collision damage

[andrewprofit]

Collisions should cause damage to the ship and crew. Both collisions with other players, npc's, and objects.

[OrabIbo]

Your just asking for griefing to happen to you ;)

While I'm okay with environment collisions like asteroids and planets. I really don't think you will want other player teammates causing you damage because they lagged into you or just don't watch what they are doing. Or just being a PITA and causing trouble "just because they can!" syndrome.

While I can appreciate your need for realism. I just think that you may be regretting this request shortly afterwards. There is a reason why most MMO's have this turned off.

The best compromise I have seen is the ability to have collisions, but they cause no damage, unless engaged by an enemy or environment. FFXI had this, and while everything was solid and had substance, if something truely was in your way to keep you from proceeding. You could just walk into it until after 3-4 secs and you passed right through it. In crowded city areas this was a pain, because you got hung on other ppl all the time, because you had to stop for each and every person you encountered until you passed through them. But at least it didn't stop and block you in your tracks permenantly.

[andrewprofit]

Your just asking for griefing to happen to you ;)

While I'm okay with environment collisions like asteroids and planets. I really don't think you will want other player teammates causing you damage because they lagged into you or just don't watch what they are doing. Or just being a PITA and causing trouble "just because they can!" syndrome.

While I can appreciate your need for realism. I just think that you may be regretting this request shortly afterwards. There is a reason why most MMO's have this turned off.

The best compromise I have seen is the ability to have collisions, but they cause no damage, unless engaged by an enemy or environment. FFXI had this, and while everything was solid and had substance, if something truely was in your way to keep you from proceeding. You could just walk into it until after 3-4 secs and you passed right through it. In crowded city areas this was a pain, because you got hung on other ppl all the time, because you had to stop for each and every person you encountered until you passed through them. But at least it didn't stop and block you in your tracks permenantly.

I propose that the damage be limited to say 30% of max health for player ships.

[shadowrunner52]

Ramming speed!!!! Actually in PvP it would be fun to have collisions. If for nothing else but a last ditch effort to take your opponent down with you. The ultimate sacrifice to save the galaxy and all that.

Other than that, I agree that it would be more of a pain than it would be worth.

[andrewprofit]

Ramming speed!!!! Actually in PvP it would be fun to have collisions. If for nothing else but a last ditch effort to take your opponent down with you. The ultimate sacrifice to save the galaxy and all that.

Other than that, I agree that it would be more of a pain than it would be worth.

How much would you play a game where your ship is constantly passing through other objects?

[LordDave]

As long as I can fling rocks at my opponents with a tractor beam, I'm happy.

[andrewprofit]

As long as I can fling rocks at my opponents with a tractor beam, I'm happy.

That would be cool or how about a planet.

[PoqkTer]

Ramming speed!!!! Actually in PvP it would be fun to have collisions. If for nothing else but a last ditch effort to take your opponent down with you. The ultimate sacrifice to save the galaxy and all that.

Other than that, I agree that it would be more of a pain than it would be worth.

One failing of Star Trek Klingon Academy was Collisions. The ship with the stronger hull wins everytime. I espect we'll see something more along the lines of Starfleet command where ships floated around each other.

Now perhaps there could be a an ability per say, that only activates when you absolutly cannot fight back any more, that when toggle sends your ship steamrolling into the other, A warp core breach or ejection could be added as well as other options.

Say you last ditch effort jettison the warp core and fire remaining phaser power at it to try and destroy the other ship.

Other than that we probably won't/and shouldn't see any active collision in the game.

[RockyM]

"Incoming object! SIr!"
"What is it?!?"
"Looks like their.... waste !! Quick get in the life pods!!"

[Trekkie]

I wouldn't mind it if there was a chance for collision damage, but if the damage amount for colliding with other ships is high then it is likely there will be a lot of players crashing their ships into others just because it looks cool or because they want to grief the player.

