Self-Destruct is Irrational Component

Nitram Draw · #1 May 31st, 2001, 09:52 PM

Wouldn't that have be a rather large explosion to give collateral damage? Since the ships only occupy one space and a planet takes up 4 spaces how close can they be?

Suicide Junkie · #2 May 31st, 2001, 10:27 PM

A planet may be 4 squares across, but then again, the moons are only 4 squares away from the planet, and stars are 4 squares across

Depending on your reference, combat squares are anywhere from 1KM in size to 1 light-second in size.

Baron Munchausen · #3 June 1st, 2001, 12:55 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
Wouldn't that have be a rather large explosion to give collateral damage? Since the ships only occupy one space and a planet takes up 4 spaces how close can they be?

It would have to be a large explosion for a direct hit with a weapon to do much damage, too. In all cases we're talking about very high energies. This might not seem realistic but I don't think ramming is realistic either. Think of its effect on game play:

1) You would no longer be able to cram your ships cheek-by-jowl to concentrate PDC protection or fire-power without a balancing risk.

2) The objection about people using boarding frigates to take out dreadnoughts with a SDD would be at least partly balanced by the difficulty of arranging your attack to keep other ships out of harms way. How does a boarding frigate close in without getting destroyed? With support from other capital ships that might be damaged if they are too close when the enemy ship is boarded. But if they aren't close enough the boarding frigate will probably be vaporized before it can board. The "cost-benefit" of this tactic could be completely changed.

3) "Suicide" attacks will begin to really mean something. If you can self-destruct (or just ram and blow up) against an enemy formation and damage MANY ships for the loss of your one it will suddenly be a truly dangerous and scary tactic. Maybe there ought to be some sort of morale penalty to make it more costly for the source empire. Formations might have to be redesigned to account for this, too. More space between ships to minimize damage -- which would make individual ships more vulnerable.

It has lots of potential.

dmm · #4 June 1st, 2001, 01:51 AM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Consider that the boarding ship has lowered its defenses and has moved close enough to dock with the SDD ship.

The boarding ship had to lower its shields but it didn't lose all its armor and structural integrity. And I thought the boarding component was like pods for space marines, which is why it isn't reusable. So the boarding ship doesn't have to dock with the SDD ship.

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Also, the SDD is designed with the boarding problem im mind, so it would be way overpowered.

Yes, but not THAT overpowered! An escort taking out a mother ship covered with organic armor??!! Why the heck would anyone even bother to make any other weapons? (Weenies could research master computer first.)

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
But ships at range have their shields up, and are mobile, so you can't reach them from where you are

They aren't at range if you're ramming them.

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
I would suggest giving your SDDs a warhead ability, so they can do 1500 or so damage during a ramming. Your ship will be destroyed, but you get to do extra damage by delf-destructing.

See comment above about escorts and mother ships.

Suicide Junkie · #5 June 1st, 2001, 02:46 AM

quote:
The boarding ship had to lower its shields but it didn't lose all its armor and structural integrity. And I thought the boarding component was like pods for space marines, which is why it isn't reusable. So the boarding ship doesn't have to dock with the SDD ship.

The explanation since SE3 was that you either lose all your troopers to the defences on board (if you lose), or the troopers remain on board the captured ship to pilot & maintain control. The troopers could still get aboard directly from a forced docking and not be reusable.

quote:
Yes, but not THAT overpowered! An escort taking out a mother ship covered with organic armor??!! Why the heck would anyone even bother to make any other weapons? (Weenies could research master computer first.)

Attempting to board a small ship with a SDD is just silly. You lose any shields plus your troopers, at best. If you have a mothership with organic armor, ram your way through the little ships and regenerate your armor.

quote:
But ships at range have their shields up, and are mobile, so you can't reach them from where you are
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They aren't at range if you're ramming them.

I was talking about your "Collateral damage should occur to ALL other ships next to it" statement. You are not ramming the "other ships", and you aren't being boarded by the "other ships" in the case of SD.

quote:
Yes, but not THAT overpowered! An escort taking out a mother ship covered with organic armor??!! Why the heck would anyone even bother to make any other weapons? (Weenies could research master computer first.)

Look, 1000 supplies gives you 100 CSMs.
100 damage times 100 CSMs gives you 10,000 damage.
Detonate all your ammo as a SDD, and you do twice the damage of a Black Hole's center!
A 10 KT SDD could hold more than enough CSM warheads(without missile bodies) to destroy anything.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 01 June 2001).]

Spoo · #6 June 1st, 2001, 03:28 AM

I think the self-destruct works well. After all, for that escort to take out your supper-dreadnaught it would first have to wipe out all of the dreadnaught's sheilds. Secondly, with out the self-destruct, that little escort would let the other player steal your nice, shiny, new super-dreadnaught and go prancing over to your homeworld.

------------------
Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

[This message has been edited by Spoo (edited 01 June 2001).]

Spoo · #7 June 1st, 2001, 03:30 AM

Sudden, intesting idea:

Ship capture could be a devestating weapon against an opponent who uses organic tech. Even if they do use sheilds, they'd be using less than other players to make room for their organic armor.

------------------
Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.