My main opinion is to make sure there isn't a 5% chance of death at 505 hull. I'd hate to be fighting and BAM! knocked against a roid that triggered the percentage

^

Sanctum Piter oteum, Deus ore uneum.
Hippitus hoppitus reus homine.
In suspiratoreum, lepus in re sanctum.
Hippitus hoppitus Deus Domine.

One thing that might balance things against the "Quick disabling stab in the back" is to let ships very slowly repair themselves using some sort of inbuilt auto-repair function available only on higher-class ships.

That then gives you another range of things to plug into ships: auto-repair modules to fit into large/small bays to aid the inbuilt autorepair (varying weights, energy drains and so on) and means that a quick blast to a ship means the pilot either turns to fight or runs away at speed to recover.

One other thing: you would absolutely have to make the auto-repair function cost money to install, replenish and so on, and make a ship bodged together by autorepair cost more to repair in-station than one damaged and then repaired (since obviously, autorepair of a hull would use something like crash foam, which would need cleaning out to get to things to repair properly...).

Most weapons have a velocity attribute. The ones that don't probably should do 0 damage for this, since they are explosive based, or lighting mines, and therefor unfocused. Currently the sectional parts on your ship get colored depending on damage of the weapon hitting it. Instead, let them get colored based on the velocity of the weapon hitting it, and these colors effect the ship's performance problems, whatever those are decided to be.

This makes Flechette and Gatling Cannons prime disabling weapons giving more of a reason to take a Cannon over a Turret, which is slightly ahead of the Neutron in terms of 'velocity/sec'. The Ion, Phase, and Positron blasters are fairly low key in terms of disabling, and Gauss, Plasdevs, and Railguns will almost certainly kill a target before dealing any kind of disabling damage.

I'm in the mood for making graphs, so...

The benefit of destroying somebody's turbo to prevent their escape is obvious. The placement of whatever mechanism causes turboing at the rear of a ship could make logical sense, because the direction it accelerates is biased along that axis. If nothing else, the ability to disable turbo would make pirating more of a reality, and less dangerous, because pirates would have a way of catching their prey, besides brutally eliminating them. It is that perfect compromise between becoming entirely disabled -- annoying -- and having only those two states of functionality, alive or dead.

For any traders who feel like whining about how difficult it is to flee, and what not, just remember that you don't have to be faster than a bear to escape; you merely have to be quicker than your friend. Strengthening predators actually promotes socialization. In fact, trading in convoys used to be the standard when traveling dangerous seas... something's wrong with this game when traders need to form convoys across grey space for fun, instead of necessity.

I agree to some extent, BUT, pirates should have to hunt in packs too by your logic. one hunter should not be able to have complete and utter control over a sector, so much so that others absolutely NEED to be in packs in order to even have a chance at surviving. I'll grant escorts (insert VPR plug here), in any situation, are the best way to make it through unfriendly wormholes... I just don't see why pirates shouldn't work together either.

Pirates often do hunt in packs. It becomes much easier to kill more ships and sell cargo (2 shooters 1 hauler is a pretty good setup for hunting NPC convoys for example).

One person can not completely stop trade, it can kill some unescorted ships, and a few escorted ones too, sure, but still plenty of trade gets through.

Antz, I was responding to SuperMegaMynt's post. I know that at this current moment, a pirate can not stop trade completely. If SMM's ideas were put in place, I think they would be able to do so, which was the point I was making.

if this were implemented then i'd have to say that instead of a Hitpoint reaching 0 style death like we have now that death could only occur if a section of the hull were pushed past 100% damage then with clever maneuvering a crippled foe could prolong their life hopefully long enough to escape or kill the attacker.

the ships already detect quadrant damage as the hud graphic shows by changing colours in different areas so it isn't like this isn't feasible.

Then the pirate may not be able to escape convoy escorts after blowing up something in the convoy. I am unsure I like this behaviour, but it would probably not give either side an unfair advantage.

One thought on CrazySpence's post.

While I absolutely like the idea that one central location on a vessel being enough to destroy it (because hey, it's realistic), I would leave the hitpoints in still because even if you can't penetrate one area of a ship, you can still pummel it enough that the systems as a whole cannot compensate and it would be destroyed.

(Ex: Titanic, it didn't have one massive hole, but instead many smaller holes that individually wouldn't have sank it, but combined brought it down.)

To that end, what if instead of equal damage each shot, this occurred:

Shots against a Green Area were REGULAR STRENGTH
Shots against a Yellow Area were 1.5x Regular Strength
Shots against a Red Area were 2.0x Regular Strength

This would allow a pilot to "chip-away" at his enemy, hitting all green zones, but eventually destroying him through attrition, or allow him surgical strikes on one central area (say, hull only, not a wing) that would compound damage, meaning a tougher to execute, but faster kill?

Packing is the natural defense against lone predators. Traders alone have the advantage of knowing when and where they're going to be traveling. Where groups come in handy for the predators is in tracking. Being dense isn't helpful here, because it only takes one person to cover an area. Therefor, ideally pirates group up by spreading out and coalescing for the kill, while traders group by herding; even if some losses are inevitable, profits can still be made by minimizing risk, which is all that matters to a trader, especially in a game without true death.

That being said, if damaging the nose of ships decreased detection range, say to ion storm range -- 500m -- then traders have their personal way of escaping, as mines tend to hit the front of pursuing ships most of all.