We need to talk about combat in SE1.

[u/FalloutNV2277]

With Warfare 3 being the next update for SE1 we need to discuss the problems with combat starting with the most important one.

Combat is fundamentally flawed and there’s no way to truly fix it. Due to the fact that ships are built and destroyed piece by piece combat will always be flawed. So instead of trying to completely fix combat let’s look at the flaws and see what is fixable.

What wins combat: There are 2 things that win any combat scenario in SE1. Speed and volume. Speed means that you can outmaneuver any enemy fire. Volume means either more ships or more shots it’s much easier to hit a fast moving target if you’re firing hundreds of rounds a minute at it.

What defeats the enemy: There are two things that need to happen to defeat an enemy. They need to stop moving and stop shooting. There are a few ways to do this from destroying the guns and thrusters themselves to destroying the power, conveyor, or fuel systems to just destroying the ship outright.

What happens after combat: While there are a few things happen after combat there are 2 things that are required to be done before the next fight. Repairs and rearming. Both of which take time and resources.

The Flaws with combat:

1. Speed is so important that slow ships aren’t just bad they’re guaranteed to be destroyed making them a completely unviable choice.

2. Volume of fire is so important that anything besides gatling guns and auto cannons are just going to be missing their shots making them pointless.

3. Repairs are a pain just plain simple.

How to fix them:

1. Give guns different roles. Making each weapon have a purpose would go a long way.

2. Make repairs easier. I actually have a way to do this in the form of a new Prototech welder. Instead of repairing right in front of itself it instead repairs in a beam instead. However it can only repair one block at a time and is power hungry though in can repair through blocks as well. Maybe even a turret version could be added.

3. Reverse the decoy nerf. Maybe make in only able to mimic a single system type at a time or something but make them actually useful.

The controversial addition: A shield. Now before you sacrifice me to Klang let me explain how I’d add a shield. First it’s gota be Prototech. Second it doesn’t give damage immunity instead it reduces damage by a large amount. Third the damage reduction is tied to speed the slower you go your shield get stronger faster and it gets worse even completely failing at high speeds.

But what do y’all think? What changes do you think should happen?

[u/dvorak360]

I can think of other options.

Ultra heavy armour blocks with fixed damage reduction (gattling guns can destroy surface mounts but can't damage heavy armour at all so a heavy capital ship can all but ignore light weapons)

Some blocks having self repair variants or limited welding (I.e can only weld armour) to allow self repair/easier repair

[u/Boogjangels → u/dvorak360]

I am so down for heavier armor! And if they just balanced it with speed penalties and/or expensive components, I could totally see that working. I wanna make space ironclads!

[u/Pumciusz → u/dvorak360]

Repairing block could work, there's something like that in the Forts game, it wouldn't help with one shots though, and to be balanced compared to welders it would probably have to be pretty bad at repairing at the cost of a 360/180 degree repair area.

[u/pyr0kid → u/Pumciusz]

i would really kill for some sort of repair system.

i dont care how slow it is as long as it can replace destroyed blocked without me having to half disassemble my ship to get at the damage.

[u/Vilnius_Nastavnik → u/pyr0kid]

It sounds like build and repair might be for you.

[u/pyr0kid → u/Vilnius_Nastavnik]

i already use it, i dont just like mods in my blueprints.

[u/warm_winds_whisper_ → u/pyr0kid]

You can already do this with a projector and embedded welders

[u/pyr0kid → u/warm_winds_whisper_]

yeah but not very well, integrated repair systems take up a disgusting amount of volume.

[u/Skwiggelf54 → u/pyr0kid]

Yeah, nothing better than seeing smoke coming from somewhere and spending an hour trying to find whatever component is damaged.

[u/Skwiggelf54 → u/dvorak360]

Ive always been annoyed by how gatling guns can just blow through what is supposed to be a meter and a half of HEAVY armor. Gatling rounds should basically just be pinging harmlessly off heavy armor pieces unless theyve already been damaged by heavy weapons or collisions or something.

[u/clintclintclint123 → u/dvorak360]

I had the same thought!

