Space Combat REDUX - no flaming please.

oddfish · 2004-03-17, 05:30 PM

Okay, this was and should again be a major discussion. Krinsath is working on a collaboration of concepts from what I gather and I think this thread should turn into something we can show the devs. -- that means no flames!

now, post your REFINED ideas about space combat, if you so feel the need to do so.

Krinsath · 2004-03-17, 05:32 PM

Oooo! I'd really appreciate any artists out there helping me with concept art.

I absolutely suck when it comes to designing these things to show people what I'm thinking about.

oddfish · 2004-03-17, 05:33 PM

i have a Wacom digital art pad. i could definitely draw your stuff up for you Krins, just send me the specs.

Krinsath · 2004-03-17, 05:39 PM

Ok...this is a repost for those who don't want to dig it up and sift through the random conversations in the original thread. If you saw it before, it's the same thing...this if for the people who weren't around/didn't bother after the thread was hijacked. This is basically the rough draft, so please ignore the spelling errors.

SPACE COMBAT EXPANSION

Ok, the Space around Auraxis is represented by combat in an airless vaccum, without gravity for the most part on a playing field roughly equal to the size of largest continent, except everything is in the play area. This should be done to provide the highest concentration of space battles while not diluting the player base on the surface...perhaps make two "hemispheres" and have one active and the other present *just in case* the player base LOVES space combat and there's never any room in orbit. The expansion should fully viable off of one play area though. Should the second area be needed, the number of ships would be cut in half (i.e. - 1 of each class in each hemisphere instead of 2). Benefits from owning both still apply regardless of the number of active zones (see below.)

The hard vaccuum of space is more than most armors can stand unprotected. Standards and Agiles die in 10 seconds if exposed to direct vaccuum. Rexos have 30 seconds to try and reach a ship/base (really only going to happen if you're very close). MAXes survive as normal, but have very limited movement.

Each empire, has an orbital base. This functions similar to the Santuary on the surface, and is reachable via the HART only. There would be a toggle on the HART screen similar to the Cavern/Continent view toggle in the caves that would allow those with the expansion to travel into orbit. The orbital stations can be attacked, however, they cannot be boarded. Each is armed with a number of Ion defensive cannons (more on those later).

There are two types of "objectives" in orbit, ships and stations. The ships are the main objective of the game, each with multiple critical systems that must be held for "ownership", these represent the ships that originally traveled through the wormhole, and they provide benefits directly to the surface. The Satelitte stations do not provide any direct benefit to the surface, but will provide benefits in space.

SHIPS AND STATIONS

The ships types and functions are the following:

Transport ships - These were the original ships that transported the then-colonists. They have since been modified into giant drop pod carriers. The empire who controls this ship may HART drop onto the affected continent, regardless of Dominion or Lock status. They may also drop into the SOI of any non-Capitol or sub-Capitol. Controlling both of the Transports results in the HART timer on the surface being halved. The ship itself is armed with a respectable number of turrets, but unlikely to withstand a coordinated assault.

Science Vessels - In the early days of the colonization, these ships were responsible for the early unlocking of Vanu technology. The knowledge in their databanks is invaluable, and when beamed down to the surface can swing the tide in the controlling empire's favor. Controlling a Science ship results in the affected continent having all FLB available through control of bases, even if the bases are not connected via the Lattice. Generator destruction will result in that FLB being lost as the information cannot be relayed. The continent always counts as having the Tech Plant FLB, even if hacking an enemy vehicle terminal. Controlling both science vessels allows AT weapons/vehicles to be acquired from any empire equipment terminal, even Sanctuary. This ship has only a few turrets, and will only be able to repulse the most disorderly of attacks.

Warships - The protection of the early days, the two warships that arrived with the colonization ships are still some of the most powerful weapons in the system. They are also the largest. Maintaining control of one gives the controlling empire access to advanced space weapons and also a CR5 on the bridge may execute one "free" OS per hour. That is an empire wide 1 hour, so multiple CR5s will not be able to use it. The hour still applies even if the ship is captured by multiple empires over the course of that time. Controlling both Warships allows the space fighters to be used on the surface. These ships are extremely heavily armed, and if properly crewed will destroy all but the most dedicated assaults.

