This is a suggestion/port of the discussion from #vorelay where I asked a few of the programmers in the group why we couldn't have a different thrust value for each direction; front, rear, port, starboard, top and bottom on each ship.

We could then use the damage system to reduce thrust from each side as that side takes damage giving us a much more sophisticated spaceship emulation and combat system. We already have the directional damage severity thing which is visible on the default HUD.

It was raised that the directional system was a bit borked and seemed to damage areas that weren't actually effected by shots so I guess part of the suggestion is an overhaul of that system too, but even if it remained the same it would still be interesting.

Thoughts?

+1

If not, then why the hell do we have a graph of the ship to our left that shows which parts of the ship is damaged?

yeah that's the feature that i'm referring to with the 'directional system' I meant to say 'directional damage system'

While possibly more realistic, I doubt this will ever be changed. I think it is probably best to allow the ship to function normally until destroyed for maximum entertainment. Start diminishing ship response due to damage and the combat dynamic will be completely changed in VO into more of a he/she/plant who lands the first shot or two has a distinct advantage.

Not that I'm opposed to this sort of change, I just seriously doubt it will be considered and suspect that many would find that this would make the game less fun for themselves. I for one would love to be able to cripple a ship to the point that a trader cannot run and is forced to stop or barely move due to damage taken rather than pelt ahead at full turbo no matter what. Or see that Warrenty Inspector forced to turn aside because they took a prox mine on the nose and their Greyhound can't catch the behemoth lumbering away anymore.

I'd really think the changes this sort of thing would make in terms of realism and immersion, but for the sake of pvp I doubt it will ever be taken seriously.

It's all about the magic. +1 for vanities sake

prox mine to the nose wouldn't stop a chaser, you'd have to hit them in the back.

There's a bunch of different ways this could go down, the change occured to me because of what they're doing with star citizen, the craft has specific hitboxes for thrusters, if you hit a thruster it can be damaged or go offline and then it has an effect on how the manuvering of the ship can occur.

I suggest you perhaps have a percentage chance of hitting the thrusters when you take a hit on that face of the hit, then another percentage of damage which correlates to a certain reduction in thrust, either permenantly or temporarily depending on the circumstances perhaps different weapons just disable thrusters?

I reject the idea that this is one of those realism vs fun things. If done subtly and correctly it's going to add depth without subtracting fun.

The regional damage indicator was created because I.. wanted regional damage. However, as noted, it's never worked perfectly, partially stemming from the tradeoffs of regular game performance vs very high collision accuracy (which gets into physics timestep framerate and other discussions). But, it could be used for something like this, at least in part.

If the goal is to have various "components" stop working (which is more general than engine thrust vectors), that could be done independently of shot type, where random components may become less usable as damage increases (say, radar flickers on and off, that sort of thing). The regional damage could be "mixed" with this to provide some more location-based aspects to the breakdown of the ship.

I'm actually not against the idea of component breakdown on some level. It was something I wanted a decade ago, but was eliminated like most things by development resource limitations and different choices that seemed more important. Finding the right balance that gives added immersion without making the game totally irritating (like DF says) would be key.

Oooh, nice. Why not start with:

Radar and different HUD components flickering and fizzling at certain damage %'s, perhaps even turning off radar at a very low %. As far as I know, this shouldn't be incredibly difficult to implement, and would add a lot to combat.

Introducing a rising chance for weapons to "skip" (fail to fire) once you reach certain damage %'s.

Random slight chance (one in twenty or so) for a 1-20% reduction up to a 20% reduction in maximum thrust/turbo speed every time you're hit.

Later change it to include directional data, such as dramatically increasing the slight chance for engine damage as you receive damage closer to the engines, or lowering the damage threshold for flickering if damage is closer to the cockpit.

/Alloh moment

I really like HUD degradation but I don't know about baked in combat non determinism: "nooo you made a huge mistake and i would have landed the flare i was saving and finished you but the random number gods saved you. unfair!" / "shit, one gatling turret burst got me at the start of the fight when we traded blows and now dodging your rockets is nearly impossible for me but you are totally unaffected. unfair!"

... sorry.

What about lowering the battery recharge a little rate for each severely damaged component of your ship (because you have to divert energy to keep your ship from falling apart?) That balances out the fact that energy pilots have infinite ammunition over the long run a little.

Or if when a part of your ship got severely damaged you got a timer until your ship would just explode if you didn't get repaired?

What else?

I still say do this stuff for capships but leave the small fighter type ships alone. Not that it can't be awesome, because it definitely can. I just don't think it's appropriate for VO in the case of smaller ships.

Damage should be visual/immersive, not functional. Functional damage would hurt gameplay too much.

Instead, it would be nice to have neat effects like smoke/ash coming from the damaged areas of the ship, cracked canopy, flickers in HUD elements, engine sounds, etc.. The regional damage could determine which effects you see, but shouldn't change the integrity of the ship.

Damage can and should most definitely be functional. Getting your left side blown to hell can and should make you lose the ability to use any weapons or equipment you have there. Getting your engines blown to hell should decrease your top speed, reduce your thrust, and eliminate the ability to turbo at all.

Et Cetera. Et Cetera.

Games like MechWarrior Online use this to great advantage. Losing a limb, or a side torso, or whatever forces you to subtly (or radically, depending on what was lost) change how you pilot your giant stompy robot, employ new tactics, and be able to adapt to changing conditions on the fly.

I'll agree that it shouldn't be too big on the smaller singleships we pilot now, but later, when player controlled caps are common (and maybe even some sub-capitals have been introduced /me hopes for corvettes), it would be a great feature, and it would make repair make more sense than just topping off your health bar.

We're not piloting mechs with mechanical appendages though. I'm all for this being implemented on capships. I always thought it was silly shooting them anywhere enough to blow them up. Seems irrelevant on small fighters, I mean if you want it to be more realistic then a Rev C wouldn't take very long to blow up. And a vulture's wings would only be even more annoying with this implemented. Sunflares would be even more ridiculously easy to use.

prox mine to the nose wouldn't stop a chaser, you'd have to hit them in the back

Since you're using Star Citizen as a benchmark, they also have the whacky idea that intake fans gather hydrogen in space to fuel reaction for engines. Maybe a hound needs space air to move fast too :)

as for the OP, I'm on the fence. I'd love to try it, but this would be a complete game-changer for vo, which has always shined IMHO with it's balance of realism and game-ism. Some of the most bracing fights are the ones where you are 1 hit from death and manage a hail-Mary comeback. Not only would early damage decide most 1 vs 1 fights, but also slightly damaged ships would be running off for repair where now they may stay in a combat sector and brave the handicap.

This kind of realism would beg a revisit to vo's biggest game-isms: speed caps and slowing after turbo is released.