Discovery Gaming Community

After having a few rounds in World of Tanks and Battlefield 3, it got me thinking about some combat in Disco.

With all the weapons at our disposal, it all comes down to simple mathematics. If your weapon reduce the enemy health to zero in one hit, combat is going to drag on for quite some time. Especially in bomber-snub combat with the lower end weaponry. Unless the bomber has good aim, but I digress.

Let us hypothesize that there is a new FLHook feature that introduces sub-system 'hidden' damage.

With every blow to the ship there will be a hidden chance or 'roll' in regards to damage to critical systems, the more powerful the blow, the higher the chance of critical damage. The higher the weapon damage, the higher the chance for critical damage to systems of the victim's ship. This way, the attacker has a chance to inflict lasting damage to the ship without having to worry about nanobots too much.

In my mind, nanobots are excellent at repairing the damage to the hull, but they can only do so much to more complicated machinery and systems, coupled with the fact that they can't possibly plug up a huge hole inflicted by a torpedo instantly. This scenario would add to the 'realism' in a sense without their removal.

Keep in mind that the systems damaged will repair in time, but never back up to full strength, reflecting that critical damage needs actual full repairs or replacement parts that nanobots can't provide in space, at least, without appropriate materials.

Here is a short list of what could get damaged:

• Engines - If damaged, engine damage can be reduced up to 50%, and cruise engines disabled until repaired.
  
• Thruster - Obviously the thruster efficiency will drop, and may even be temporarily disabled until repaired.
  
• Powerplant - Damage to this system will inflict huge regeneration penalties as well as capacity, although due to the well shielded nature of the core itself, damage should be rare.
  
• Shield Generator - The shields will be either disabled for some time, or merely regenerate much more slowly, even to the point that dropped shields won't return for a far longer period of time.
  
• Targeting sensors - This will cause the weapons to shut down for a short period until the weapons can reactivate themselves.
  
• Manoeuvring Thrusters - Simply put, the ships agility will be affected, again their shielded nature in the ships hull would reduce damage compared to other systems.
  

Well, likely more or less can be knocked on the list. But take a minute to think about it, with all the damage we can inflict on other ships, doesn't it strike you as odd that when you put him into 1% hull strength that no critical components get affected? I do realize that sub-system damage exists in-game, but I don't think its reflected very well since it all boils down to maths and sheer accuracy of the attacker to damage them. In some cases, modules are invulnerable.

So people, how do you think combat would change if 'true' sub-system damage was introduced into the game?

As long as ships remain armor-tanks instead of sheild tanks, this would just hurt anyone in somthing larger than a sabre.

Snubs going evasive can never be hit sometimes. Larger ships do not have that option.

I like the idea. There is a lot of interesting potential. Along those lines, what about some kind of missiles that did almost no damage but were especially good at damaging certain subsystems? Like a missile with a payload of bad nanobots intent on eating up your circuitry?

' Wrote:As long as ships remain armor-tanks instead of sheild tanks, this would just hurt anyone in somthing larger than a sabre.

Snubs going evasive can never be hit sometimes. Larger ships do not have that option.

I would think that larger ships would have backup and redundant extra systems in place to ensure such things don't happen, but small ships don't have the opportunity to have that.

Dont we already have this with the "components" that can be blown off, like eagle and defender wings and such? dont those have weapons on them, so if you blow them off they lose weapons?

The damage I'm portraying is that of it being temporary or just hindering during combat as opposed to being completely destroyed.

nice idea..

Even old Wing Commander had this concept implemented.

I can't believe they never retained it with Freelancer!

' Wrote:Dont we already have this with the "components" that can be blown off, like eagle and defender wings and such? dont those have weapons on them, so if you blow them off they lose weapons?

This.
Discovery should make greater use of component-based combat, IMO.
Hell, most mods should.:P

' Wrote:This.
Discovery should make greater use of component-based combat, IMO.
Hell, most mods should.:P

There were ships with destroyable components, or at least destroyable hull components. If memory serves it war removed due to lag issues and for balance purposes since 'community-made-ships' did not contain destroyable pieces. Freelancer engine screams rape when you introduce a rushed model.

' Wrote:Even old Wing Commander had this concept implemented.

I can't believe they never retained it with Freelancer!

My thoughts exactly.