The Satellite stations are scattered somewhat randomly, and there are roughly 4 of each type). Their functions are as follows (Note: All stations include 2 Spawn tubes and 1 Equipment terminal):

Gun platforms - Defensive emplacements. They have a turret above and below as well as a medium hangar terminal.

Sensor Station - Unarmed. Control reveals all enemy ships (not EVA suits) in radar range so long as the friendly sensor station is the closest such station (i.e. - flying closer to an enemy ship or station will lose this benefit). Has light hangar facility.

Dock - Four turrets in a ring. Includes space repair platform and 2 medium hangars. The Docks are the only place outside of the Orbital Bases to get a Repair ship.

Fighter Base (only 2 of these) - 2 Turrets, space repair platform, heavy ship terminal.

NEW CERTIFICATIONS:

Extra-Vehicular Access (EVA) Suit - An attempt at making a middle ground between MAXes and Rexo soldiers, it was found to be too weak to be used where a MAX suit was, but too bulky to replace the Rexo as a viable surface armor and so the concept was initially shelved. However, the nature of the armor makes it ideal for space travel with a minimum of modification. Equipped with thrusters and mag boots, the EVA allows full travel in space for an individual soldier. The EVA has 300 armor and has armor absorbtion similar to the Rexo. If reduced to 0 armor, they lose the benefits of being able to be out in the vaccuum until repaired. The suit includes 2 Rifle slots, but only 1 pistol slot, which can only be occupied by grenades and REKs, no Medical Applicators or BANKs. EVAs CAN carry the "glue gun". Cost: 2 certs.

NEW VEHICLES

Thunderbird Light Fighter - Agile, one man fighter. Weak armor, Class 1 Laser cannon (in space, the weapons are largely laser based due to the distances involved) which roughly equates to a 20mm cannon. Able to enter air-locks, but deconstructs after doing so (1 way ticket). Cert: Air Cav

Bandit Medium Fighter - Bulkier, two man fighter. Medium armor, Class 1 rearward laser cannon (2nd crewman), Dual Class 2 Laser Cannons (25mm equivalent) forward firing for pilot. Able to enter air-locks. Cert: Ground Transport

Typhoon Heavy Bomber - four man bomber. Pilot (no weapons), front gunner (Class 2 cannon), Rear gunner (Class 1 Cannon), "bomber" (Immoltator Missile Rack). Armor slightly larger than the Bandit. Cert: Air Support

Salvation Repair Craft - Light armor, unarmed. Can dock at air-locks (similar mechanism to ANT deploy), contributing repair points until drained (see Damaging Ships) when it deconstructs. Cert: CE

Mauler Heavy Transport - Massive aircraft, capable of transporting 15 troops (1 Pilot, 4 Gunners, 6 Infantry and 4 MAXes/EVAs). Rearward firing Class 2 Cannon, two side mounted Class 3 [35mm equivalent] and a Turbolaser turret on top with fixed firing arc[150mm equivalent...power offset by need for coordination between gunner and pilot]. When docked to an airlock, functions as a spawn point w/equipment terminal at the end of the assault tube (players will spawn in the airlock, mechanism similar to AMS). When a Mauler is docked to an air-lock, no further ships may enter or leave that air-lock until the Mauler is destroyed or undeploys. Mauler is hackable when docked. Cert: Ground Support

Stiletto Special Operations Craft - Representing the pinnacle of stealth technology, this 3 man craft is jet black (only sign it's there will be the blinking out of stars as it passes by) and invisible to all radar. Lightly armored, with medium speed and no weapons, the Stiletto can dock with an air-lock (same manner as the Thunderbird) without setting off an alarm. This craft is purpose built for inserting sabotage teams onto enemy ships and stations.

