Armor is better than warheads

Psitticine · #1 September 30th, 2000, 01:19 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Sultan:
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

I've played Starfire (dunno why I ever stopped, come to think of it) but I'd forgotten that tidbit. It's an interesting idea and it certainly does make reconciling this part of the SEIV game rules with a bit of realism a lot either.

E. Albright · #2 October 1st, 2000, 08:19 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Psitticine:
Have you been encountering instances where both ships survived a ramming?

As of .56, it is possible to ram ships and have both survive. This appears to be a feature. Both ships will inflict their current damage resistence in damage to the other; however, the defender (and only the defender) will have this damage applied to its shields before any components are hurt. Makes sense, really: as far as the defender's shields are concerned, the other ship's just a big ballistic projectile...

An example: Cruiser A (S 0, DR 3800) rams Battle Station B (S 3920, DR 1500). Both vessels will survive. They will be as follows:
A: S 0, DR 2300
B: S 120, DR 1500

Hence, if the rammed ship has a greater combined shield value and damage resistence than the rammer's damage resistence (but its DR is less than the rammer's DR), both ships will live.

[This message has been edited by ealbright (edited 01 October 2000).]

dmm · #3 October 2nd, 2000, 04:59 PM

ealbright:
If that's true, that's a bug! It doesn't make any sense otherwise. In your example, A inflicts 3800 damage on B's shields but only takes 1500 damage itself (instead of taking 3800 damage and being destroyed).

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 02 October 2000).]

E. Albright · #4 October 2nd, 2000, 08:38 PM

quote:
Originally posted by dmm:

If that's true, that's a bug! It doesn't make any sense otherwise. In your example, A inflicts 3800 damage on B's shields but only takes 1500 damage itself (instead of taking 3800 damage and being destroyed).

If that's considered a bug, it's worse than that. I'd say if shields should be factored into the amount of damage inflicted, the rammer's shields should protect it. As it stands, if Cruiser A (S 1400, DR 720) rammed Battle Station B (S 3920, DR 1500), the Cruiser would be very dead, and the BS would be nigh unscathed.

A: dead (presumably S 1400, DR -780)
B: S 3200, DR 1500

I don't have a real problem with the way shields work now as far as ramming's concerned, but if things worked the way you suggest they should, then the rammer's shields should both inflict damage (right now no shields inflict damage in rams) and protect the rammer.

Of course, I'm of the school of thought which holds that if one ship can survive a ram, both can...

dmm · #5 October 2nd, 2000, 11:01 PM

Either shields should stop a ramming ship or they shouldn't. In StarTrek, for instance, shields stop most everything. In Dune, as a counter-example, shields stop energy and high-speed physical weapons, but not low-speed physical weapons (thus allowing hand-to-hand combat between two shielded people). MM can decide how they want to do it, but they have to be consistent or else it's dumb.
Contrived example: A has 50 S, 200 DR
B has 150 S, 150 DR
A rams B. One of 3 results should occur:
1) Shields count. A is gone, B has 0 S, 50 DR.
2) Shields don't count. B is gone, A has 50 S, 50 DR.
3) Shields absorb damage but can't inflict it (really wierd but possible). Then you'd have
A has 0 S, 100 DR (150 damage)
B has 0 S, 150 DR (150 damage).

But ealbright is claiming that the result would be
A has 0 S, 100 DR (150 damage)
B has 0 S, 100 DR (200 damage)
which doesn't make sense. It isn't consistent. There's just no rationalization for having one ship inflict more damage than the other. It violates Newton's Third Law.

No, wait! It's worse than that. I see that now ealbright is claiming that the rammer's shields don't help at all, so the result would be
A has 50 S, 50 DR (150 damage, all to DR)
B has 0 S, 100 DR (200 damage, 150 to S and 50 to DR)
which would also violate the principle of relativity -- somehow the physics of SEIV knows who is the rammer and who is the rammee.

Somebody please tell me this isn't true!

[note added later by dmm: Aargh! I tried it. It's true! If I ram a ship with just engines and shields into an _identical_ ship, the rammer is destroyed while the rammee just has shields reduced. Please, MM, fix this! It's a really stupid bug!]

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 02 October 2000).]

E. Albright · #6 October 3rd, 2000, 01:08 AM

quote:
Originally posted by dmm:
No, wait! It's worse than that. I see that now ealbright is claiming that the rammer's shields don't help at all, so the result would be
A has 50 S, 50 DR (150 damage, all to DR)
B has 0 S, 100 DR (200 damage, 150 to S and 50 to DR)
which would also violate the principle of relativity -- somehow the physics of SEIV knows who is the rammer and who is the rammee.

The only ad hoc justification (all right, lame ad hocjustification) I could come up with for this was something along the lines of shields dampening impact, so you'd have to imagine the rammer dropping its shields to allow all of its momentum to impact onto the opposing ship (or its shields), w/o having something which would impact & then yield as it fell. Of course, even this is really stupid if you're using a shield-heavy rammer ("Drop the shields so we'll impact at 150kt instead of at 290!" "Aye, aye, Cap'n!").

All right, I'll recant. It's a bug. It's too bloody goofy having a double standard about shields. But I'd really prefer them to not inflict damage... I get some odd satisfaction out of the possiblity of having both ships survive impacts...

Psitticine · #7 October 3rd, 2000, 06:35 AM

quote:
Originally posted by dmm:
If I ram a ship with just engines and shields into an _identical_ ship, the rammer is destroyed while the rammee just has shields reduced. Please, MM, fix this! It's a really stupid bug!]

Agreed. I'm sure it's not just me that finds this particular bug rather grating.

I guess I won't take as much note of it in much games but it shows up pretty badly, once you know to look for it, against the rest of SEIV. (Is that what you call a back-handed compliment?)

MM, if you've already fixed this one for the gold Version, let us know, eh? If not, well, here's something for the first patch.