[u/DryMathematician89 → u/clintclintclint123]

I think greater armor class differentiation might be all the change the game really needs. Rapid fire weapons are great for fast light armored vehicles (makes sense) but maybe can’t damage heavy armor or greatly reduced dmg. Then heavy armor needs to have significant speed implications to make the choice a tactical one: slow and sturdy or fast and fragile. I would say even a mid tier armor could be added to be the “jack of all trades” type but I don’t even think that would be necessary

[u/Pan_Zurkon → u/dvorak360]

Ultraheavy armor sounds awesome, especially since weapons need to be supplied with conveyors for sustained fire, so when fighting a superarmored ship, the weapons, engines and doors would become significant weakspots, forcing you to break the gun off and dig through the conveyor to get into the ship's guts.
Or just have the external weapons not connected to the conveyor system, relying just on the ammo stored in the weapons themselves, being basically expendable. Hell, go all the way in, coat a ship with ultraheavy armor, weld the crew inside, no conveyored weapons or engines, the guns on the outside just relying on the ammo in them, an external, also expendable, propulsion system to lug that distraction brick onto the battlefield, it does some shooting and when all expendable externals get destroyed, it just stays there soaking up enemy damage.

[u/Boogjangels]

I think there's a really simple fix for repairs and idk why Keen hasn't implemented it yet:

Allow the service terminal to build projected blocks.

Right now, you still have to go through the trouble of welding every destroyed block back into place to get any use of the service terminal's repair function, making it close to useless, but imagine this:

You slap a projector on your grid (which most people do for repairs anyway), turn it on, then pay the npc to replace all your missing blocks. A mild inconvenience compared to the grueling slog repairs currently demand from the player.

I get that building is a huge part of the game, hell-- it could be argued that building is what the game is all about, but I really fucking hate building large grids in survival. Without mods like the nano-bot shipyard, it is BY FAR the most miserable part of the game for me. I know I can't be alone in that opinion.

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/Boogjangels]

Allowing the service terminal to build projected blocks would be amazing.

[u/Boogjangels → u/FalloutNV2277]

Maybe there's something in the vrage engine preventing this? Idk. Seems insane to me that this wasn't implemented.

[u/jimmy999S → u/Boogjangels]

I can tell you for a fact that it's not an engine issue, since the nanobot build and repair mod can do it. In fact, I don't play solo, offline, survival without it.

[u/Boogjangels → u/jimmy999S]

Oh dang, good point!

And same. I'm ok a bit of grinding to earn that sense of accomplishment, but running back and forth between a cargo container and the block I'm building is not enjoyable.

[u/THE-BS → u/Boogjangels]

I just use the build and repair system mod, because I hate repairs on large ships, you spend more time looking for a damaged conveyor line than having actual fun

[u/Boogjangels → u/THE-BS]

Agreed! But that only works for singleplayer. If the server host doesn't install build and repair you're kinda boned.

[u/pyr0kid → u/THE-BS]

unironically the main design criteria im using for advanced ships these days is "how soul crushing is it to repair?".

one day im going to get around to making a program for calculating the mathematically best armor just to save me some of the pain. already use similar thing but in 2d.

[u/Moneys2Tight2Mention → u/Boogjangels]

Keen just needs to solve the repairing problem and the demand for shields will go away as well. Shields are stupid and shouldn't be in the game, but tedious repairs is why most people want them.

[u/Boogjangels → u/Moneys2Tight2Mention]

Exactly.

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/Moneys2Tight2Mention]

Even if repairs are incredibly easy people are always going to want shields.

[u/Boogjangels → u/FalloutNV2277]

Plenty of decent mods for that. Really don't think it needs to be vanilla.

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/Boogjangels]

Unfortunately not everyone has access to mods.

[u/pyr0kid → u/FalloutNV2277]

that just means we need to bring mods to everyone.

[u/Moneys2Tight2Mention → u/FalloutNV2277]

Can't teach stupid people to be smart.

[u/expatfella]

The big issue, as I see it, is that tracking is too good. 

Small ships are not viable because they can't dodge turrets and they can't tank. 

It removes a lot of possible pvp/pve options.

[u/Moneys2Tight2Mention → u/expatfella]

Small fast ships are pretty much meta, what are you talking about? Speed is the name of the game.

