MEIN COMBAT - A Combat Feedback Compilation

1

ZedX ●

e1980014ac2dc2c7db898877ee3b42e5

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1

Semtex ●

11) Penalty for death in combat

Respawn time - One minute for every kilometer to the selected own medical station

12) Faction war has consequences

When the last logged member of a faction dies in combat, the faction ceases to exist; it is dissolved, and the ownership of territories, blocks, and grids held by all its members is reset to zero. (debellation / debellatio).

The color of the all blocks is changed to rusted metal, and all supplies in warehouses are converted into the corresponding amount of scrap

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1

ZedX ●

agree, death penalty is also an important factor in PvP

however, people should still be able to respawn at their ship if their cockpit gets destroyed or something

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4Peace ●

Good write-up, Zed.

1. Sector ownership

Not sure about NPCs randomly attacking your base. How would they even know where it is? If your base is on a busy trade route, then maybe—but if it’s off in some remote area, random attacks don’t really make sense.

Good point about territorial wars. It was always immersive in games like X to enter a sector and see factions fighting each other. Even better if reputations are dynamic and can be influenced. The “invincibility bubble” around NPC stations is also not great—there should be a way to destroy stations and conquer sectors. Friendly NPC stations could appear if you control a sector.

2. Range

Range should be balanced around fun and engine limitations. Whether it’s long or short doesn’t matter as much as it being meaningful and engaging. Long ranges can be cool and more realistic, but not if they hurt performance. I’d rather have shorter ranges with smooth FPS.

Also, being able to actually see damage and reactions matters. At long ranges, you’d need cameras zooming in, tracking targets and showing the feed on HUD/LCD displays, which again can be performance-heavy. Ideally, combat mechanics should naturally slow ships down (not always at 300m/s) so you can enjoy visible destruction and tactical maneuvers—one of the main strengths of the game.

3. Detecting and informed combat

Radars and scanners should have a real impact. With advanced radar, you should clearly see incoming missiles on your HUD, including speed and time to impact.

Scanners could also reveal enemy ship info, helping you make informed decisions and tactics. Detection could tie into heat mechanics—running “cold” might allow stealth approaches or surprise attacks. Preparation and information should matter.

4. Ammo

Ammo shouldn’t feel infinite. Beyond cost, it should have meaningful mass and volume, so carrying too much makes your ship less effective.

Gatlings could fire rapidly and counter missiles well but overheat, creating windows for attacks.

Railgun ammo could be really bulky.

5. Combat time

Energy shields could deflect rather than absorb damage—more like “deflecting armor” than full protection bubbles. Emitters should need exposure and be vulnerable to damage. They’d protect critical areas, not the whole ship.

Deflected shots could still hit other parts, so positioning matters. Shields would also generate heat and compete for space with weapons.

Overall, combat duration should come from better design and mechanics—armor effectiveness, slopes deflecting shots, specialization and ship roles—not just inflating HP or reducing DPS.

6. Enemy locations

Different environments should encourage different ship designs and tactics. No single “best” design for all situations.

7. Speed

Max speed could depend on thrust-to-mass ratio. Damage thrusters, and you reduce enemy max speed. There can be plenty of ways achieving this.

A form of “spacetime drag” could allow temporary speed boosts while accelerating, letting a ship catch up if it can sustain thrust longer.

8. Gun spam (and general spam)

I think this problem goes far beyond just guns. It also applies to thrusters, reactors, welders constantly repairing damage, and pretty much any system that can be stacked without meaningful downside. I’m not a fan of hard limits like “max X blocks per grid”—those feel artificial and go against the sandbox nature of the game.

A much better solution, in my opinion, is a simple and universal heat mechanic.

It doesn’t have to be overly complex. Even a single “grid temperature” value could work. Larger grids could dissipate heat faster (based on volume, for simplicity), meaning bigger ships naturally support more systems. No need for complicated surface-area calculations unless they can be done efficiently.

The idea is that every active system generates heat:

Weapons
Thrusters
Reactors
Welders and other utility blocks

Each grid would naturally have a kind of “heat budget”. If you exceed it, systems start to lose efficiency or temporarily shut down.

For example:

A gatling gun could fire continuously for ~15–20 seconds before overheating. After that, it must cool down.
The cooling speed depends on the difference between the weapon temperature and the overall hull temperature.
If you stack too many gatlings on a small ship, they will quickly heat up the entire grid, slowing down cooling for all of them.
In practice, this means more guns ≠ more sustained DPS. You just hit overheating faster and spend more time waiting.

