Report 1816

Report #1816
Skillset: Aethercraft Skill: Ramming
 Org: Celest Status: Approved Sept 2017
Furies' Decision:
We will look into solutions
Problem: Ramming is a potentially awesome mechanic that I have -never- seen used
because it relies on hull damage to succeed. That is, if the target ship is
damaged enough to be rammed, it's always better to just blow it up. The
secondary issue that this report can help address are mega-ships which are very
boring to just grind down after overwhelming with module damage.
[A: 3 R: 3] Solution #1: Change the success chance of ramming from being based
 on hull damage to pilot module damage, such that if
 the pilot's module is completely damaged out, there
 is a 100% chance of the ram succeeding, and scaling
 down sharply from there, with a 0% chance when under
 moderate damage. The idea here being that the pilot
 is unable to evade ramming.
[A: 5 R: 1] Solution #2: Add a virtual module to every aethership. The
 aetherdock module. This can be damaged down just
 like any other module, and controls the chances of
 ram succeeding, just like in solution one.
[A: 2 R: 2] Solution #3: In addition to solution 1, or solution 2, make
 ramming always link to a random manned module, and if
 no modules are manned, to a random unmanned module.
 Allowing the breaching party to reliably take out at
 least one person from the enemy ship, even if they
 get locked out by reinforced doors.
Player Comments:
---[Ciaran on 9/10 @ 17:42 sets as pending]
---[Aeldra on 9/11 @ 11:48 writes]:
All solutions sound interesting
---[Falaeron on 9/11 @ 20:26 writes]:
I think solution 3 needs to just make it go to the grid, since that is the only
module that is ultimately required to keep a ship flying. Breaching into the
chair, turret, or an even less important manned module like a collector is
pointless when the grid could still be literally a thousand rooms away.
---[Xenthos on 9/11 @ 21:42 writes]:
I've been thinking about this some more since we spoke. I'm going to start off
by raising some of the comments brought up on envoys, which is that making
ramming easier is slightly problematic in that it turns aetherspace battles from
being about aetherspace to being about "who has the best fighting party" (which
mostly everything else already is anyways). There were some other ideas being
tossed around (such as changing how Seal works, how whistling works, etc. to
make it more feasible to contest without changing the underlying ship v. ship
mechanics).
---[Xenthos on 9/11 @ 21:45 writes]:
In regards to the actual mechanical idea: Solution 1 doesn't really make a lot
of sense in that a big ship has essentially no evasion anyways (they are slow,
sluggish things) so no matter how damaged the pilot's chair, the ship is (from
an actual concept basis) just as evasive as it always was. In addition module
damage is a lot easier to pile on and a lot harder to heal off, so in actual
practical mechanical terms the ram rate will essentially always be 100% after
just a short period of time. Solution 2 has the problem of: "Place unbreakable
doors at every module along with a monolith sigil, if someone gets on the ship,
/shrug?". Solution 3 kind of addresses the concern there to solution two, but
I'm just not really feeling making ramming more feasible at this point. Per our
discussion and further consideration I'm a lot more interested in making the
ship mechanics more dynamic.
---[Moi on 9/18 @ 21:44 writes]:
I agree with Falaeron wrt it going to the Grid and would further say that
ramming should be based on the shield module, not the chair.
---[Danquik on 9/23 @ 18:37 writes]:
Just to clarify my reject votes. I find none of these choices appealing and
after discussion with people who actually own "megaships" feel a better solution
to the issue is to have the Empath Grid failure rate scale higher the larger a
ship is. This means targetting a "megaship"'s empath actually has tangible
effect and even putting Grid to 150% will not gaurantee healing reliabilty. This
solution can be applied to modules like Turrets as well, perhaps increasing
balance the more damaged a turret is, based on ship size. The options presented
in this report just force aetherspace to require a large crew all the time and
limit less active orgs from participating, as well as turning ram into an
'i-win' button.
---[Minkahmet on 9/23 @ 18:46 writes]:
I'm more inclined with solution three going to grid instead, otherwise I'm
inclined to two.
---[Ciaran on 9/24 @ 08:44 writes]:
@Danquik - This report is to make ramming interesting/possible, with the
secondary effect of helping give an option against mega-ships. It isn't
intended to entirely solve that problem. I would hope that you take that into
consideration before rejecting it out of hand. It wasn't written simply to
solve the problem that you set forth.