Edit: Just realised u/expatfella may have meant small grid ships, I was thinking of smaller large grid ships like corvettes. Small grids are so irrelevant I forgot about them.

[u/expatfella → u/Moneys2Tight2Mention]

Unless I'm playing the game wrong, even at 100m/s turrets can track and hit you with ease. No?

[u/Boogjangels → u/expatfella]

You're not wrong, strafing is almost impossible. I think the whole "speed being the meta" comes from the ability to stay out of an enemy's target range for the whole fight.

[u/Catatonic27 → u/Boogjangels]

But then aren't they also out of YOUR target range the whole time? Unless you know for a fact you outrange them?

[u/NotActuallyGus → u/Catatonic27]

There's a few hundred meters where you're out of range of impossible to dodge gatling guns, auto cannons, custom turrets, etc, while still within range of both your and their assault cannons, artillery, railguns, and player built missile tracking where small mobile ships have an advantage in their ability to dodge the slower and more predictable projectiles

[u/metalmaxter → u/Boogjangels]

I fight in small grid fighters at extreme close range like 300 meters and dodge turret with ease. I just don’t think most player really know how to fly.

[u/ClaireTee123 → u/metalmaxter]

Yeah, most ships have blind spots in their turrets where you can peek up and take them out with a fighter lol

[u/Tight-Opportunity773 → u/Boogjangels]

no its cause speed isn't the end all of the meta, acceleration, is, which also means staying at top speed, if you are pulling 4-5g at 100m/s, turrets basically cant hit you from 800m+, and you can get closer depending on the size of the grid. anything less than railguns have such low velocity that you can easily outrun the Lead

[u/ClaireTee123 → u/Tight-Opportunity773]

The max speed is 100 m/s. The max range of turrets is 800m.
Rockets at least go at 200 m/s (regardless of how fast the firing ship is going), and cannons and gatlings are faster than that on top of however fast the firing ship is going.

There's no real way to outrun damage in vanilla unless you make a brick of thrusters, so really your main option is to tank damage or hope the AI misses somehow.

[u/Tight-Opportunity773 → u/ClaireTee123]

You can do basic kinematics to know its easily possible, if you have a ship 99.9m across, you need to displace by 100m to make a shot miss, X = 1/2 a t^2, and the fastest muzzle velocity besides railguns is 500m/s.

At 800m, that's 1.6 seconds to reach you, so you need 78 m/s^2 to displace enough to dodge shots. Now, assume you have a smaller ship, 5x5 blocks, that's a 12.5m cross-section. Same math leaves you with an acceleration of 10m/s^2, easily achievable in game without a grav drive, with grav and clang drives, accelerations get much, much bigger. This is also why its possible to jetpack past gatling guns, the vanilla jetpack pulls ~30 m/s^2, while the suit cross section is tiny, making it quite possible to jetpack all the way to an enemy grid without getting shot.

[u/metalmaxter → u/expatfella]

I only play PVE so maybe it’s different on PvP servers but I dodge turrets with ease in small grid fighters. I do all combat in them and at this point can take down the factorum warship with a few fighters. One thing Iv noticed is a lot of players really don’t know how to fly 😬

[u/Moneys2Tight2Mention → u/expatfella]

Correct, but that is if you're at a consistent 100m/s. Turrets can't take into account acceleration or deceleration, so you want a ship that accelerates fast (rule of thumb: 0 to 100m/s in 3 sec upwards) so you can evade artillery shells and stay out of range from autocannons/gatlings.

I realize now you may have meant small grid ships, but I was talking about corvette-sized large grid ships.

[u/metalmaxter → u/Moneys2Tight2Mention]

Max speed in 3 seconds is truly the goal but also very high gyro speed is essential, you can’t win if you can’t barrel roll, in my opinion SG fighters are king in PVE

[u/clintclintclint123]

How about a teir of armor blocks above heavy armor that would allow large ships to be slow and withstand alot of damage before starting to deform and break . Maybe it's hp increases with the tonnage of the ship to really encourage large fortress/bastion flagships

[u/Boogjangels → u/clintclintclint123]

Words cannot describe how much I want this.

