Variable types of damage

Talk among developers, and propose and discuss general development planning/tackling/etc... feature in this forum.
Post Reply
-REBEL3-
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:43 am
Location: Alaska

Variable types of damage

Post by -REBEL3- »

I'll probably feel stupid for mentioning this later, but..

Do we have any kind of different types of damage for ships atm? For example, in Warzone 2100, various units have differing amounts of thermal resistance, impact resistance, etc-and the game has different types of damage (like thermal and kinetic). Adding variable damage types could have a profound effect on Vega Strike and *might* be able to be done without a huge amount of work.

Benefits: If we did this in VS, we could finally implement those nebulas-have them do radiation damage to ships. We could also do some other things, like mining, espionage, salvaging, etc. We also could set it up so different weapons could do different types of damage-and I don't just mean phase damage and shield damage(though that is a good start). Lasers could do heat damage, and certain parts of a ship might be more susceptible to heat damage. Likewise, some parts of a ship might be heavy shielded against heat.

We could also generate a whole bunch of new quests like spying and salvaging other parts of enemy ships. To learn more, read on. :D

OK, so for mining, we should set up a new type of damage that only can be generated by a few select objects-lets call that damage type "mineability." If you have 100% mineablility, you can be killed...if you are killed, you drop some type of cargo. Mineable asteroids would have 100-50% susceptibility to mineability damage. If you have 0% mineability, you can't be mined-ships have 0% mineability. Then, you can create a special type of mining laser-one that only does damage to the mineability to an object-thus making it useless for combat. Then, we can ascribe different values of mineability (lower values of mineability make the process take longer-the longer the process takes, the more valuable the cargo should be. Things we can have drop from mined asteroids include...

Iron
Copper
Gold
Various trace elements-more rare, but worth more.


Salvaging and Espionage:

In the near future, we could also create some persistence variable for derelict ships2. You might also be able to create a salvaging beam that would work the same way-only affecting the damage type called salvageability. If a ship was alive, it would have the salvageability value set to 0. However, if it died, but was not totally destroyed, you could implement a system where you could salvage certain pieces of the ship by shooting them with the salvage beam, and having them drop cargo. This could be profitable for the player-imagine looting a Leonidas and finding a GrandGaus you could sell, or, better yet, mount on your own ship! This could also lead to new campaign missions-kill an enemy ship, and salvage some parts for research by the military. Or, you could create a variable called "research" and use a "research beam" to scan things (like enemy bases). This could also lead to new types of quests, like scanning some enemy ships or bases. Of course, we would have to implement partial destructibility, damage effects, and ship carcasses before the second-to-last example would work.

Downsides:

It would probably place more strain on the engine to run the new content required for some of these changes required for this change to be implemented. For example, asteroids will be a prime candidate for adding, yet could eat up large amounts of engine space if done wrong.
Only other thing is that I would have NO idea how to even begin implementing these changes, or even it is possible.
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Re: Variable types of damage

Post by klauss »

-REBEL3- wrote: Benefits: If we did this in VS, we could finally implement those nebulas-have them do radiation damage to ships. We could also do some other things, like mining, espionage, salvaging, etc. We also could set it up so different weapons could do different types of damage-and I don't just mean phase damage and shield damage(though that is a good start). Lasers could do heat damage, and certain parts of a ship might be more susceptible to heat damage. Likewise, some parts of a ship might be heavy shielded against heat.
Before anything, I'd like to point out the results of a simulation I once ran.

Laser weapons don't inflict the usual "heat damange" people think about. Lasers heat a concentrated surface so fast so much, that they vaporize a layer of armor, inflicting little collateral damage.

So, "laser heat" is not the same as, say, "solar flare heat".

That's something that adds complexity, and is seldom accounted for.

Now... in the current state of VS, I'd refrain from adding complexity. But I happen to agree with the need to model different kinds of damage differently. It's something to add to the long-term to-do list, IMHO.
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
-REBEL3-
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:43 am
Location: Alaska

Re: Variable types of damage

Post by -REBEL3- »

The problem I see with waiting to do it right is that, while we wait, it will continue to be done wrong. The new damage types will likely need to be tied to each ship individually. As new ships are submitted, they will not have the necessary coding-forcing us to re-do them all in the future. I propose that we find a way to implement this system sooner, rather then later. :D To get the thing rolling, here are some proposed damage types. Feel free to add anything I missed.

Laser-Like you said, laser damage is different then heat damage.
Kinetic-Railguns, etc.
Explosive-Mines, missiles, etc.
Impact-If you crash into something
Electronic-damages systems-used for non-lethal weaponry
Mine-used for mining
Research-used for researching
Salvage-used for salvaging.
Radiation-nebulas+ some experimental weapons?

Out of curiosity, doesn't VS already make a distinction between impact damage (collisions) and everything else?
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Re: Variable types of damage

Post by chuck_starchaser »

REBEL, let me explain klauss' mindset when he says "in the current state" (wouldn't do it). The problem is that the engine right now is orders of magnitude worse than you imagine. For example, about a year ago I wanted to implement armor that varies in strength depending on ship size, for my mod, PU. Right now, if the armor is "isometal", it has strength X no matter whether it's a tiny fighter or a huge carrier. And you can't specify thickness either. So, if it takes 7 shots to get through a fighter's armor, it takes 7 shots to get through a carrier's.
Long story short: It couldn't be done. And units.csv specifies "armor strength" but not thickness; you can't have strength * thickness calculated without adding a new column to units.csv.
I started working on hacking the code, to allow ship-size-based strength variations, but abandoned the project; too much I didn't know.

The "current state" of the engine is like a broken machine that suddenly decided to work but nobody knows how, and so nobody wants to touch it. I may be exaggerating; but not by too much.
-REBEL3-
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:43 am
Location: Alaska

Re: Variable types of damage

Post by -REBEL3- »

Ouch. I didn't figure it was THAT bad. I guess I know better now. :(

How hard is it to create a new column in units.csv? Is it interconnected with everything else, so, if one part of units.csv is changed, a bunch of other things are also changed?
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Re: Variable types of damage

Post by klauss »

Adding the column isn't the problem.

Making all the damage and physics code use, is.

It's not such a big task, only the code doesn't help the tiniest bit and is spread all over. So the small task becomes big.
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
Post Reply