This creates a natural balance:

Fewer guns → more consistent firing
More guns → higher burst, but worse sustain and efficiency

The same applies to other weapons:

Railguns could generate massive heat per shot, forcing long cooldowns.
Missile systems do not generate heat ofc but rely on ammo logistics instead (bulky missiles ammo or welding custom missiles on spot).

It also affects ship design in interesting ways:

Internal thrusters (no clearance) would dump heat into the hull, encouraging exposed designs.
Welders could generate significant heat, making mid-combat repairs a trade-off rather than a free advantage.
Reactors—especially nuclear—should produce a lot of heat, making them more viable on rather big ships, and on planets, promoting planet-side gameplay and interaction with water.

This system turns ship building into actual engineering:

You balance firepower and cooling capacity among different types of weapons
You design around sustained performance, not just peak output
You avoid wasting PCU on on too many weapons or other systems

At some point, adding more weapons simply doesn’t increase real combat effectiveness. That’s where the design becomes interesting—because optimization matters more than brute force.

9. Difficulty

Difficulty should scale naturally. Small fighters are easy to operate, while capital ships with multiple systems should require multiple players to use effectively.

10. Economy of war

War is a major resource sink—and winning should feel rewarding. Rewards can include loot, salvage, reputation, or territory.

Salvaging needs to be efficient. Grinding manually is tedious—often 10x worse than mining, while it should be almost the other way around. There should be better tools or mechanics for large-scale salvage.

Hacking should also be streamlined. If a ship is disabled and uncontested, you should be able to attach a device and gradually take control, instead of manually hacking dozens of blocks.

If salvage takes 10x longer than mining, the system is broken. It should be faster to incentivize combat.

11. Death

Dying in combat shouldn’t mean instant respawn. You can be able to select a respawn point and wait for your “clone” to be ready.

Scanners could detect lifeforms. Engineers should be the most valuable asset onboard. If no enemies are alive, you can board, disable respawns, and take control of the ship.

12. Consequences

Losing a battle is already a big consequence. No need for excessive penalties. Territory control is a strong enough win/lose condition.

Deleting grids is counterproductive—winners should be able to salvage them. Captured stations could reveal intel about other faction assets nearby. Losing one should matter—self-destruct systems might be useful to prevent intel leaks.

At the same time, controlling more sectors might lead to other issues—more fronts, more threats, more pirate activity...

Conclusions

Combat in games like SE can be hard to balance, but it is ultimately the reason to engage in most other activities. Sure, some players enjoy peaceful base building and engineering, but in the long run, combat is what gives purpose to it all. Why collect resources, trade, or explore if there are no meaningful threats—or no reason to build powerful fleets?

The game allows us to build grids out of individual blocks, creating an endless variety of designs. It would be much more engaging if design choices actually mattered, instead of the meta being reduced to simple “gun bricks.” Game mechanics should promote clever engineering and avoid situations where spamming more systems automatically leads to better combat effectiveness.

The survival economy should ensure that winning a battle provides real rewards—access to resources, technologies, or strategic advantages. Victory should have a tangible impact on the game map and politics.

Good write-up, Zed.

1. Sector ownership

Not sure about NPCs randomly attacking your base. How would they even know where it is? If your base is on a busy trade route, then maybe—but if it’s off in some remote area, random attacks don’t really make sense.

Good point about territorial wars. It was always immersive in games like X to enter a sector and see factions fighting each other. Even better if reputations are dynamic and can be influenced. The “invincibility bubble” around NPC stations is also not great—there should be a way to destroy stations and conquer sectors. Friendly NPC stations could appear if you control a sector.

2. Range

Range should be balanced around fun and engine limitations. Whether it’s long or short doesn’t matter as much as it being meaningful and engaging. Long ranges can be cool and more realistic, but not if they hurt performance. I’d rather have shorter ranges with smooth FPS.

Also, being able to actually see damage and reactions matters. At long ranges, you’d need cameras zooming in, tracking targets and showing the feed on HUD/LCD displays, which again can be performance-heavy. Ideally, combat mechanics should naturally slow ships down (not always at 300m/s) so you can enjoy visible destruction and tactical maneuvers—one of the main strengths of the game.

