VoiceInTheDesert
Gallente
Diplomatic Disruption
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Posted - 2008.10.02 18:36:00 -
[1]
The idea is cool, but I'm not sure how practical it is. I'm sure such calculations on the server side, especially in large fights with custom set distances between ships would take a toll on the server and create some lag.
It would be AWESOME to be able to shield damage to more vulnerable ships inside a formation by creating a collision engine, but the entire battle engine needs to be rewritten to accommodate this.
Currently, all ships just point, click, calculations are done and damage is received. My guess is that the projectile the weapon is supposed to be firing never actually exists in the game. I would bet that it is just represented by the numbers being crunched.
So to do this, you'd have to create all those projectiles and then make them collidable with every object in the game. The game would now have to compensate for the fact that the intended target may not be the one hit, so a whole new set of calcs has to be done on the ship that was in between the target and the attacker. You COULD just have the shot hit the intercepting ship with as much force as it would have hit the target ship I suppose, but it's still a lot of work to redo the target and assign the damage to the new ship in question.
It would make the game awesome because now, big tanking ships can protect E-War without the E-war being way far away. It would also allow targets to hide in asteroid belts, behind gates/stations/debris floating in space. It's a whole new tactic to the game that wasn't there before.
It would also be interesting because now in order to hit a fast target or a E-War ship, you can target something behind it to try to land a hit that your tracking would not normally allow.
Formations would lend not only to defensive "protect the small ships" thinking, but also "break through to the small ships" thinking. Formations are excellent weapons, but breaking them would be equally strategic and entertaining.
Also, nothing but E-war, Logistics and drone boats would really be in the middle, since if you make all the projectiles collidable, you now can't fire from WITHIN a formation for risk of hitting your own ships. So it would work as a two-way screen (this means that you couldn't just get a formation of drakes or other super tankers and hide gank ships on the inside of formations blasting out damage).
So all in all, I think it's a great amount of fun to be had, but it's a ton of work and would be difficult to implement/maintain.
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