Ramming Damage

[PvK]

Originally posted by couslee:
PvK,
I certainly can understand your PoV. If it was real time combat, you would be partially correct. However, Say two ships are nose to nose in combat, and one ships decides to proceeded with a ram. It will have some element of supprise by begining it's progress to ram first. The target ship would have to turn around before engaging it's faster engines, allowing even more time for the ramming ship to get closer. You make it sound like the faster ship can do an insta-turn and wisk itself to saftey. Doubt that.

If your ramming is going to destroy my ship, it is going to be extremely high priority for me to maneuver my ship so that you never get a chance to ram me. If my ship is as fast as yours, and as maneuverable, you will never get in this position. If I am "nose to nose" with you, that was a fatal error on my part.

Actual ship captains (and aircraft pilots, car drivers, etc), even non-military ones, make avoiding collisions a very high and constant priority.

But this is turn based combat. And in such, the faster ship can move into firing range and shoot at a target, while the other ship just sits there. This is being just as unrealistic. If your big expensive experienced ship is comming at me, it's ok for me to just sit still while you get your turn at advancing and taking your shots, with no chance to move out of your weapon's range. But it's not ok if you have to sit there while I get my turn? That is kind of one sided. So the faster ship argument in full of holes imo.

If you want ramming to be an equal element of combat to ranged weapons, perhaps so. Personally, I enjoy an emphasis on ranged weapons. Part of the problem is that the distance a ship can move in one turn, and its weapon range, are pretty close in the standard unmodded game. If I move into effective direct-fire range, you may be able to ram me as your next move. If tactical movement per turn were smaller compared to weapon range, it'd be a little less unbalanced. When letting the AI manage battles, the situation gets much worse, because I end up having to have all my ships set to Max Weapons range if I want to avoid exposing my ships to potential overrun by ram ships.

What is unbalanced is the total damage dealt during ramming. In a no friction setting like space, I would think that a collision would have more of a pushing effect than the damage caused by movement resistance (tires on the road, gravity, ect). I think perhaps a more realistic amount would be to have damage based not on the total mass, but around 20% of the total mass. To represent glancing blows and targets being pushed away. This could be done by tweaking down both numbers to 20. The target ship should NOT get an advantage when being rammed. It does not have the benefit being the ship that begins the maneuver, and in turning to move away from the approaching ship it exposes is wearker structural sides. If anyone should get and advantange it should be the attacker. And just because my ship is small means nothing against a massive ship who's design is less armored to allow for multiple weapons. If I am driving a rocket designed for the purpose of ramming, I would drive straight through the massive ship like a McDonalds restaruant. So the whole 100%kt/60%kt total mass determined ramming damage is unbalanced and unrealistic. (of course, as I have said before, the only realism that truely applies is that it somes on a pLastic disk and breaks if folded)

Well that could be an interesting sort of game, I suppose. Galley warfare in space. I think it would be the exception, though, rather than something for the default game settings.

Also, if the warhead was modded to a one use/one range weapon, I may not have to resort to the final effort of ramming. And if used correctly, would become a damaged component and not included in the ramming damage calculation.

If only damage was turned way down for both sides, then adding 300 damage to both ships using a Cobalt3 warhead the way it is now would make more sense and be more balanced. So maybe modding the warhead is the wrong approach. Maybe the base ramming damage is what really needs to be fixed. That would also slow down the "swarm of rammers" you are concerned about.

And being able to ram fighters is silly.

Well, you could certainly change the settings to 20% and add some range-one weapons. It sounds like it could be an interesting mod. SE3 Ripper Beams used to be potent range-one weapons...

PvK

[MacLeod]

[quote]Originally posted by PvK:
[quote]Originally posted by MacLeod:
[qb]

Originally posted by couslee:
The Nimitz can only ram canoes because it is much faster than they are, so much so that they essentially aren't moving. Try having the Nimitz ram a flock of speedboats. (Not to mention, ram fighter planes.) Better still, try having the Nimitz do what ships can do in SE4 - ram dozens of fighters at once, and have them have no chance to evade, or even to split up so only one gets hit.

