Destructible Subsystems

I think that we ought to, on a ship as large as the HAC, have specific subsystems that would influence the rest of the ship, such as Navigation, Engines, Weaponry, Turrets, Sensors, and Docking Bay. There even may be more than one of each, particularly in the case of Turrets, and Engines. Having these targetable subsystems would allow many new possibilities in terms of capital ship wars, particularly the ability to perform surgical strikes against particular parts of the ship without having to totally destroy the HP-Goliaths that they have become. Each subsystem would be vulnerable at a select spot on the Hull of the ship, and you could target them and eventually destroy them with enough work. Let me detail what each subsystem would do…

• Navigation: Ability to perform a wormhole jump, and 50% response time in control of the ship.

• Engines: Vector & Speed of the ship. If you disable the engines, it can’t move. It ought to be able to drift to a halt because of external thrusters though. Light to medium damage to engines would disable turbo (which I don’t think Caps should have anyways…)

• Weaponry: Autoaim on gunnery, as well as rangefinding on weapons such as Flak, which would be automatically set to detonate at a range of (I’ve arbitrarily picked this number…) 500m.

• Turrets: You know the deal.

• Sensors: Provides ability to target enemy ships, or simply doesn’t give you the health meter of the targeted ship. For the pilot, it would disable his radar.

• Docking Bay: Disabling this would keep people from docking until it could be repaired. Perhaps this subsystem should auto-repair itself 15 minutes after being destroyed…

While the ramifications of destroying these subsystems are pretty obvious, I feel that they could add a lot to capital ship assaults. However, I also think that there should be an addition of particularly effective weapons, specifically geared toward taking out Subsystems. In the same way that deep-impact missiles are designed for taking out targets underneath the ground, specific guns and missiles would be particularly good for taking out buried electronics.

The gun would gain an extra 50%-100% damage against subsystems, and would fit into a Small gun slot (I still maintain that we ought to have slots like I’ve suggested here: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10585 ). It would have high drain to help compensate for it’s strength, among other things.

A missile of this sort is also possible, but I think it should only have an effective range of 500m so that people have to get close enough to the cap for it to be a risk. These particular weapons would also be very expensive (10k+), and probably a special weapon that you would get after having killed 20-30 turrets or something.

Just my 2¢.

Ah, so you meant a weapon that would do extra damage against subsystems, that would be cool.

I'd like to see this. But I think it would be surprisingly difficult to do well. It should be easier to disable subsystems than to completely destroy the ship (otherwise, why would we bother with the subsystems?), but it can't be too easy, because as certain subsystems become disabled, the cap ship's effectiveness is reduced enormously, and it become too easy to destroy. The best way to do it well IMO is to make the cap ship extremely difficult to destroy, and the subsystems very difficult to disable.

Also, I think all subsystems (not just the docking bay) should auto-repair themselves over time.

Another thing that would be cool, is a "docking bay controls" subsystem, that when disabled would allow anyone (including enemies) to dock at the ship. Enemies who docked at the ship would not be repaired & would not be able to man a turret, and would be automatically undocked after say 3 minutes; but if enough enemy pilots docked with the ship (say, 1.5 times the number of friendly pilots docked with it), they would capture control of the cap ship (automatically undocking all the original crew).

Sorry for going slightly off-topic, but I've got to disagree w/ you that cap ships should not have turbo. The current non-turbo speed for cap ships is 30 m/s. Can you imagine going anywhere at that speed? There's WH sectors that you jump into over 10km away from the WH.

I really like the ideas! In particular, I hadn't thought of the capturable capship thing- thats awesome. Unfortunately, most of them would be pretty hard to implement at the moment, so don't be disappointed when they don't show up for a while; we will get to them- after some of the higher priority projects (hive, etc).

In another topic there's a raging debate about whether or not fighters should be effective against the capital ship (as in, whether they can kill it or not, even with a large force of fighters). The overwhelming consensus seems to be "No, they shouldn't", but what if fighters have the opportunity of targeting a subsystem, and if they kill a number or all of the subsystems, they can kill the whole thing? Give the great beast a weakness, so to speak.

This is a common theme in Star Wars, where a squadron of X-Wings is forced to take on a Star Destroyer alone, but wins because they target the shield generators first, and then fire a couple of Proton Torpedoes at the bridge, and the whole thing explodes. Giving the Capital Ships a "Kill Me Now" button on their backside that's extremely hard to hit could give a squadron of fast, skilled, and brave fighters a chance at saving the day. But, it'd have to have a number of "buttons" (i. e. targeting all the subsystems), or one button that's really hard to push. Maybe it's the kind of thing only a little fighter can get to. Otherwise, Luke Skywalker killing the Deathstar with two proton torpedoes isn't much news.