GAMEPLAY/SHIP LAYOUT

Each ship has six separate objectives that must be held for control of that ship to belong to a given empire. All have 5 minute hack timers (ship boarding is fast and furious)They are:

1) Bridge - Control of the bridge will determine dominion of the ship. Only assailable if at least one of the other two spawn points is held by the attacking empire.
2) Engines - If the side controlling the engines does not have Dominion, the spawn time for the controlling factions get a 5s spawn penalty. Destroying the engines will cause the gravity to fail, posing movement problems for non-EVAs.
3) Sensor Array - If the Sensor Array is lost, radar will no longer display incoming enemy craft and the turrets will no longer auto-fire. Alerts will not sound for intrusions, only for damage to critical areas or hacks.
4) Hangar Bay - Contains the launch terminals for the ship. Only usable by controlling faction. Science ships have Light terminals, Transports have mediums and warships have Heavy.
5) Reactor Core - If this is destroyed, the ship will be on very dim red emergency lights (VERY dim. Dominion ownership will cause the automated spitfires on the inside to fire at enemies.
6) Security/Armory - One of three spawn points. Required to assault bridge.

Krinsath · 2004-03-17, 05:40 PM

All six areas must be functional for the ship benefits to apply to the surface. Spawn points are the Bridge, Security and Hangar Bay.

"Hulking" a ship is accomplished by destroying four of the six vital areas. When a ship is hulked, it decompresses killing all non-EVAs and non-MAXes, rendering the turrets unusable and the remaining equipment is destroyed. No spawning is possible and the ship reverts to a neutral state. Engineers cannot repair the areas once a ship has been hulked until they bring in repair ships. It takes three repair ships docking to bring the ship into an internally repairable state. After the third ship has docked, the terminals may be hacked and repaired via normal means. Until 4 critical systems are brought online, hulked ships are treated as entirely vaccuum and only accessible to EVA suits (making this a critcal cert for the Space Combat Expansion).

The ships themselves are a mass of corridors and rooms, very maze-like. At random intervals there are sentry guns of roughly Spitfire class that will fire at all enemy soldiers. Destroyed sentry guns may be repaired as usual. The fighting is truly claustrophobic, with traps and ambushes being the order of the day. The boarding action will literally be a room by room and hallway by hallway battle to the critical areas. The size of the ship depends on the type. A science vessel is roughly the size of a base, but one level and stretched. The Transports are two levels, but about the same overall size as the Science ships with lots of big cargo bays. The Warships are montrous, with three different decks and each deck about the size of the science vessel. Zipline like technology and loading ramps provide access between the three levels.

The ships are accessible via airlocks, which are of varying number depending on ship class. Science vessels have 2 airlocks, Transports 4 and Warships 6. These are represented by forcefields. Thunderbirds and Stilettos can directly enter the airlock, Maulers and Salvation ships can dock with them (for a Salvation to dock, the bridge must be under friendly control and not hacked), but Bandits and Typhoons cannot enter Science or Transport ships, but they can land inside of the Warships hangar bays provided no Mauler is blocking access. For the other two types of ships, the crews can bail out near an air lock and attempt to get in, but this will not be a sure thing. Again, a Mauler docked to an airlock completely blocks access to all other forces, friendly and enemy. Alarms will sound on the ship the moment an air-lock is breached by an enemy Thunderbird, EVA or docked with by a Mauler. Stilettos will not set off the alarms.

Alarms function as red siren lights (similar to the surface generator down lights) and will continue for one minute past the last intrusion. If any part of the ship is under hack, the lights will stay on.

The Stations are simple layouts with a single control point and a few hallways. The battles for these are mainly outside, once inside there's very little room to force an attacker back. The Stations have a 3 minute hack timer to allow response forces from the nearest base/ship to be mustered. Stations have 1 airlock, but Maulers cannot dock at them as a spawn point, only to disgorge their carried troops into the station (smaller airlocks than ships, which is what the Mauler is designed to attack). Orbital bases have 3 Airlocks, which are empire specific shielded like the old sanctuary warpgates. All aircraft are permitted to fly into the Orbital base's airlock (which is really more like a hangar bay on the bases and Warships).

LATTICE (or DEFENSE GRID)

For lack of a better term, there is a Lattice in space. The Orbital bases are linked to the Stations, which in turn are linked to each other and to ships. This forms a defense grid of sorts and no hacks can be placed on a ship until the defense net as been breached. Once the ship can be hacked, any of the five non-bridge structures are eligble targets, so a boarding action can begin anywhere. Crews stationed in an airlock will of course be in the best position to repulse an attempted assault.

