Ramming Damage

[tbontob]

Geo

Recently, I had my colony ship ram another. Mine was set on "kamakazi" and was destroyed but the other survived to colonize a planet. It was a surprise to me as I thought "All things being equal, if a ship should survive, it should be the attacker based on the 100/60). I can't remember if the other colony ship tried to run away or not, but it didn't try to ram.

So, could it be the other way around? Like the attacker takes more damage. Or could there something that changes the algorithym of damage so that the attacker is occasionally destroyed.

[couslee]

tbontob. I have seen that too. Had a ramming colony ship gets destroyed ramming a lighter ship ship too.

Thats is why I was thinking about maybe modding the warhead to a range 1, use 1. At 1000 minerals each, you should get more benefit than it gives.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by couslee:
See, I thought the warhead damage calculated first. I would rather see the warhead with a .5 or 1 range with only one use allowed. (MOD?)

You can't mod a true one shot weapon, but you can mod one with a 30 reload rate. Not sure if that would do exactly what you want, but it might come close.

What about if I had damaged components. Is the mass from those deducted from the ramming damage done? I assume it is, but not 100% sure. That goes for a lot of things in this game.
This is a good question, but I have no idea.

Geoschmo

[couslee]

You can't mod a true one shot weapon, but you can mod one with a 30 reload rate. Not sure if that would do exactly what you want, but it might come close.

That supprises me. Other components have the "may only be used once" or "destroyed after use" ability. this wouldn't work on the warhead? shame.

Edit in: Of course, it would have to be repaired afterwards, indicating a "replacement" warhead installed.

[ February 03, 2003, 20:00: Message edited by: couslee ]

[tbontob]

Originally posted by couslee:
tbontob. I have seen that too. Had a ramming colony ship gets destroyed ramming a lighter ship ship too.

Thats is why I was thinking about maybe modding the warhead to a range 1, use 1. At 1000 minerals each, you should get more benefit than it gives.

Except for one game, I have been playing the standard non-modded 1.78 game.

But now I remember, the colony ship which was destroyed was in The Great Experiment II and the players colony ships were modded to allow them to have greater range. And it was my colony ship vs the AI's. Could a modded colony ship have skewed what should normally have happened?

[PvK]

The default values in settings.txt favor the target, not the rammer.

I think the main reason for this, and for making ramming warheads expensive and not very powerful is balance, and the fact that the ramming mechanic isn't very realistic or fair. Since the current mechanic makes it pretty easy to ram even faster ships (or drones or even FIGHTERS), ramming has to be disadvantaged some other way, or it will become a better strategy to build lots of ram ships than to invest in real weapons and sensors and stuff.

IMO, reducing the damage from ramming is a hack solution, but I also think it is far better than letting ram ships dominate. Ideally, the ramming mechanic would actually make sense. It wouldn't be automatically successful, and would be impossible or nearly impossible to ram faster or more maneuverable targets, especially fighters.

PvK

[tbontob]

Originally posted by PvK:
The default values in settings.txt favor the target, not the rammer.

PvK, are you saying that it is the reverse and it is the rammer who is likely to take 100 damage and the defender 60?