[callsign11b]

I think it be ok with in reason.
one you can't collide with friendly players ships.
two it have to be a command to set collision course.
third the enemy ship you set collision to will get a message enemy ship set on collision course and you have the ability to avoide by evase actions.
so to be able to hit a ship first you have to beable to catch him at impulse speeds or be infront of him or have a better turning ratio so you can get in front of him..
other than that everything goes.
I just you"s my transporter beam some antimatter mines in front of his ship.
evade him then hit him with phasers and torpedoes.
still going beam some marines and take the bridge. :D

[WinterPark1701]

I think legacy got it right in this respect, I mean come on folks you have a trained helmsmen steering and unless you're on the USS Haven were the driver is legaly blind this isn't a problem you'd need to worry about as long as your helm officer isn't dead or late to work.

[cocoa-jin]

Ramming and collision should be included, but griefing is an issue.

I hate how gamey it sounds, but maybe they could make ramming a combat function/maneuver. I figure if modern aircraft can have auto-levelers/terrain avoidance, why cant starships have anti-collision systems that automatically over-ride and maneuver ships out of collisions?...just enough to prevent the collision.

In order to ram would require the captain over-ride the anti-collision system by ordering a tactical ram. This could be as easy pushing a button while maneuvering the ship for a ram. Maybe this function has a cool down feature to it so it can be spammed.

The cool thing about this, is that a more manuervable ship ought to have a descent chance of avoiding the ram of a larger, less maneuverable ship...good thing for the small ship who is vulnerable against big ships using their mass and structure to exploit/take advantage of ramming tactics. While the larger, less maneuverable ship will have a harder time avoiding the collision of smaller more maneuverable ships...but they can deal with and absorb the collision much easier from the small ship. To provide some balance, provide a damage multiplier for collisions that makes more massive ships more resistant to the damage incurred during collisions appropriate to the design, structure, etc of the ship...so a freighter would recieve greater damage than an equally massed combat vessel when rammed by the same object...but a combat vessel of lesser mass than the frigate might take more or less damage than the freighter when rammed by the same object according to the combination of mass, design, structure, etc of the combat vessel(destroyer vs. cruiser class masses).

Perhaps captains can set the level of anti-collision on the fly to allow for more or less protection from collisions(how far into the imminent collision/vector intercept before it takes action).

[Azurian]

I liked Bridge Commander's system that alerted you to a possible collision with an object or a starship. Though with STO, i think it would be even better if the object or ship was highlighted so you can plan accordingly.

As for collisions themselves, I really don't want them to be nerfed, but I also don't want them to be used as a griefing tool either. There should be a system that could measure these collisions from hitting a small meteor to diliberate ramming. For instance, if you purposely ram another vessel and ignore collision alarms, you should get some massive faction point loss and your ship ends up in drydock for a few "months". A second time gets you flying shuttles for a long time.


However, if you meet certain requirements (like your hull is at 20% and your engines are shot), then the option to ram another ship should then become available.

Which would be a nice tool for a "last-ditch" method to survive, where the collision itself is a random event (the roll of the dice). So you can either survive the collision and neutralize the enemy ship long enough for help to arrive, or you die in the process and only managing to heavily damage the enemy ship.

[jayrelo]

andrew... STOP THE MADNESS! AHHHHH!

:p

[Tranchera]

Both collisions with other players, npc's, and objects.
Yeah, I reckon if you're running down the corridor to the transporter room and you run into an NPC it should go all Force Unleashed Endorphin style ragdoll and you should both take damage.

[Loekii]

Maybe for stationary Objects, but I think Ships would have an 'auto-collision-avoidance' system to prevent this.

[Vicelance]

Your helmsmen should be able to avoid collisions and even if it is used as a tactic by ships the other ships helmsmen depending on their ability and the state of the ship should have a chance to dodge it.

[Interdictor]

One failing of Star Trek Klingon Academy was Collisions. The ship with the stronger hull wins everytime. I espect we'll see something more along the lines of Starfleet command where ships floated around each other.

Now perhaps there could be a an ability per say, that only activates when you absolutly cannot fight back any more, that when toggle sends your ship steamrolling into the other, A warp core breach or ejection could be added as well as other options.

Say you last ditch effort jettison the warp core and fire remaining phaser power at it to try and destroy the other ship.

Other than that we probably won't/and shouldn't see any active collision in the game.

Agreed - unrestricted collisions would be WAY too open to abuse. Every battle with another player would end in a suicide rush.

Now, if they were a special ability - it might be different.