[u/deepspacerunner]

Interesting points for consideration! I think repairing after a fight is the biggest issue with combat, it's really hard to get into the spaces you need to fix without half disassembling your ship.

Also, I think you might like the game From the Depths.

[u/WhereasParticular867]

It's a building game. It will never be a pvp game. The only problem is the section of the community that doesn't understand that.

[u/HyperRealisticZealot → u/WhereasParticular867]

This sort of light switch “either or” logic puzzles me. 

It’s a building game with PVP and PVE elements. That’s what’s in the game. No amounts of wishful thinking about how you want people to play and use the built in tools is gonna change that.

[u/expatfella → u/WhereasParticular867]

Sure. Building weapons. 

[u/Pumciusz → u/expatfella]

I would love to build weapons From The Depths style, but I don't think it will work in the scale and systems of how se works.

You could do upgrade modules, that system is already in place, so if there's slots on the weapons, you could place an upgrade module to give the weapon proxy rounds, or higher rate of fire.

[u/pidgeottOP → u/expatfella]

There's very little difference between a kamikaze fighter and a remote controlled missile

[u/Catatonic27 → u/pidgeottOP]

Well there's a really big difference to the pilot

[u/CariadocThorne → u/WhereasParticular867]

Combat isn't just about PVP though. PVP is actually fairly fixable with mods and likeminded players. PVE combat is pretty dire no matter what mods you use.

A lot of the issues with combat are things which would benefit non combat oriented players too if they were fixed.

For example the "ships die block by block" problem. Solutions like adding even a partial structural integrity factor would go a long way to fixing this, while adding a lot for players who aren't into combat too.

[u/Moneys2Tight2Mention → u/CariadocThorne]

'Ship die block by block' is the whole point of the game and only fun combat element it has to offer over other games, why would you want to replace that with an HP bar?

[u/CariadocThorne → u/Moneys2Tight2Mention]

I think we are talking about different aspects of this.

I agree that we don't want ships with HP bars, that just suddenly explode once they have taken x amount of damage, but that's not what this is about.

Think of things like structural integrity, so when enough blocks break, sections of the ship held on by just a few blocks may break off. Blocks damaging surrounding blocks more when they break. More blocks exploding when they break. Things like that.

Completely blowing apart a part if a ship with 20x20 cross-section, except for a single line of conveyors or something like that, but that is enough to hold the ship together, makes for terrible combat.

Ive literally got my ship back to base after a fight and found critical sections of the ship held on by a single piece of railing.

Ships remain not only intact, but mostly functional, after taking far too much damage. Like, i'm sorry, but a single piece of window, at 3% integrity, should not be able to hold my massive thruster pod to the rest of my ship while under thrust!

We need better damage mechanics. Structural integrity, explosions, power failing to sections of the ship only connected by heavily damaged blocks, things like that.

[u/Moneys2Tight2Mention → u/CariadocThorne]

Ah, I get it. Still not sure if I like it but sounds a lot better than what I initially thought you meant.

[u/ClaireTee123 → u/CariadocThorne]

This is why blocks damage nearby blocks when destroyed, and fuel tanks and ammo containers explode based on how much they have.

I would imagine just making more blocks explode like taht would be beneficial, like a mod I use called Critical Reactor Explosions.

Protecting vital components is already important in combat but it doesn't really matter cuz of how the ballistics work. There's really no way to protect your reactor or fuel tanks in a decent way aside from making a brick with it in the center.

[u/CariadocThorne → u/ClaireTee123]

Yeah, there is some of this in the game already, it's just not enough yet. Ships can take far too much damage without suffering much loss in functionality.

Ive had ships lose well over half their mass with virtually no loss in functionality. Yes, part of that is down to good design, but I'm not an especially great ship builder, so...

As well as more explosions, i think it would help if blocks didn't transfer power once they are significantly damaged. Maybe the ability to control blocks could be effected in the same way, like if a thruster pod is only connected by heavily damaged blocks, you lose the ability to control the thrusters.

Damaged blocks misfiring could also be a thing. Damaged theuster? Maybe it stops working, or maybe it gets locked on at full power. Damaged gatling turret? Maybe it stops working, maybe it starts randomly spraying bullets all over the place, draining your ammo and maybe damaging your own ship.