3. Detecting and informed combat

Radars and scanners should have a real impact. With advanced radar, you should clearly see incoming missiles on your HUD, including speed and time to impact.

Scanners could also reveal enemy ship info, helping you make informed decisions and tactics. Detection could tie into heat mechanics—running “cold” might allow stealth approaches or surprise attacks. Preparation and information should matter.

4. Ammo

Ammo shouldn’t feel infinite. Beyond cost, it should have meaningful mass and volume, so carrying too much makes your ship less effective.

Gatlings could fire rapidly and counter missiles well but overheat, creating windows for attacks.

Railgun ammo could be really bulky.

5. Combat time

Energy shields could deflect rather than absorb damage—more like “deflecting armor” than full protection bubbles. Emitters should need exposure and be vulnerable to damage. They’d protect critical areas, not the whole ship.

Deflected shots could still hit other parts, so positioning matters. Shields would also generate heat and compete for space with weapons.

Overall, combat duration should come from better design and mechanics—armor effectiveness, slopes deflecting shots, specialization and ship roles—not just inflating HP or reducing DPS.

6. Enemy locations

Different environments should encourage different ship designs and tactics. No single “best” design for all situations.

7. Speed

Max speed could depend on thrust-to-mass ratio. Damage thrusters, and you reduce enemy max speed. There can be plenty of ways achieving this.

A form of “spacetime drag” could allow temporary speed boosts while accelerating, letting a ship catch up if it can sustain thrust longer.

8. Gun spam (and general spam)

I think this problem goes far beyond just guns. It also applies to thrusters, reactors, welders constantly repairing damage, and pretty much any system that can be stacked without meaningful downside. I’m not a fan of hard limits like “max X blocks per grid”—those feel artificial and go against the sandbox nature of the game.

A much better solution, in my opinion, is a simple and universal heat mechanic.

It doesn’t have to be overly complex. Even a single “grid temperature” value could work. Larger grids could dissipate heat faster (based on volume, for simplicity), meaning bigger ships naturally support more systems. No need for complicated surface-area calculations unless they can be done efficiently.

The idea is that every active system generates heat:

Weapons
Thrusters
Reactors
Welders and other utility blocks

Each grid would naturally have a kind of “heat budget”. If you exceed it, systems start to lose efficiency or temporarily shut down.

For example:

A gatling gun could fire continuously for ~15–20 seconds before overheating. After that, it must cool down.
The cooling speed depends on the difference between the weapon temperature and the overall hull temperature.
If you stack too many gatlings on a small ship, they will quickly heat up the entire grid, slowing down cooling for all of them.
In practice, this means more guns ≠ more sustained DPS. You just hit overheating faster and spend more time waiting.

This creates a natural balance:

Fewer guns → more consistent firing
More guns → higher burst, but worse sustain and efficiency

The same applies to other weapons:

Railguns could generate massive heat per shot, forcing long cooldowns.
Missile systems do not generate heat ofc but rely on ammo logistics instead (bulky missiles ammo or welding custom missiles on spot).

It also affects ship design in interesting ways:

Internal thrusters (no clearance) would dump heat into the hull, encouraging exposed designs.
Welders could generate significant heat, making mid-combat repairs a trade-off rather than a free advantage.
Reactors—especially nuclear—should produce a lot of heat, making them more viable on rather big ships, and on planets, promoting planet-side gameplay and interaction with water.

This system turns ship building into actual engineering:

You balance firepower and cooling capacity among different types of weapons
You design around sustained performance, not just peak output
You avoid wasting PCU on on too many weapons or other systems

At some point, adding more weapons simply doesn’t increase real combat effectiveness. That’s where the design becomes interesting—because optimization matters more than brute force.

9. Difficulty

Difficulty should scale naturally. Small fighters are easy to operate, while capital ships with multiple systems should require multiple players to use effectively.

10. Economy of war

War is a major resource sink—and winning should feel rewarding. Rewards can include loot, salvage, reputation, or territory.

Salvaging needs to be efficient. Grinding manually is tedious—often 10x worse than mining, while it should be almost the other way around. There should be better tools or mechanics for large-scale salvage.

Hacking should also be streamlined. If a ship is disabled and uncontested, you should be able to attach a device and gradually take control, instead of manually hacking dozens of blocks.

If salvage takes 10x longer than mining, the system is broken. It should be faster to incentivize combat.

