Collisions idea

Humungus

Spaceman
'Cause it looks like we're running out of things to test (yeah, I'm also bored right now), we should try to think up things to make the game a little realistic, shouldn't we?

I concentrated on collisions: Whenever two ships end up in the same hex (or !maybe! even cross their lines of movement), they collide. They inflict damage to each other which will probably be calcutated in a way similar to asteroid hits. When they are facing each other (they're in each others front firing arc, roughly facing each other), take the sum of their speeds (for example when a Rapier with speed 3 and a Drakhri with speed 4 collide this way, the sum is 7) and multiply it with x (to be decided and balanced). This is the maximum damage they could inflict, but it can't be higher than current shields+hull of the more damaged (lower shields+hull number) ship (maybe plus some ramming bonus) - a nearly blown up fighter will just smash against a fresh one, inflicting minimal damage.
Other angles:
Side arcs (with dark orange areas): Take only the speed of the one ramming (facing) the other
Rear arc: Subtract the speeds (faster-slower)

What do you think?
 
Collisions are in the rulebook.

It happens when two objects land in the same square (exception being asteroids and sometimes not even that.)
 
In version 0.14, there is only described WHEN the collision occurs (ending in the same hex, which I would leave as it is, without the "crossing movement lines" possibility) but not WHAT happens (checked several times, really)
 
Collision rules are not published yet, but this is the formula I came up with:

Collision damage = collision speed * actual hull points (of rammed object) * x

Collision speed is determined in the exact way Humungus described in his post. For "ramming damage", however, I'm only taking a ship's actual hull points (without shields) into account. A light or damaged fighter will of course inflict less damage than a bomber. Finally, we have the x - currently somewhere between .1 and .5. ;)

For example:
An Epee at full "health" (13 hull points) and at top speed (5) rams a damaged Jalkehi with 37 (out of 52) hull points at a speed of 2 - head-on.
The collision speed for both would be 7. Actual hull points would be 13 for the Epee and 37 for the Jalkehi.

Case A: x = .1
The Epee takes 7 * 37 * .1 = 26 points of damage. Even at full shields, this would mean instant death to the Epee. (Who would have thought...)
The Jalkehi takes 7 * 13 * .1 = 9 points of damage. The Kilrathi pilot probably wouldn't even notice.

Case B: x = .5
Epee: 7 * 37 * .5 = 130 points of damage. Any questions?
The Jalkehi takes 7 * 13 * .5 = 46 points of damage. Now this is getting serious...

Since we're talking WC2 era here, I'd personally favor the .5 variant (case B) - collisions ended deadly in WC1 and WC2 most of the time. At afterburner speeds, it's also a sure way to commit suicide (cf. asteroids).

(Pilots who explicitly want to avoid a collision are allowed a "dodge" roll, of course. With a penalty if the other pilot definitely wants to ram you.)
 
Back
Top