Yes but remember in stock SEIV, everything has the same speed. So the larger ones would actually have an advantage, the smaller ones would have to move farther to dodge it.

I'm not saying it should be simple for a 900kt dreadnought to ram a 15 kt fighter, but it can happen.

Admittedly, SEIV is quite a bit flawed in the guarunteed hit ramming, I'm just disagreeing that a large ship should be so incredibly incapable of ramming very minute ones.

As another example, I can ram a gnat with my hand. The gnat is pretty damn fast, but when I think for a bit and use the significantly larger size of my hand as an advantage I can hit it.

[Krsqk]

I'll agree that you can hit a gnat. Give the gnats equal intelligence to yours, the knowledge that you're out to kill them, the awareness of your position and abilities, and networked communication, and I doubt that you would be able to smash an entire swarm of them in a single blow before they can move out of the way. That's how SE4 fighter-ramming works. If it changes so only one or two are killed at a time, then fine. I can see a 800kt ship hitting a couple of 15kt fighters, provided that they get too close.

I agree that the source of the problem is that combat movement tends to equal maximum range (or at least maximum hittable range) at all tech levels. ISTR that negative combat movement bonuses don't work. Increasing weapon range would take away an advantage of seekers. AIs would also waste shots/supplies firing at range 15 with 1% chance to hit.

Maybe bonus movement shouldn't be counted towards combat movement. How much will a solar sail help you maneuver? You need something with thrust in combat.

[ February 04, 2003, 14:53: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

[PvK]

Even if I assume for a moment that the unmodded game's abstract movement system is to be taken literally, it still doesn't mean that units with the same max speed have the same maneuverability or acceleration. A fighter might manage a 2G turn, but do that to a capital ship, and even "the starship Enterprise" with its artificial gravity systems would have the crew flying.

Ok, so you could assume everyone in your ships are strapped down for combat, or they have really powerful and adaptive artificial gravity, and the ships are all actually capable of being just as maneuverable as fighters... mhmm ok whatever. One can certainly dictate such things, and tweak whatever they like via modding. I just think it's a long ways off from the sci-fi I've seen (can't remember a fighter ever being rammed by a ship in any sci-fi I've seen, and very few ship-ship collisions), and also that it requires some fancy explanations compared to what my knowledge of physics, naval history, other games, imagination, common sense, etc includes.

PvK

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by PvK:
A fighter might manage a 2G turn, but do that to a capital ship, and even "the starship Enterprise" with its artificial gravity systems would have the crew flying.

Well, the Enterprise accelerates at something greater than 10,000g when it's working properly, so I don't think 2g is too much of a problem.

[PvK]

Apparently it does a better job at compensating for straight-ahead than it does at cornering, as witnessed by leaning crew memebers during sharp turns, and the time it takes to actually turn the ship around.

PvK

[Fyron]

Treknology can't be taken literally in any sense.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by PvK:
Apparently it does a better job at compensating for straight-ahead than it does at cornering, as witnessed by leaning crew memebers during sharp turns, and the time it takes to actually turn the ship around.

PvK

This reminds me of an interview Patrick Stewart did about the new movie. He was talking about the new hydraulic soundstage they used and how for the first time in the Trek genera the crew didn't have to shake themselves around to simulate the ship manuvers. Somehow I find that utterly hysterical.

Geoschmo

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
This reminds me of an interview Patrick Stewart did about the new movie. He was talking about the new hydraulic soundstage they used and how for the first time in the Trek genera the crew didn't have to shake themselves around to simulate the ship manuvers. Somehow I find that utterly hysterical.

There's also the show Frakes hosted near the end of TNG where they discussed the history of the show. He explains how they shook the camera and the cast jumped around to simulate hits. Then he jumped off to the side and it looked exactly like the bridge was shaking.