11. Death

Dying in combat shouldn’t mean instant respawn. You can be able to select a respawn point and wait for your “clone” to be ready.

Scanners could detect lifeforms. Engineers should be the most valuable asset onboard. If no enemies are alive, you can board, disable respawns, and take control of the ship.

12. Consequences

Losing a battle is already a big consequence. No need for excessive penalties. Territory control is a strong enough win/lose condition.

Deleting grids is counterproductive—winners should be able to salvage them. Captured stations could reveal intel about other faction assets nearby. Losing one should matter—self-destruct systems might be useful to prevent intel leaks.

At the same time, controlling more sectors might lead to other issues—more fronts, more threats, more pirate activity...

Conclusions

Combat in games like SE can be hard to balance, but it is ultimately the reason to engage in most other activities. Sure, some players enjoy peaceful base building and engineering, but in the long run, combat is what gives purpose to it all. Why collect resources, trade, or explore if there are no meaningful threats—or no reason to build powerful fleets?

The game allows us to build grids out of individual blocks, creating an endless variety of designs. It would be much more engaging if design choices actually mattered, instead of the meta being reduced to simple “gun bricks.” Game mechanics should promote clever engineering and avoid situations where spamming more systems automatically leads to better combat effectiveness.

The survival economy should ensure that winning a battle provides real rewards—access to resources, technologies, or strategic advantages. Victory should have a tangible impact on the game map and politics.

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1

Semtex ●

4Peace – some of your points are better than the original proposal, while some others seem worse to me... I won’t pass judgment on that.

You’re talking about territories, about controlling sectors... How large is the "game universe" of a single server, how many players are on the server on average, and what is the maximum capacity? What does a typical "game universe" contain? How many "planets" does it have—and how many stars?

Thermal management

That’s actually a pretty important thing that would add another layer to the game. But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you—if it worked realistically, weapons would be a completely negligible factor in a spaceship’s heat balance. Moreover, as early as the 19th century, designer Hiram Maxim figured out how to dissipate heat in his machine gun—and “lossy” water cooling is effective even for cannons of 127mm caliber and larger. At the same time, water consumption is low even in “waste” weapon cooling; considering the energy carried away by projectiles and combustion gases, approximately 1 kg of water is needed to cool the energy produced by 1 kg of gunpowder.

But a much bigger problem than heat is actually the recoil of firearms.

(Simply put): The energy generated by the combustion of gunpowder is divided—part of the energy (about a third) is transferred to the projectile to accelerate it in the barrel, and part (also about a third) is absorbed by the firearm (according to the law of action and reaction). The remaining third is contained in the combustion gases that escape from the barrel—and at that moment, the weapon functions like a rocket engine that expels gases at a high muzzle velocity (roughly three times the projectile’s velocity; for APFSDS, only twice; and in a vacuum, it is around 3500–4500 m/s), while the mass of the combustion gases equals the mass of the propellant charge. Conclusion: the total recoil of the weapon is approximately twice the muzzle energy of a single projectile.

If the SE2 spacecraft were correctly simulated, the recoil of the weapons would affect the spacecraft’s spatial orientation (and also its flight speed), and thus directly affect the aiming of the weapons (while the position of the weapon barrel relative to the spacecraft’s hull would not change, the spatial orientation of the hull itself would change). Therefore, after firing, it is necessary to re-aim the weapons.

This is significantly different from ground-based weapons—on a solid surface, the aim is restored with sufficient accuracy after the recoil effects subside simply because the weapon transfers the recoil energy to the solid ground. A spacecraft must dissipate the recoil energy through the operation of its engines and gyroscopes.

And by the way, recoil and the deflection of the weapon and the spacecraft’s hull occur during the firing process, while the projectile is moving through the barrel. So the various "recoil damping" mechanisms are primarily designed to ensure that, while the projectile is moving through the barrel, the recoil affects only the projectile and the barrel (which can be calculated relatively well), but not the rest of the weapon and the weapon carrier (which is much harder to calculate).

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Reasons for war...

Based on the logic of the arguments you’ve both presented, it would be perfectly acceptable for a group of players on the server to agree to systematically seek out and destroy other players’ grids and characters. And in doing so, they would have taken over the public server for themselves.

4Peace – some of your points are better than the original proposal, while some others seem worse to me... I won’t pass judgment on that.

