charge the Cruisers as they approached the planet, and if they got targeted by a large volley of missles, they'd run from them 'til they ran out of fuel. This would usually leave me with 2 Escorts free to wreck havoc. They'd each ram a Cruiser, and then run to avoid the L-mount beam weapons from the crippled ship or its brethern. In a round or two, their armor would have regenerated, and they'd be ready to help the weapons platforms clean up the remenents of the enemy fleet. I don't even want to get into what my Cruisers could do to enemy vessels...
If you want to see something frightnening, start a game at high tech (and as Organic), and design a nasty Battle Station, and a Cruiser that's nothing but OA & Engines (ECM helps too, and brings the design to an even 500kt). Then go to the simulator, and charge the BS with the Cruiser. It can rarely survive a single impact, and the Cruiser won't even wreck all its armor. Furthermore, unless the BS has weapons which skip armor, the Cruiser'll probably be at full strength when it hits, regardless of batteries of Massive-mount weapons... (Note: if you make the BS an OA beastie, I'll not attest to the vericity of the above...)

Psitticine · #7 September 30th, 2000, 01:11 AM

quote:
Originally posted by ealbright:
They'd each ram a Cruiser, and then run to avoid the L-mount beam weapons from the crippled ship or its brethern.

Err, the damage done by ramming is supposed to be the amount needed to destroy the more fragile vessel. Have you been encountering instances where both ships survived a ramming? If so, you might want to forward that info, plus a saved-game file, to MM for bug-stomping.