Self-Destruct is Irrational Component

dmm · #1 May 31st, 2001, 06:23 PM

If someone Boards a ship with self-destruct (SD), then the SD destroys both ships. Even if the boardee is an escort and the boarder is a mother ship!

So, if SDs are so powerful, why can't a ship that is clearly doomed move up next to an enemy ship and initiate the SD, thereby taking out the hated enemy? (Or at least doing a heck of a lot of damage.) After all, you can commit noble suicide by ramming, and you can even plan for it with explosive warheads.

A rational SD should only be powerful enough to destroy the ship that carries it. Collateral damage should occur to ALL other ships next to it, and should be rated according to the size of the ship with the SD.

Oggy ben Doggy · #2 May 31st, 2001, 06:34 PM

If you have escorts bording your SDs, put Defence stations on your SDs.

Deathstalker · #3 May 31st, 2001, 06:34 PM

In this I definitly agree. Damage should affect the spaces (perhaps3, with 1 being most, 2some and 3 least amount of damage) around the ship. Similar to the way it was handled in Moo2. Bigger the ship, bigger the 'boom'. Maybe even different levels of SSD for more damage/resistance to virus weapons(see below paragraph).

Also it would be nice if there was a way to destoroy the SSD without destroying the rest of the ship so capture is possible. Maybe increasing the tech tree in computers? A virus that disables the SSD command sub-routine or something like that.

------------------
"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

Suicide Junkie · #4 May 31st, 2001, 06:38 PM

quote:
If someone Boards a ship with self-destruct (SD), then the SD destroys both ships. Even if the boardee is an escort and the boarder is a mother ship!
So, if SDs are so powerful, why can't a ship that is clearly doomed move up next to an enemy ship and initiate the SD, thereby taking out the hated enemy? (Or at least doing a heck of a lot of damage.) After all, you can commit noble suicide by ramming, and you can even plan for it with explosive warheads.
A rational SD should only be powerful enough to destroy the ship that carries it. Collateral damage should occur to ALL other ships next to it, and should be rated according to the size of the ship with the SD.

Consider that the boarding ship has lowered its defenses and has moved close enough to dock with the SDD ship. Also, the SDD is designed with the boarding problem im mind, so it would be way overpowered.
Consider a typical ship. Supply storage is enough for at least 100 nukes. Tons of Antimatter torpedoes. Let loose the antimatter or detonate all 100 nukes when the unshielded enemy ship sits 1meter from your hull, and ask yourself how well it would take that kind of a beating.
Blammo.

But ships at range have their shields up, and are mobile, so you can't reach them from where you are

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.

Baron Munchausen · #5 May 31st, 2001, 09:42 PM

Yep, there ought to be Collateral Damage in SE IV combat. Not just when ships self-destruct but when they blow up from any cause. Just check all the adjacent squares and distribute damage as if they were hit with a weapon. This would make it more dangerous to cram your ships as close together as possible for PDC massing and to gang up on an out-numbered enemy. If there were a percentage setting in SETTINGS.TXT for this you could control it or just turn it off if you didn't want it.

Nitram Draw · #6 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 · #7 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 · #8 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 · #9 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 · #10 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).]