You’re talking about territories, about controlling sectors... How large is the "game universe" of a single server, how many players are on the server on average, and what is the maximum capacity? What does a typical "game universe" contain? How many "planets" does it have—and how many stars?

Thermal management

That’s actually a pretty important thing that would add another layer to the game. But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you—if it worked realistically, weapons would be a completely negligible factor in a spaceship’s heat balance. Moreover, as early as the 19th century, designer Hiram Maxim figured out how to dissipate heat in his machine gun—and “lossy” water cooling is effective even for cannons of 127mm caliber and larger. At the same time, water consumption is low even in “waste” weapon cooling; considering the energy carried away by projectiles and combustion gases, approximately 1 kg of water is needed to cool the energy produced by 1 kg of gunpowder.

But a much bigger problem than heat is actually the recoil of firearms.

(Simply put): The energy generated by the combustion of gunpowder is divided—part of the energy (about a third) is transferred to the projectile to accelerate it in the barrel, and part (also about a third) is absorbed by the firearm (according to the law of action and reaction). The remaining third is contained in the combustion gases that escape from the barrel—and at that moment, the weapon functions like a rocket engine that expels gases at a high muzzle velocity (roughly three times the projectile’s velocity; for APFSDS, only twice; and in a vacuum, it is around 3500–4500 m/s), while the mass of the combustion gases equals the mass of the propellant charge. Conclusion: the total recoil of the weapon is approximately twice the muzzle energy of a single projectile.

If the SE2 spacecraft were correctly simulated, the recoil of the weapons would affect the spacecraft’s spatial orientation (and also its flight speed), and thus directly affect the aiming of the weapons (while the position of the weapon barrel relative to the spacecraft’s hull would not change, the spatial orientation of the hull itself would change). Therefore, after firing, it is necessary to re-aim the weapons.

This is significantly different from ground-based weapons—on a solid surface, the aim is restored with sufficient accuracy after the recoil effects subside simply because the weapon transfers the recoil energy to the solid ground. A spacecraft must dissipate the recoil energy through the operation of its engines and gyroscopes.

And by the way, recoil and the deflection of the weapon and the spacecraft’s hull occur during the firing process, while the projectile is moving through the barrel. So the various "recoil damping" mechanisms are primarily designed to ensure that, while the projectile is moving through the barrel, the recoil affects only the projectile and the barrel (which can be calculated relatively well), but not the rest of the weapon and the weapon carrier (which is much harder to calculate).

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Reasons for war...

Based on the logic of the arguments you’ve both presented, it would be perfectly acceptable for a group of players on the server to agree to systematically seek out and destroy other players’ grids and characters. And in doing so, they would have taken over the public server for themselves.

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2

4Peace ●

Hey Sem,

Out of those 12 points and all the details, it was basically inevitable you’d find something you don’t fully agree with. Even I sometimes disagree with my own posts when I reread them 🙂

About controlling sectors: I imagine NPC factions already “control” different sectors through the game’s lore. Since we already have a map and defined sectors, it feels like a natural step to make it more interactive and include player faction control as well. It could be something simple, like showing the percentage of PCU each faction has in a sector, just to give a rough idea of who is active where.

Heat mechanics

Come on, we’re not on a physics forum—it’s still a game. Heat is a much more believable and practical way to limit things like railgun spam than something artificial like “you reached the max number of railguns allowed.”

There might be more realistic approaches, sure, but heat is universal and can apply to many systems in the game beyond combat. Yes, in reality you could mount as many gatlings as you want, but for gameplay reasons we don’t want that. We want engaging combat with varied ship designs and meaningful trade-offs.

Also, we need to avoid overly complex simulations. Ideally, things like heat dissipation could depend on surface area, but that creates problems. It’s harder to implement and recalculate when ships are damaged or split apart. It also pushes players toward weird “optimal” designs—like ships covered in radiator-like structures—which hurts creativity and punishes clean, streamlined builds.

I’ve also seen suggestions where overheating causes block damage. Personally, I think limiting fire rate is already enough. Running hot is already a penalty. Some people suggest that taking hits should also increase heat, which is realistic—but again, that adds another layer of complexity on top of damage systems that are already hard to balance.

Reasons for war

As for the last point—reasons for war. Honestly, people taking over servers is already a valid reason. What reasons do we really have in SE1 public servers now? Mostly roleplay, duels.