ORBITAL SHIFTS

After a certain amount of time (8 hours or so) the positions of the ship's relative to the surface will change. This will put each ship over a new continent where their effects will be contributed. There will obviously be 4 continents per cycle that will not be affected by any ship. Slightly unrealistically, the Stations and ships will probably remain generally static since they will be part of the "map"...if possible though, I'd like the positions of everything on the map except orbital bases to shift position and alignment.

NEW WEAPONS

In addition to the previously mentioned Laser cannons which have similar performance to weapons on the surface, the following new weapons:

Immoltator Missile Rack - Found on the Typhoon heavy bomber, it fires large seeking torpedoes. The target lock must be maintained or the missile will scatter widely and miss or strike non-vital areas. Useful only against Stations, Bases and Ship turrets and docked Maulers (i.e. - big, non-moving targets). Each missile is roughly equivalent to a 8 striker missiles. Against the lighter turrets, this will be almost destroyed, and a severe hit to the larger turrets. After tracking the target, the reticule must be on it for 3 seconds before lock is achieved. This means a Typhoon on a bombing run almost has to fly straight and level, opening it up to fire from both it's target and any supporting turrets. The trade-off for being able to inflict serious damage in one shot.

Hoplite Anti-Fighter Turret - The most common turret found on ships, it consists of 2 Class 2 laser cannons. It has armor equivalent to a Phalanx on the surface.

Legionaire Anti-Ship Cannon - Highly destructive beam (along lines of Vanguard's gun) but very slow rate of fire. Really only useful against bombers and Maulers, but going to swat any other craft foolish enough to fly in front of it. Very slow traverse speed as well.

Gladius Point Defense Emplacement - Found inside of warships, they guard the corridors with a gun comparable to a stabilized MCG. They are like Ancient Sentry Turrets and mannable by whoever gets there. Creates a base of fire for a corridor battle. However, if you're not careful, you're decimator bait.

As you can see by looking at the weaponry, taking down the turrets on a defended ship or station will be quite difficult, as there are few high caliber assault weapons. Maulers can own stations, but are among the easiest to kill aircraft in space and readily visible on radar at all times.

TURRET LOADOUTS

Science Vessel - 12 Hoplite turrets.

Transport - 28 Hoplite Turrets, 4 Legionaire.

Warship - 40(!!) Hoplite Turrets, 10 Legionaires (remember these ships are huge)

Given the difference in theoretical sizes, there shouldn't be a situation where a spacecraft is targeted by more than 3 turrets (except the Dock Station). Remember, those Turrets cover above and below, so halve them before trying to figure out spacing.

EDITS: Forgot to mention this. On the surface, the ground is (generally) 0 and the ceiling is 400. For the space combat expansion, things would start with 200 as the base, meaning there's 200m of movement room above and below stations, bases and ships.

NEW VEHICLE

Minion Class Infantry Shuttle - Medium armor and speed, capable of carrying 1 pilot and 4 passengers. Unarmed, requires escort for long journeys. Available to anyone with a vehicle cert (similar to ANT). Can enter airlocks in same manner as Thunderbird, sets off Alarms.

Realized that the grunts needed some sort of basic vehicle to get around since they can't just "hoof" it. As common as vehicle certs are, it should be possible for a full squad to be transported in two of these. Hopefully though, in a squad of 10 there would be at least one or two people with a cert that could do escort work.

oddfish · 2004-03-17, 05:45 PM

Damn, Krins.. you really sat down and pondered this one. i'm on board with essentially all the ideas.

Krinsath · 2004-03-17, 05:48 PM

Actually, that was off the cuff at work.

I wanted more turrets...but felt that was going a bit too far.

Oh, and which ideas are problems? I might have already resolved them.

Red October · 2004-03-17, 05:50 PM

Fairly good ideas, he who controls the spice controls the universe...ummm..I mean he who controls the warships controls the orbital strikes. But I think before the dev's can even say "expansion" a couple of things need to happen.