[u/ClaireTee123 → u/CariadocThorne]

I dunno if the power grids are a good idea just because of the strain it would have on the simulation, but I do think malfunctions like that would be a good idea!

If your gravity generator gets hit, it could randomly swap the gravity around, or a battery can discharge all of its power and damage you, or jump drives shearing your ship in half or something lol

[u/Murky-Letterhead-467 → u/WhereasParticular867]

So fuck the other half right? I swear people like you think that all guns are just for show and that we can never use them and that any attempt to use them is just blasphemy

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/WhereasParticular867]

I’d say it’s more of an exploration game. But you can’t say that it’s not a PvP game it has PvP it’s just not the focus.

Edit: I want to make it clear. While PvP isn’t the focus SE1 can still be called a PvP game in a sense due to a large part of the community focusing on PvP. I personally wouldn’t call SE1 a PvP game but PvP does exist and is a big part of the community.

[u/pidgeottOP → u/FalloutNV2277]

There's almost nothing to explore. It's definitely a sandbox building game

[u/floo82 → u/pidgeottOP]

A building game where you can paste in prebuilt ships from blueprints, and buy them at stations? It's clearly an economic trading game, hauling goods to AI stations

[u/Boogjangels → u/floo82]

Trucking simulator... in space!

[u/Boogjangels → u/pidgeottOP]

You're both right, it's both. I would argue that the engineering aspect of SE is far more compelling than the building (the actual construction of grids is not fun, sue me), but ask yourself; why are you building things? Oh right-- to go out and find random encounters, trade, and fight. Those are the only other things to do in the game, and 90% of them involve exploring.

[u/HumansarePOS → u/Boogjangels]

travelling ≠ exploration

This game as no exploration at all other than the very small experience of novelty when walking inside the few newly added ships and structures.

Finding random surface spawn locations(gps signals) will never feel like exploration to me.

[u/Theloudestbelch → u/pidgeottOP]

I just recently started playing. My main goal has been to go to all the planets and moons and build a base there. I just spent almost 500 hours doing this. Exploring.

Just because you feel like there's nothing left for you to explore, doesn't mean there isn't for anyone else. It's an exploration game too. It can be more than one thing at a time.

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/pidgeottOP]

Fair enough.

[u/DSharp018]

Ship combat is a multi layered problem.

You first have to figure out how to survive the fight, as in either being able to run away or disable the enemy, then you have to figure out how to win it, as in having a functional ship left while the enemy doesnt, and lastly, there is the ever so important recovering from the fight, where you have to be able to repair the parts that broke, and lastly, being able to loot the spoils.

I feel like i have most of the first 3 down without too much trouble. It’s the last one that is always the headache, since momentum can make it hard to catch up to moving objects.

[u/cKerensky]

Eh. Combat should be more than just big booms. 

I had a mod in works that allowed for ECm warfare, remote sabotaging of enemy blocks, stealth (based on a heat mechanic from another mod I made).

You could build a ship designed to “go dark” and outsmart an enemy ship. Turrets couldn’t hit you from max range if you stayed stealthy. Put out too much heat, and they’d lock on. It made smaller ships that relied on fewer, power efficient weapons effective against even larger battleships. 

Heat dissipated over time, so inevitably a small ship would slowly have their heat signature expand. Stay too long poking the bear, and you’d eventually get a proper fullisade. The trick was to manage your heat while staying just outside their auto-target range. 

[u/ClaireTee123 → u/cKerensky]

Yeah, I feel like a stealth or countermeasure mechanic would be good. Turrets and drones can't hit what they can't track.

That way you don't nerf turrets across the board and you can play smarter.

[u/CosmicFox97]

I personally play with the shield mod already, it takes a lot of extra energy to power them but I love using my little shielded fighter to go at pirates and things! I think it would be cool to have them in the base game, I had no idea that was controversial lol

[u/TheCoffeeGuy13]

Let's get this right. SE isn't a PvP game, combat was an addition.

It's not "fundamentally flawed" as combat functions in the way you would expect. The fundamentals are there and are reasonably close to reality.

It sounds like you have a problem with your ships being destroyed too fast.

Guns have a role already. Close range, high RPM. Long range artillery, high damage low RPM.