[cavilier210]

going with this collision idea:

how bout if we hit another ships nacelle/weapon pod that the part of the ship we hit either gets knocked off, or gets knocked offline, seeing as a ship just smashed it, lol.

[Kinneas]

Collisions should be horrible. :)

One hopes ship combat goes a bit beyond just moving energy rapidly from engines to shields (Legacy). That we do have sub-systems to manage like your tractor beam system(s) and deflector system(s) as in the game Starfleet Command..

That one should learn how to set their systems up to automatically stop or repel ramming attempts as well as stopping missiles and drones (if included).

It then falls on one to know how to stop ramming as long as they have the power to do so.

To make things hard and reinforce the need to understand your tractor and deflector system make 'auto tracking' modules computer upgrades.

Perhaps upgrades that can enable 'auto collision detection and response (triggers Tractor beams in repulsor mode and deflector dish at maximum deflection for short range objects'. Auto systems could still use energy, but could be able to power down to stand-by mode, reducing energy consumption and the need for you to toggle the tractor/deflector sub-systems manually?

Upgrades to stronger and stronger ttractor/repulsor/deflector systems.

Upgrades to engines could provide more output power to tractor/repulsor/deflector systems.
--

Also to consider : SHIELD bashing. Directing all your shield power to one facing or more facings before ramming.

Also: If enemy ship attempts to ram without any shields it can be destroyed by hitting your shields.

also: Using your tractors to grab a ship and pull it into your active shields.

Also: Tractor a non shielded ship and rotate it in front of your deflector causing constant repulsor damage.

[RyanRosco]

Im kinda opposed to crashing thing. Floating around eachother would be fine I believe. Tho large asteroids and planets should cause damage.

[Dext]

Collisions should cause damage to the ship and crew. Both collisions with other players, npc's, and objects.

I can see this for PvP but where only the other side can hit you when you get it an also do more damage do the person that did ram you then what you took. that is so that people will bot just do it to do it.

[Haegemon]

If it's a 3d game should be some king of collision mesh, to avoid models get displayed "joint". If this mesh have to cause damage or not, this is question of personal taste.

[PoqkTer]

Well..

Pros for collision.

Adds realism to the game.
Players can use thier ships to shield others as depicted in the shows/movies/books
Can effectively bloackade

Cons

Lag spike will cause massive grief, as it will result in a bouncing effect much like Klingon Academy and Bridge commander.
Players with no skill and or immature will certainly use this system to cause unfavorable gameplay.
Adds realism to the game...wich in any game realism doesn't always equate to fun.

As you can see its really a toss up, but my stance is the Collision will cause more grief than any benefit it will generate.

Unless as per other posts that collision is to be used in a " Last ditch" effort, Ala a speacial function to be used near a players death as a last resort in combat.

Many ways this can be done.

Ram- To force ones ship upon an attacker when there is nothing else that can be done.

Warp Core jettison- your core is about to breach, your ship slows to allow attacker closer, when optimal distance is achieved the warp core ejjects and is detonated to destroy/disable attacking ship.

Warp Ram- Your Attacker is a distance away, you only have enough power to jump into warp on a collision corse, this will ultimately destroy both ships. this can only be used if the player has no weapons avalible and limited power that eliminate the possability of escape.

[callsign11b]

I think it could work well collisions and give you another element in game play.
you see it in ds9 during the dommion wars.
during fifst contact worf on the defiant was all out of options except raming it into the borg ship.
you also see it enterprise d gets hit by the uss bosman in the tng series.
and off course in the last movie.
all last ditch effords to either destroy or damage your appoinant before your toast.
if you meet certain requirements why can't you use that option.
theres no garenty you'll be succesful other ships can get out of your way.
so I think it be harder than you think just to hit a ship.

[PoqkTer]

I think it could work well collisions and give you another element in game play.
you see it in ds9 during the dommion wars.
during fifst contact worf on the defiant was all out of options except raming it into the borg ship.
you also see it enterprise d gets hit by the uss bosman in the tng series.
and off course in the last movie.
all last ditch effords to either destroy or damage your appoinant before your toast.
if you meet certain requirements why can't you use that option.
theres no garenty you'll be succesful other ships can get out of your way.
so I think it be harder than you think just to hit a ship.