1) People have to start saying "we want an expansion".
2) They have to make Core Combat a viable expansion....you know...people actually going into the caverns. Otherwise they may have a tough time convincing thier bosses at Sony for $$ to go through with it. I can hear it now "you can't justify the costs for the first expansion and now you want to do a second!?". Core Combat is going to be an uphill battle.

But all in all, I think its a good idea to discuss expansion ideas should the day come, the Dev's will have a good amount of suggestions as to what thier customers want.

oddfish · 2004-03-17, 05:53 PM

My question is will there be space based NAVAL battles.. like, capital ship VS. capital ship. i dunno, each ship would have a bridge crew of about 15. Then, CR5's could assume the roll of Admiral and essentially be the ship's commander. That'd make for some interesting space combat.

Krinsath · 2004-03-17, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by Red October

Fairly good ideas, he who controls the spice controls the universe...ummm..I mean he who controls the warships controls the orbital strikes. But I think before the dev's can even say "expansion" a couple of things need to happen.

1) People have to start saying "we want an expansion".
2) They have to make Core Combat a viable expansion....you know...people actually going into the caverns. Otherwise they may have a tough time convincing thier bosses at Sony for $$ to go through with it. I can hear it now "you can't justify the costs for the first expansion and now you want to do a second!?". Core Combat is going to be an uphill battle.

But all in all, I think its a good idea to discuss expansion ideas should the day come, the Dev's will have a good amount of suggestions as to what thier customers want.

Of course there's no need for it now, but imagine if there was an expansion being released that was designed by the community with the community's desires in mind and presented as it actually was, there'd actually be a demand for it. Problem with Core Combat was that they kept it so under wraps and presented it incorrectly, so that drove down interest when it turned out different. Nice thing about Space Combat means that it's harder to screw up surface combat, as there's no "geo-warp" to screw things up.

oddfish · 2004-03-17, 05:57 PM

that's for damned sure.. another question that arises though is, are there enough people in the community to make both surface AND space combat seem large scale and fulfilling as a means of playing the game.

Krinsath · 2004-03-17, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by oddfish

My question is will there be space based NAVAL battles.. like, capital ship VS. capital ship. i dunno, each ship would have a bridge crew of about 15. Then, CR5's could assume the roll of Admiral and essentially be the ship's commander. That'd make for some interesting space combat.

Only problem there would be one empire putting all the capital ships near their orbital base and maintaining space lock indefinately. That's why it was revised to explain that the engines really aren't powerful enough to break orbital path anymore (they were allowed to fall into disrepair and being non-Vanu technology, can't benefit from normal repairs). Seems with the ease of repairs with Vanu-based tech, people forgot how to use a monkeywrench correctly.

I flirted briefly with the idea of Cap ship on Cap ship, but in the end decided that with the big ships as the objectives, it wasn't the best of ideas. Originally there was a ship a class above the Mauler that was like a destroyer to the battleships that are in orbit...but it got to be overly complicated too.

Originally Posted by oddfish

that's for damned sure.. another question that arises though is, are there enough people in the community to make both surface AND space combat seem large scale and fulfilling as a means of playing the game.

That's why I only wanted 1 play area instead of 2.

With poplocks the way they are, there's usually only 2 or 3 places to fight heavily. Since Space Combat is always reachable as an alternative, it shouldn't dilute too heavily, but will certainly attract pilots who will love to prove their skills in zero-g and CQB lovers who will enjoy the insanely tight quarter feel of the interior of ships. Also, unlike CC, there's always a guaranteed spawn.

oddfish · 2004-03-17, 06:11 PM

i dunno.. i think there should be some kind of corvette or light frigate class ships availabe.. like the MBT's of space combat or something.

OfaLoaf · 2004-03-17, 06:29 PM

I always thought the aircrafts in Planetside already looked spaceworthy. Why not use them, instead of the fighters you thought up?

oddfish · 2004-03-17, 06:32 PM

because the introduction of new vehicles makes the space experience more interesting. rather than just saying: Okay, take the old shit and let's toss it in the back of the truck and haul it up to space. good job guys, here's your five bucks.