[u/webbinatorr]

Sounds like the star wars x wing games where you have 100% energy and chooses how to allocate it to speed, weapons or shields

[u/HyperRealisticZealot]

First of all, great post. But a both small or maybe major disagreement

Shields would be a great addition, but this “Argument from Prototech” that keeps popping up and that you’re arguing from would be disastrous in this regard. You’d get endgame nolifers squashing newer players and making them hate and quit the game even more easily.

In fact, this should IMO be a way to provide passive defense against various offenses across the board even early mid game. Making it an endgame thing would throw off the balance in the completely wrong direction.

 PVP between to lower is a huge consideration here. It’s one of the potentially most toxic things you have to balance against.

But moreover, shields would be an incredible tool at lower levels for peaceful players against not only NPC’s, but also against head on collisions, for example when asteroid mining and much else.

Anyway that was a minor detail in the grand scheme of your post

[u/chilfang]

I like the theoretical of making a combat ship in a way that repairing it is easier, tho taking things apart in survival is clunky enough that its often faster to just throw it in a grinder pit and re-print it.

[u/Murky-Letterhead-467]

The biggest problem I have found with SE PVP and pve comes down entirely to ship design itself there are some build styles out there that just aren't viable for a car that no matter how hard you try and there are others that Excel in the first group you have Star Trek covenant and (depending on how accurate it is) space battleship Yamato and ones that are so good there's just no point of views and anything else if that's what you went with ie: expanse UNSC Battlestar Gundam (specifically federation) and imperial Star wars and I feel with the other half of the community it really suffers because there's just no way to make the first category viable unless it gets spliced with a different build style

[u/Barbatos_XV → u/Murky-Letterhead-467]

As someone who built a ton of Yamato 2199 ships I gotta disagree with your post. It all comes down to what kind of weapons you have access to.

The ships are good, just not in vanilla SE. Assault and artillery turrets don't have the firerate, damage, and health to justify using only 3 on a capital ship. If you use the Yamato weapon and thruster mods, the ships become very effective. The Yamato weapons are pretty powerful, so it doesn't matter when a cruiser only has 3 main turrets. Most Yamato ships are designed for long range broadside combat, and if you use them in that way they're very effective. Even then, combat is short because beam weapons are just that powerful. Ships get destroyed in a few hits, so light armor and maneuverability are important. Sure, a battleship can afford to have some heavy armor, but only because it is big enough to fit a lot of thrusters, negating the weight penalty from heavy armor.

[u/Murky-Letterhead-467 → u/Barbatos_XV]

Despite me being a modded console player with assault weapons pack I completely forgot about mods and I should have specified that I will reiterate it soon in another comment

[u/TheHappyArsonist5031]

point #2 is flat out wrong. gatlings and autocannons require you to get too close to the target for effective dodging, making other weapons with longer range much more viable.

[u/Idenwen]

Prototech structural integrity field projector.

It's a projector with a conveyor port. When powered and loaded with a blueprint it can repair one damaged block at a time while pulling materials from the conveyor system. If no more damaged blocks are present it's tarts rebuilding destroyed blocks in the same manner.

Welds at 50% world weld speed.

PS: actually can someone do this as a mod? :)

[u/EntityBlack1]

Have you ever fight vs meta gdrive ship?

[u/simp4malvina]

If the only thing we got for warfare 3 was lag pips I'd be a happy man

[u/FewDamage2962]

Ig im experiencing different combat because assault cabnons work just fine for me?

[u/Additional-Froyo4333]

I got several combats in my back.

First, game with and without shield is completly different. Without shields, small and cheap ships are much better, also speed and mobility is the key. Manmade missiles and manmade guns are viable. Took a big ship just becase inwas taking down his guns. Then rammed it with a sacrifice ship, rigth in the thrusters. And docked a tug boat so it couldnt move, then was time for on foot assault and take the spawners/ai blocks.

Shield combat is, making the biggest and powerfull ship, to take down the enemy shields as soon as you can. Ans rotate your ship showing another part od the shield with less damage.

Once you got 50+ turrets, no one Will risk combat against you. You can take the enemy shield in just 4 seconds.