With sector control, the map itself could show who dominates where (based on PCU presence, for example). So if your faction “controls” a sector, others can actually see it. You could claim territory, demand transit fees, and so on. If another faction starts gaining presence, that naturally creates conflict—you go to war to push their influence down.

Hey Sem,

Out of those 12 points and all the details, it was basically inevitable you’d find something you don’t fully agree with. Even I sometimes disagree with my own posts when I reread them 🙂

About controlling sectors: I imagine NPC factions already “control” different sectors through the game’s lore. Since we already have a map and defined sectors, it feels like a natural step to make it more interactive and include player faction control as well. It could be something simple, like showing the percentage of PCU each faction has in a sector, just to give a rough idea of who is active where.

Heat mechanics

Come on, we’re not on a physics forum—it’s still a game. Heat is a much more believable and practical way to limit things like railgun spam than something artificial like “you reached the max number of railguns allowed.”

There might be more realistic approaches, sure, but heat is universal and can apply to many systems in the game beyond combat. Yes, in reality you could mount as many gatlings as you want, but for gameplay reasons we don’t want that. We want engaging combat with varied ship designs and meaningful trade-offs.

Also, we need to avoid overly complex simulations. Ideally, things like heat dissipation could depend on surface area, but that creates problems. It’s harder to implement and recalculate when ships are damaged or split apart. It also pushes players toward weird “optimal” designs—like ships covered in radiator-like structures—which hurts creativity and punishes clean, streamlined builds.

I’ve also seen suggestions where overheating causes block damage. Personally, I think limiting fire rate is already enough. Running hot is already a penalty. Some people suggest that taking hits should also increase heat, which is realistic—but again, that adds another layer of complexity on top of damage systems that are already hard to balance.

Reasons for war

As for the last point—reasons for war. Honestly, people taking over servers is already a valid reason. What reasons do we really have in SE1 public servers now? Mostly roleplay, duels.

With sector control, the map itself could show who dominates where (based on PCU presence, for example). So if your faction “controls” a sector, others can actually see it. You could claim territory, demand transit fees, and so on. If another faction starts gaining presence, that naturally creates conflict—you go to war to push their influence down.

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1

ZedX ●

@Semtex

About territory control, it doesnt really matter, most of the factors are already dictated by the game, like how many sectors and planets etc., and for player counts, people will do the same as usual - as many as possible. But i dont think these factors really matter for territory control, because it would not have a high impact on the game.

Some possible effects of territory control could be like a mining bonus for the controlling faction, or a resource tax for other factions mining in that sector, that will automatically be placed in the controlling factions station.

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irreality.net ●

In my opinion reason why in reality we don't see planes which look like hedgehogs covered with guns and warships equipped with several hundreds turrets is inability to handle so many - control, aim, and provide continuous supply of ammunition. Otherwise why not just put hundreds if not thousands of guns on vehicle and call it a day?

In SE turrets are controlled by AI, and we can expect this will happen in predictable future. So I assume control and aim problem is solved in SE universe.

But there is still problem how to deliver insane amounts of ammo through mechanical conveyors, in high speed, without jamming. We've seen this in Matrix Revolutions battle for Zion where operators of mechs were literally standing in shells and delivery boys were bringing boxes of ammo every few minutes. These are tons of steel.

This is where SE does not follow laws of physics. Conveyors are instant, have unlimited bandwidth, don't care about mass of payload and never jam. They can handle hundreds of gun turrets placed next to each other and attached to single conveyor line where physical dimensions of that line is already indicating that such amount of ammo is impossible to be delivered through them.

I would also assume cooling guns in space is not as easy as on Earth where we have stuff like atmosphere and water so thermal management might be a limiting factor.

I like the idea of computing recoil forces, I think this was already implemented in SE1, but not sure if for all kinds of weapons.

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1

ZedX ●

Ammo as it is, just kinda makes no sense, im wondering if we even need it.

What if ammo was removed completely, and weapons used power to fire instead? then we could manage the whole system via capacitors or something.

Also, other games like X4 only use overheat and clip size mechanics, without any actual ammo counts for most weapons (except missiles),, and it feels way more engaging than in SE where we have ammo but it basically has no effect on how the game plays.

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bnainz ●

4Peace -

"1. Sector ownership

Not sure about NPCs randomly attacking your base. How would they even know where it is? If your base is on a busy trade route, then maybe—but if it’s off in some remote area, random attacks don’t really make sense.