Well i speak merley on experience with Klingon academy and Bridge commander, games that had collision, and colliding with other players happened so much it took away from the game as the result was always catastrophic damage. Lag will always be present in online games untill everyones connection is stable, and lag + collision cause a lot of problems, even the most skilled players in KA and BC would see 2-3 lag induced collisions during a series of battles. On a MMO i can only imagine it being 50 to a 100 times worse as they are trien to make a One world server.

Star Wars Galaxies has collision in the space portion of the game, tho it does no damage to the ships, they kinda bounce off each other and are unresponsive for a few seconds, but being an MMO, I cannot safely estimate how many lag induced collisions are made in any given battle as it is a High amount.

[callsign11b]

yea I see I over looked the real lag problem.
played KA and BC
found KA more collision type problems then again you flew your ship more like a fighter jet and the ai always seemed to do a staright run at you.
but STO is suppose to be speed down to actually use tactics like navy ship battles ww2 games.
like great navel battles.
so lag problems will not be as time critical as say flying your ship at fighter jet combat speeds.

[Haegemon]

The grief is less if there are rules. In first place a player may not gain anything for destroy a ship "a la kamikaze" cos its ship becomes destroyed at the same time, or suffers severe damages that need time to repair and a cost in credits, prestige or something else. The cost could be so high as losing your advanced ship for the starting one a good incentive to protect your ship and crew lives for example.

[Swordopolis]

Warp Ram- Your Attacker is a distance away, you only have enough power to jump into warp on a collision corse, this will ultimately destroy both ships. this can only be used if the player has no weapons avalible and limited power that eliminate the possability of escape.

This had better come with massive penalties attached, otherwise every battle will end with the starship equivalent of a murder/suicide.

[andrewprofit]

I just hope that the collision system is semi plausable. Ether auto avoid or some temporary hull scrape markings. I just hate to see starships graphics overlaping greying out or outlining.

I have a feeling if they don't do something groups will pretty much just be ships intersecting with each other constantly by accident or purposefully.

For instance how do you click on an important npc ship if another player is parked around it?

[KO_Gilligan]

There's actually 6 other threads with "collision" or "collisions" in the title that are specific to ship collisions. Then theres also discussions on explosions - like my "where'd my nacelle go? " thread.

This is where member/moderators would come in handy - we could merge some of this stuff together.

Like (1) a ship damage thread, and (2) a collision thread. Bring them back whenever a new thread pops up, or somebody Necro's them by properly using the search function ;)

I remember participating in both the ship damage and the collision threads. We beat these issues for dozens of pages, it would be nice to keep it together.

[PoqkTer]

The grief is less if there are rules. In first place a player may not gain anything for destroy a ship "a la kamikaze" cos its ship becomes destroyed at the same time, or suffers severe damages that need time to repair and a cost in credits, prestige or something else. The cost could be so high as losing your advanced ship for the starting one a good incentive to protect your ship and crew lives for example.

Even if you say here's collision, but doing so will cause this... the griefer is not going to care, because he is a griefer. Again making a high cost as a deterent isn't always kosher as the before mentioned Lag spike induced collisions are going to give plaers hell, and even more so if there is a steep penalty for it.

When I play games and the game starts lagging, when it settles I usualy find myself dead, This usualy irritates the heck out of me, enough to not play the game for extended periods of time. I would say most players would agree on that.

[Azurian]

I highly doubt that lag-induced collisions will be happening that frequently, unless you are the type that likes to get in close.

I've played Everquest in a 36k connection back in it's prime and I learned to compensate for the lag and not push myself in dangerous situations. So if you got a bad connection (which is rare these days), it's only your fault and not necessarily the games if you die.

And I certainly do not want to see us "bouncing" off one another, derelics, comets, or asteroids. That would really kill the immersion.

