Self-Destruct is Irrational Component

[Marty Ward]

Does a master computer provide boarding defense?

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Q:
That would be a good idea. Also the possibility that the self destruction device fails (hmm, I forgot the damn password for the command of self destruction!) would be nice. The way it is now (the same was true for SE III), boarding IMO is just not worth the effort!

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Yes, another request we've made many times before. Even the 'Quantum Detonator" in MOO II had a 50 percent chance to fail. There ought to be a chance of the SDD in this game failing, too, if only 20 percent or something like that.

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Marty Ward:
Does a master computer provide boarding defense?

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As far as I know, no. This is the trade-off for immunity to Crew ConVersion.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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Yes, another request we've made many times before. Even the 'Quantum Detonator" in MOO II had a 50 percent chance to fail. There ought to be a chance of the SDD in this game failing, too, if only 20 percent or something like that.

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The self-destruct does have a chance to fail. If it takes damage (easy to do once the shields are down) then it will not work

There's no dice required. If you want to capture a ship that has a SDD, get your gunners to carefully cut out the offending device.

When I'm playing a Pirate race, Self-Destruct Devices have approximately a 75% failure rate

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

[jc173]

I find it's pretty hard to nail a SDD in a large ship especially if the ship mounts components that take up a large amount of the available volume. If I understand SEIV damage correctly, once you damage an internal component all further damage that gets past armor or shields will continue to damage that component until it is destroyed. While I'll agree that a larger component should be more likey to hit I think it's kind of bogus that all subsequent penetrating shots will continue to damage that subsystem. So when attacking larger ships especially those with the larger weapon mounts it seems that you generally tag the weapons and anything else useful that's bigger than 10kt.

[dmm]

You guys keep missing my point. I'm not saying that I'm displeased with SDDs from a game-play point of view. I agree with suicide_junkie: it is unlikely that you'd want to board an escort with a mother ship, so it doesn't really matter to the game play. But what bothers me is that a super-powerful SDD doesn't make sense from a story-line point of view. I'll say it again: if SDDs are so powerful, then why wouldn't an empire just make ramming suicide escorts with SDDs that could be detonated just before impact? They could destroy any other ship. For that matter, why not SDD-equipped fighters?

Of course, I don't want this to be allowed in the game, because it would ruin it! So, what I'm asking for is a logical pseudo-scientific story-line explanation for why SDDs don't work this way. And I really feel that no one has even attempted to give one yet. (For instance, suicide_junkie's explanation for why SDDs can be so powerful only reinforces my point, from the story-line point of view.)

[geoschmo]

quote:

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So, what I'm asking for is a logical pseudo-scientific story-line explanation for why SDDs don't work this way.

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quote:

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from components.txt file
Name := Self - Destruct Device
Description := Computer controlled device which overloads a ship's engines and destroys the ship. This will be used automatically if a ship is successfully boarded, destroying both your ship and the attacking ship.

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Given this is the explaination for the SDD, then it kinda makes sense the engines would be unusable for manuvering during the terminal overload stage, which would be required to get it close enough to the enemy ship.

If you accept this you have to ignore the fact that the SDD still works when the engines are destroyed, but you asked for psuedo-science, you got psuedo-science.

Geo