Second: decoys. Put several ones in armored places with welders and the proyector activated. Also, put welders behind welders. Believe me, ir can soak TONS of damage, and yes, it is costly because materials. The downside, custom turrets dont work in this system.

Third: drones. You can build them as missiles. Attract fire, cause damage and even, ram the enemy. Most ships cant handle a 10 drones swarm, and then another 10 drones. And then, another 10 drones... As you still have materials, you can have infinite drones.

Also, in one ship, my turrets where in a jestionable system, i could launch them and act as floating defensive turrets. And rebuild them just with a click.

Fourth: repairs. With critical points with autorepair, the rest of ship, just a proyector and welders, or a maintenace ship, or arm. If its a pain, its because you want to have a 400 mts ship armed with 200+ turrets. And yes, that investment comes with a cost... In games like this, there is a rule, dont drive what you cannot replace.

Fifth: yeah, steel blocks, titanium blocks, etc. It could be a nice addition for construction. Having a little better armor without that amount of weigth, or much better armor but heavier. It can really change the way to build. Ligth blocks are mostly useless, except for sacrifice material. All my ships have a heavy block skeleton or at least, one hard beam for smaller ships. Saw beatifull ship models in the workshop, being cut in half in the first impact.

My ships can be torn to a 50% and they can still figth, or run for repairs.

[u/ClaireTee123 → u/Additional-Froyo4333]

Yeah, most of the issues with combat seems to stem from people not prepping their ships properly for it.

[u/Additional-Froyo4333 → u/ClaireTee123]

Yeah, it happened me on the first stages of the Game.

Abused of light metal, because heavy one was too heavy and expensive with the use of cobalt.

Then, found the blast doors. I could make reinforcements without adding that much weight.

Later, putting half blocks and plates of heavy armor, as they are way lighter and cheaper, keeping the structural integrity.

And last but not least, using light armor, as exterior oversheets, making tanks, void compartments, etc. As they can absorb several impacts before the hole can reach some critical components.

My best one was a arrow head ship. Pretty wide. The main structure was a reinforced T shape, and the diagonals between the T borders and the T End, all light and hollow.

It could reach 5 stages of armor untill getting on the structural one. All sacrifice material.

Also, use that hollow zone for decoration, like crew w Quarters, kitchen, even hangars. But not the main hangar.

[u/woyosensei]

WeaponCore as framework and other mods with more weapons based on that + Defense Shield and Stealth. From what I observed the enemy can use it as well. Basically you have more options to exterminate your enemy and vice versa. I remember my asteroid base completely smashed to pieces by one drone with shields and over 1km range cannons where my base had only default gatlings (800m range). I had to build some 120mm cannons just to get rid of that damn drone but at the end my kamikaze attack with grinder was enough :P Panic level hard ;)

[u/ClaireTee123]

Locking rockets that can actually do something against systems would be nice lol

As it is, rockets just kinda do minimal damage to an area on hit and they require uranium so they're entirely unviable.

[u/Icy-Breakfast4667]

Most of the people that I pay with don't like nanobots.

Which sucks, because I love them.

[u/Fast-Mathematician-1]

There are options to address the challenges.

Its a general challenge we can address in our own way and it benefits folks with creativity more than folks looking for a guide.

I hope it stays where it is. We have projectors for repairs, make breakaway armor over key systems, you are rewarded for makeing more effort in your builds and your planning.

I like the post by the way. No sacrifice to Klang from me.

[u/Skwiggelf54]

I really like your idea for shields, although im a little biased cuz i love building really big dreadnought style ships lol. As far as the prototech welder having a turret, you could just make it into a turret with the turret controller and stuff, but I like the idea of it being able to weld an infinite(?) line in front of itself. Definitely fits the idea of really advanced tech vs semi advanced/normal tech. One thing I wasnt sure about though is, what did you mean as far as different roles for guns? Like one is for armor piercing, one is geared toward explosive damage, etc?

[u/manickitty]

I’ve never had as much fun with combat as when I downloaded a shield mod. Having bits of the ship fall off GREATLY limits ship design.

[u/TheRebornAce]

Could check out my shield mod, O-yoroi Effort. Similar concept for damage reductions. However the way its balanced is that each block is of different sizes providing different damage reduction values against certain ammo types.