[chuck258456]

we've had this discussion before, and each time makes me think more and more into collisions

if you look at it at first glance, yes, it does look like it will more than likely be abused, imagine a huge "fleet" (guild / corp / whatever they would be called in this game) having sufficient numbers to take like 5 shuttles, to simply suidide run into an opposing Vor'Cha or some werid crap, THATS where it would become "griefing"

then at second glance you begin thinking about limitations "fine, you CAN suicide, but you have to be at xxx of your strucuture" or "when you suicide your ship, you lose 3 ranks for wasting a ship" or something weird

i just saw this again, and thought, ok, collisions would be cool in this game, and they SHOULD be a part of PVP, however, again, w/ some limitations


when a ship is normally dying in Star Trek, they slowly begin losing ship functions, whether it be the warp engines, phasers, shield generators, deflector, or what have you

technically, you could make a suicide run at any time, but i think these cases, if they are Petitioned by a star trek GM, should be looked at on an individual basis

Player A of enemy fleet 1 encounters Player B of his enemy fleet, he knows he is outmatched, and knows that if he simply suicides his shutlecraft into the warp core, it will destroy a very "expensive" ship at little cost to him, and his fleet

Player B is obviously going to petition for this, this was done purely as an "exploit" of some sorts, high gain for very little risk

GM's tell Player A he better put a little more effort into surviving next time, or he could face a warning / ban





now, assume there is a good sized battle going on, 20 ships on both sides, the Flagship of Fleet A is going down, but he still has engine functions, he aligns his ship to the nearest, and most heavily damaged enemy ship, and overloads the impulse engines, ramming into him

in my book THAT wouldnt really be griefing, the Flagship of Fleet A had little chance of surviving, and he aimed for the most damaged enemy ship whom he had strong reason to believe wasnt going to survive, it was a last ditch effort to cause some pain upon the enemy

i just think that suicide runs should be restricted to a last ditch effort, and not a means as a full blown offense

and also, it should be "restricted" as well, to be "within reasonable discretion" i guess it could be put, to suicide your ship

A.) there has to be an almost CERTAIN probability that your going to die
B.)you cannot overuse this, like intentionally "fitting" your ship crappily specifically SO you are "certainly going to die" for the specific purpose, the GM's could look at this, and see if the person was just sitting there, not maunevering, and not attacking or what have you
C.) it would also be based upon chance

c1.) since you will like have to be into "structure" so to speak (yes i play EVE-Online, lol) it would depend if your engines are even capable of functioning, because like i said, we see time and again in many episodes, where systems start failing as a result of attack, it should also function like this in STO, it's somewhat "chance" based if your engines will be able to do this attack
c2.) somewhat similar to c1, can your ship even maunuever and ALIGN to the ship your going to ram into

i am a bit tired as i type this so pleaes bear with me :)

[andrewprofit]

never mind let the ships collide into balls of vectors

[oogamar]

i believe that collisions should be a gameplay element and be able to be employed as a tactic at any time you choose. However damage should depend on the defenses of each ship involved. for instance if a shuttle rams an excalibur or w/e it should hit the shields and eventually break up doing little or no damage to anything BUT the shields. If the shields on the enemy ship are down then it's just begging for something to be rammed into it anyway :cool:.

I don't see how this could really be exploited because if a shuttle can knock a battleship's shields down then one of the players deserves to be shot and the other needs a medal. If 10 runabouts decide to ram a big ship then it deserves to die. If the player is so crap that they get rammed by 10 runabouts then they deserve to die.

They could implement a warning system like in bridge commander like 5 seconds before so u get chance to lock on a tractor beam - thus an effective defence that the rammer would have to disable before the collision can happen.

If they just make it a counterable action then it would work and a fun gameplay aspect - constantly trying to outmove your opponent to disable their shields and tractor beams so that your ally can fly his battering ram of a barge into the enemy behemoth. it just means more tactics to exploit and more to keep you on your toes.
CMON JUST PUT RAMMING IN!!!

[ffemtmike]

IMHO, Collision in PvE (xpt for astriods, stations, planets) is a horrible idea.
Now, before you flame, I'm talking from personal MMO experiance. Just hear what I have to say, and if you agree or disagree, cool. Each of us wants different things added/left out of the game.

#1 Planetside:
The collision aspects didn't cause lag, but it cuased a horrible amount of griefing, even unintentional. It's not always about you hitting them, it's about them crossing in front of you and you hitting them without trying.
In bases people were ALWAYS hitting people without trying too. Also, people would of course, do it just because they could. Instead of people being patient and waiting for people to move, they'd simply run over them. Also, if you did lag, next thing you know you crashed into another vehicle/people racking up grief points.

