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railguns and tractor beams

 
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railguns and tractor beams - 5/28/2013 12:11:17 PM   
YourConscience

 

Posts: 57
Joined: 4/5/2010
Status: offline 		Currently, a tractor beam will always pull the target closer to the ship. However, in many cases this is not desirable:

- I my ship has long range weapons and the enemy ship has railguns, the tractor beam should keep the other ship at a distance to prevent its railguns from doing damage to my ship
- likewise for melee enemies such as space creatures
- additionally, it should not push such an enemy into another friendly ship

Hence I think the rule for tractor beams should be changed to analyze the damage output of the own ship and the enemy ship and decide whether to pull or to push the enemy. It would be extra good if the beam would also push/pull the other ship according to other friendly ships in the vicinity, but this is a rather complex to compute decision.
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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/28/2013 12:16:26 PM   
Mansen


Posts: 352
Joined: 5/3/2013
Status: offline 		A tractor beam push/pull stance could be fun. Make ships with nothing but huge arrays of tractor beams to catapult enemy ships into orbital bodies.

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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/28/2013 2:40:12 PM   
Erik Rutins

 

Posts: 37503
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From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline 		They do not always pull - they are designed to pull weaker targets in and push stronger targets away. Tractor beams and railguns are usually a great combination as they will pull any targets that are not much stronger than the friendly ship in where the railguns can give it a warm welcome. There is currently an issue where they are always pulling space creatures in, we're going to address that. In general, tractor beams are an interesting factor in combat as they even things up a bit between slow and fast ships and ships with long range weapons vs. short range weapons.

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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 8:54:16 AM   
YourConscience

 

Posts: 57
Joined: 4/5/2010
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

They do not always pull - they are designed to pull weaker targets in and push stronger targets away. Tractor beams and railguns are usually a great combination as they will pull any targets that are not much stronger than the friendly ship in where the railguns can give it a warm welcome. There is currently an issue where they are always pulling space creatures in, we're going to address that. In general, tractor beams are an interesting factor in combat as they even things up a bit between slow and fast ships and ships with long range weapons vs. short range weapons.


But this is exactly what I not always want! It is extremely annoying when my nice & shiny new capital ship encounters three pesky little pirate escorts with rail guns: My capship has three tractor beams which it *could* use to keep those escorts out of railgun range and kill them with a couple of missile volleys. Instead, it immediately pulls them closer so that they manage to do quite some damage before they are killed. Instead, the tractor beam operator should take notice that my capship can easily kill them off without taking any damage at all using the tractor beams!

(in reply to Erik Rutins)
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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 9:15:03 AM   
Raap

 

Posts: 404
Joined: 1/12/2011
Status: offline 		Perhaps instead of looking at strength, it could look at the enemy's weapons' max range? I.e. pull if your ship has shorter range, push if your ship has longer range.

Though however you tweak this, there's bound to be cases where it won't do what you want. For instance, against a design that has one long range weapon and countless short-range ones, you'd pull it in and get decimated.

(in reply to YourConscience)
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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 9:46:45 AM   
YourConscience

 

Posts: 57
Joined: 4/5/2010
Status: offline 		hmm, how about a two-point comparison: compute potential damage at close range (as sum of weapon damaged), compute potential damage at long range, compare, and then pull or push.

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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 12:27:32 PM   
BigWolfChris


Posts: 634
Joined: 3/31/2010
Status: offline 		Going against enemies with railguns, I can't stress how important armor is lol

As a sidenote, do we think it possible for Elliot to alter the damage notice to say if it is armor that is damaged or components?

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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 1:17:03 PM   
Shuul

 

Posts: 133
Joined: 2/16/2011
Status: offline 		I suppose to make 2 different variants (components) of tractor beams (opened with the same tech), one for pull and one for push, let the player decide what suits better. And for AI, just check what type of weaponry it has, missiles - push, rails - pull. Its that simple.

(in reply to BigWolfChris)
Post #: 8
RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 4:23:59 PM   
Shark7


Posts: 7937
Joined: 7/24/2007
From: The Big Nowhere
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: BigWolf

Going against enemies with railguns, I can't stress how important armor is lol

As a sidenote, do we think it possible for Elliot to alter the damage notice to say if it is armor that is damaged or components?


Armor is very important in this expansion, as even the smallest of ships with rail guns or gravity weapons can disable a ship. More armor means less critical component damage, and armor is cheap both in terms of cost and space used.

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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 4:38:54 PM   
BigWolfChris


Posts: 634
Joined: 3/31/2010
Status: offline 		Indeed it is
Personally I think Armor should have all its stats doubled or quadrupled
That being everything, basically take what is 2x/4x armor now and make it 1x armor

Main reason being... less clicks

Edit: Ofc, to my knowledge there is no true counter to Gravity weapons
Holding distance is only useful if the engagement has begun while outside of the gravity weapon range and they aren't in ships that can close the distance fast

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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 4:45:52 PM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		The counter to gravity is repair bots. And firepower. My main beef with gravitic weapons is that they always damage something, and the 'something' tends to be the hyperdrive. And even if it is not, a lots of somethings add up quite fast.

Size should be a bit of a counter too.

(in reply to BigWolfChris)
Post #: 11
RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 5:44:02 PM   
YourConscience

 

Posts: 57
Joined: 4/5/2010
Status: offline 		Any sizeable ship should have a spare hyperdrive just for that reason to not be easily disabled.

(in reply to Bingeling)
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RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 5:51:51 PM   
Speeder

 

Posts: 79
Joined: 5/25/2013
Status: offline 		In a game I recently won, although someone had the black hole weapon (lots of it around planets) it could do some crazy component damage to my ships, the ships still won all fights, and repaired themselves.

Only one failed to repair itself once, when the single repair bot got destroyed (and I did not though yet of having two of them), but then it was just a matter of sending that ship to get repaired in a spaceport.

Granted, my ships were size 1500, so that helps a lot... size 1500 means lots of components to take punishment.

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Post #: 13
RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/29/2013 6:26:13 PM   
Resan

 

Posts: 98
Joined: 4/1/2010
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Shuul

I suppose to make 2 different variants (components) of tractor beams (opened with the same tech), one for pull and one for push, let the player decide what suits better. And for AI, just check what type of weaponry it has, missiles - push, rails - pull. Its that simple.


This, or maybe add it as another stance choice for ship designs. A choice between: Do you want your tractor beam to push or pull on this design?

(in reply to Shuul)
Post #: 14
RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/30/2013 5:35:47 PM   
skigrinder

 

Posts: 14
Joined: 4/10/2011
Status: offline 		I like the idea of setting a push/pull option in the ship design.

A spaceport with tractor beams pulls in enemy troop transports.
These transports then have a chance to unload troops on the planet before being destroyed.
I'd prefer to set the spaceport design to 'push'.
Also, I don't like spaceport or defense base damage even if it gets repaired quickly by bots.

Setting tractor beam direction in the ship design may also simplify the code.
There would be no need to check the relative strength of all ships in real time.
However, the setting for space beasts should always be 'push'.

(in reply to Resan)
Post #: 15
RE: railguns and tractor beams - 5/30/2013 9:09:54 PM   
ehsumrell1


Posts: 2529
Joined: 8/17/2010
From: The Briar Patch Nebula
Status: offline 		OR, just have the Tractor Beam as a 'pulling' weapon only and create a
Repulsor Beam as a 'pushing' weapon.

Just a thought!

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