Quote by Beolach
Sorry for going slightly off-topic, but I've got to disagree w/ you that cap ships should not have turbo. The current non-turbo speed for cap ships is 30 m/s. Can you imagine going anywhere at that speed? There's WH sectors that you jump into over 10km away from the WH.

Alright, granted. Perhaps they should have turbo, but it would be only a +50m/s boost or so (really, something this big should not be moving fast), and it ought to accelerate very slowly, but be able to boost for a long time. In my opinion, it's really unrealilstic to see the cap ship lurching about in battle while it boosts to get closer to the other caps.

Quote by Seraph
<snip> but what if fighters have the opportunity of targeting a subsystem, and if they kill a number or all of the subsystems, they can kill the whole thing? Give the great beast a weakness, so to speak.

Well, I don't think that killing all the subsystems should lead to it's destruction. It would be essentially a sitting duck though, and perhaps the weaknesses of the spots where the subsystems are should persist so that the fighters could continue doing significant damage after the cap ship has been crippled.

Granted, Harry. I like your point.

Something like this could add some interesting strategy to Capital Ship battles.

I actually do think that cap ships should not have turbo. I also think we need massive jump reductions across the board. It just doesn't fit in with the backstory that a vessel can circle the entire universe in a matter of perhaps 30 minutes.

I agree with roguelazer.

There is no reason cap ships should have turbo... they are supposed to navigate more slowly.

I would also like to see inter-system travel become more of a big deal, particularly once we have more players.

On topic of destructible systems, great idea! You could also break down those subsystem even further... perhaps thruster response becomes weaker in one direction etc.. These old threads might provide some ideas as well:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/3242
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/2243

I shouldn't have said anything about turbo here. If you guys really think cap ships shouldn't have turbo, start a new thread about it & I'll argue against it there, but let's try to keep this thread more on topic.

I do think damaging engines to disable turbo would be cool.

great idea! just like Freespace 2! but better

dude!!@!!@! that means they can put the blue Ion guns back in :)

!!!!!!!!!!↑

It would be nice if there was a way that when the HACs primary damage meter reached half way or even 35% that the beam cannons no longer had sufficient power, or make it so that IF there WERE subsystems, that one would be the power-source for the weapons systems. Being able to knock that out would only leave the HAC with weapons that required ammo like rockets, missiles, rail guns, etc. Also, as has been mentioned, by taking out the engines themselves, it becomes unable to generate forward momentum. BUT, is till should retain rotational power, using maneuvering jets or whatever you want to have them use. Additionally, if there were a communications/telemetry tower or array of antenna, that could be taken out, you could stop the HAC from being able to lock on, no auto-aim for the turrets, so it would all have to be player skill at that point with the turrets. Being able to destroy the docking/exiting ports on the ships would be fun as well. Being able to limit a nation from docking and repairing or rearming.

I like the idea of subsystems, and the Star Wars mention gave me another (but I'm sure not many will like it) idea.

What if to take out a cap ship you needed to disable a sheild generator, just like Star Wars. This would be something you would *need* a light fighter for, because the generator would be surrounded by multiple beam turrets (but perhaps nerf these a little so a talented pilot could survive), and thus something such as a prom wouldn't stand a chance. Once the sheild is down then there would be the other subsystems, but also at this point you could start doing damage to the actual ship. This, unlike killing the generator, would be virtually impossible for a squadron of light fighters, and would instead take the swarm-filled rags we're seeing now.

Only problem with that is that there are no "shields" in VO yet, if there were then that idea is perfectly sound, and a great one.

Actually, smittens, I think that would be really cool. The only reason I didn't suggest that outright was because everyone was leaning towards "Only bombers should take down Capitals".

If we get shields, maybe taking the shield generator is the fighter's job, and if the fighter succeeds, then the bombers move in and finally kill it.

Everyone would get to do something with the caps then, no matter what ship they're in. And it doesn't make the caps much weaker, either.

I'd prefer the idea of a shield generator that was vulnerable to fighters for more carrier oriented capships, that have less weaponry. For the HAC, I think for its defence it should rely on its extensive weaponry, including weapons that are a serious threat to fighters, so fighters have difficulty getting close enough to be a threat.

But for a carrier oriented capship, a shield generator that fighters could take out would be cool. The carrier would launch its fighters, that would try to defend the capship's shield generator from the enemy fighters. Makes for a nice fighter brawl.