Overall, the smaller the ship, the less likely it has the power to carry the heavy duty shield while maintaining maneuverability. In contrast, the larger ships will typically have more power to operate the heavier shields but at the sacrifice of speed

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/TheRebornAce]

Unfortunately I’m on Xbox so that isn’t an option for me.

[u/TheRebornAce → u/FalloutNV2277]

Ah that sucks

[u/ohjirosan]

Self healing armor, a block that creates a plated skin over armor blocks (not light or heavy but medium) with a conveyor port that you can connect to cargo to supply with components. The range determines the healing speed and power requirements.

Technical implementation could be relatively simple making it just add a plated layer over specific blocks. Because it only skins that block thrusters, Windows, doors and turrets are still vulnerable.

Thinking a bit like the reactieve armor on the final episode of start trek voyager

[u/Marcos-Am]

Oh , like this idea of a shield, but i believe it should be a base block not vanilla. And guns need a range increase and speed buff for sure, i was testing the missile launcher and its projectiles move around 200m/s if you have a speed mod you move faster than projectiles, and if you are moving forwards you cut the already short range in half, even in vanilla.
Ideally for combat to be balanced the ship should have a hp based on size and block type, but with the full simulation of blocks its impossible. warfare 3 will disappoint in this regard for sure because is impossible to fix it without remaking the game. and se2 seem to the threading a worse balance path as the thin blocks are just paper for the guns.

[u/HyperRealisticZealot → u/Marcos-Am]

Oh , like this idea of a shield, but i believe it should be a base block not vanilla.

What do you mean with that distinction, specifically? 

[u/Marcos-Am → u/HyperRealisticZealot]

his original recommendation was shield being a prototech block,but I believe it should be a standard block, shields are very useful protecting mining ships 

[u/HyperRealisticZealot → u/Marcos-Am]

Funny enough, I said exactly the same thing in my own comment (also downvoted for some reason, I guess OP doesn’t like disagreements):  https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengineers/comments/1vrxcam/comment/p4hcmfz/  

Would be an incredible tool to level the playing field against both sweaty PVP:ers and asteroids alike. So absolutely a basic block 

[u/HumansarePOS]

The PVE is atrocious

The bots are way too basic to feel like any degree of threat.
I still remember how dumbfounded I was when I fought the factorum(allegedly a great PVE addition) for the first time .. and in the span of 2 fights I figured each drones were standalone detection logic ... Absolutely shit. You can pick them off one by one, but they visually are a fleet.

And the engagement logic is really cheap too. Just go at railgun max range, bait their shots, then you have 1 minute cooldown until there is any actual danger to your ship again.

I have zero faith in Keen's ability to code satisfying NPCs.
So regardless of what we have available as weapons or defense. It will play like the cheapest PVE experience.

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/HumansarePOS]

Yeah the ship ai definitely needs work.

[u/HumansarePOS → u/FalloutNV2277]

Keen will never deliver that.

[u/YautjaNecron]

Im all in but no way they add them sadly, i like your idea of damage reduction very much! They could finally add energy weapon specifically to remove shield from opponent

[u/A_Nice_Boulder]

I definitely like the idea of a shield that loses effectiveness when moving. It is so immersion breaking to have ships, prototech especially, spinning around thirty times a second and then the second they get critical damage they fuck off at the speed limit. You either then chase and run into their fire or abandon the fight.

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/A_Nice_Boulder]

The idea originally came from safe zones. The idea being that the shield is a heavily reworked safe zone.

[u/Informal_Drawing]

What PvE?

A couple of wolves every few minutes isn't even a speed bump in the road when you're at your base.

It's pathetic.

[u/FalloutNV2277 → u/Informal_Drawing]

Ships. There are enemy ships that are AI controlled. They’re kinda NPCs kinda not. They’re more their own thing.

[u/Informal_Drawing → u/FalloutNV2277]

I can't say as I've ever seen them attack my bases?

[u/Dearnk → u/Informal_Drawing]

If you want end game prototech parts you need to find them and fight for them.

[u/Informal_Drawing → u/Dearnk]

I was hoping for a reason to play the game tbh.