Also, if you have someone cloaked, you're not gonna see em. I'm sure for PvE your 'allies' will show up with a name floating in space, but what if they dont? You hit them via sub-space or in warp. Penalized.

#2 SFC2/3: had it where Larger ships, Battle ships and Borg cubes could be run into. Of course, the larger ship won. I can't count how many times, people simply ran over people. Tractor beam, them close to you and run them over. But to me, large ships like that, should not be allowed to be 'passed though.

You can also look at it this way. By the time you get into a BB class ship, you better know what you're doing and how to avoid collisions.
I do think in PvP, it has some merit.

However, when people are talking about using it as a last ditch effort....
In SFC 2/3, you could get close to your enemy and hit the self-destruct timer. You don't have to ram them. Your ship blows up (the closer, the more dmg) and can cripple if not destroy a ship. However, this too can be abused in non-PvP to grief people.

#3 Eve: also doesn't allow you to run into large objects...because your ship isn't stupid. The auto-pilot will take control of your ship, and you will not plow head long into it. Normally you bounce off the item with your shields. Just like in the Star Trek movies/shows, when the ship detects something, it acts on it. Yes, the graphics does show you flying through larger objects while in warp. But I'll take that than the constant worry about being hit by everything flying around me.

Yes, in the last movie they rammed the ship. If your enemy is stupid enough to get that close to you to gloat or monolog instead of simply killing you, and you're in a movie where you clearly have to live to kill the enemy....them ram them.

And finally, new guys. Let's say you're leaving space dock ready to head out. You've just paid prestege/money to repair and refit your ship. BOOM! A new player runs into you (or even worse, a trial account player) and now you're ship is jacked up. Can you tell me, you're going to be ok with that? Or are you going to be calling the player a F'n n00b and ticked cause now you have to repair your ship?

I just see too much room for it to penalize people. I can see the tons of griefing newbies/trial accounts just doing it because they can and they know if ticks people off.

[tom_riker01]

Eve online was notoriously frustrating in that regard. When one dropped out of warp, they passed through solid objects which frankly was retarded. Also when one was at sublight speeds and you "hit" something you just bounced off. Since they're talking about making the ship control for STO a "direct" one, i.e. you hit the left arrow and your ship turns left, I would like to see collisions do severe damage. As vast as the galaxy is, the odds of two ships running into one another next to a starbase due to lag is pretty nil. And realisticly you won't be parallel parking Galaxy and Sovereign class ships.

In combat situations however, lag is likely and so are collisions. You don't want to ram into one another and it should be avoided, but if it happens suck it up, it's realistc.

The control interface in Eve, I liked better. Click the mouse where you want your ship to go and the crew does it. It was more realistic to me. Kirk did not shift the Enterprise into drive and take off, he told Sulu to take it out of orbit. Sulu started pressing buttons, while Kirk went off to the gym. In this instance, damaging collisions would be frustrating because the AI in Eve is retarded. You will hit something and just sit there bouncing until you finally tell your ship to turn around. But since in STO *you* the player will be directly controling your ship, if you collide with something its your own fault for getting too close. And as for the other player who insists on making life miserable for others...that what moderators are for.

[OrabIbo]

GM's tell Player A he better put a little more effort into surviving next time, or he could face a warning / ban

When I tried this in EvE as Player A. The GM told me that this is how the game is designed to be played and the stuff I lost in PvP whether I wanted to do PVP or not or the fact that I got ganked would not be recoved from being lost. Whether due to lag or the fact I did not load complete before I appeared in the next zone and had no control over my ship. Either way my stuff would not be recovered because thats the way the game is played.

That didn't keep me from being ****ed. But it did make me play more careful.

I respected EvE for their bold unconditional playstyle. It was a different way to play from every other MMO out there. And part of the risk was loosing your ship and cargo as well.

It's a shame other MMO's repimand the other player for this even if it was a bug or just part of the game. It should be handled as EvE did it by telling the complaining player that this is how the game functions. If it was due to a bug, then the developers should have fixed it. And they can fix the issue by refunding the complaining player.

If it is obvious that Player B was exploiting, then yeah he will be penalized. But if he reported the issue, before he started exploiting, I dunno. I think there the blame falls upon the developer for not getting it fixed in a timely fashion.