Good point about territorial wars. It was always immersive in games like X to enter a sector and see factions fighting each other. Even better if reputations are dynamic and can be influenced. The “invincibility bubble” around NPC stations is also not great—there should be a way to destroy stations and conquer sectors. Friendly NPC stations could appear if you control a sector."

Absolutely agree, games like Kenshi and Empryion have set schedules of attacks on your base. A system like X or DWU is much more immersive, gives more meaning to the actions to players. But would require a faction logic, that is dynamic.

We could use something worth controlling per sector, maybe I.e. that 'warp-gate' for sector(...or system) travel.

ZedX-

"6) Enemy Locations:

Would be great to have some enemies everywhere (space, air, land, water)"

This leans into the point 4Peace made, having random enemies 'pop' into existence continually is more of a arcadey side-scroller mechanic, where enemies are infinite, and only exist for you to shoot, then disappear if you don't. No strategy, just pure tactics. (Edit - factional warfare would be needed, to enable more of an X's system instead of random spawns. Could be 'less' combat overall...but would make overall combat more meaningful. Random animals, NPCs, and pirates excluded, of course)

Other --

Heat mechanics - sure, and a 'cooling' mechanics added. May be a good mechanic for Keen to hammer out now, for long term SE2 future additions.

Economy - linear design is easier to design, easier for exploit. A dynamic economy is harder to design but easier to break (key point from X and DWU, separate military economy from civilian economy). I don't know about it.

Weapon count balance - recoil, heat, and weapon usage damage (irl, guns cannot fire forever, artillery needs barrel swabbing, rifles have carbon residue, and rail-guns destroy some of their barrel with each use...although the future may mitigate that, too)- used together could help mitigate. I made a 'weapon' post on how the relationships could work. Although, with coolers and welders, seems to mitigate that.

Shields - an energy shield, and a kinetic shield (inertia dampening field for bullets, essentially). Can use the usage of the field as a limitation for speed in another SOI's gravity-well, i.e. the speed limitation. Sun SOI, planet SOI, moon SOI.

4Peace -

"1. Sector ownership

Not sure about NPCs randomly attacking your base. How would they even know where it is? If your base is on a busy trade route, then maybe—but if it’s off in some remote area, random attacks don’t really make sense.

Good point about territorial wars. It was always immersive in games like X to enter a sector and see factions fighting each other. Even better if reputations are dynamic and can be influenced. The “invincibility bubble” around NPC stations is also not great—there should be a way to destroy stations and conquer sectors. Friendly NPC stations could appear if you control a sector."

Absolutely agree, games like Kenshi and Empryion have set schedules of attacks on your base. A system like X or DWU is much more immersive, gives more meaning to the actions to players. But would require a faction logic, that is dynamic.

We could use something worth controlling per sector, maybe I.e. that 'warp-gate' for sector(...or system) travel.

ZedX-

"6) Enemy Locations:

Would be great to have some enemies everywhere (space, air, land, water)"

This leans into the point 4Peace made, having random enemies 'pop' into existence continually is more of a arcadey side-scroller mechanic, where enemies are infinite, and only exist for you to shoot, then disappear if you don't. No strategy, just pure tactics. (Edit - factional warfare would be needed, to enable more of an X's system instead of random spawns. Could be 'less' combat overall...but would make overall combat more meaningful. Random animals, NPCs, and pirates excluded, of course)

Other --

Heat mechanics - sure, and a 'cooling' mechanics added. May be a good mechanic for Keen to hammer out now, for long term SE2 future additions.

Economy - linear design is easier to design, easier for exploit. A dynamic economy is harder to design but easier to break (key point from X and DWU, separate military economy from civilian economy). I don't know about it.

Weapon count balance - recoil, heat, and weapon usage damage (irl, guns cannot fire forever, artillery needs barrel swabbing, rifles have carbon residue, and rail-guns destroy some of their barrel with each use...although the future may mitigate that, too)- used together could help mitigate. I made a 'weapon' post on how the relationships could work. Although, with coolers and welders, seems to mitigate that.

Shields - an energy shield, and a kinetic shield (inertia dampening field for bullets, essentially). Can use the usage of the field as a limitation for speed in another SOI's gravity-well, i.e. the speed limitation. Sun SOI, planet SOI, moon SOI.

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gorgofdoom ●

So... i'm seeing good ideas, and some that would require ... how to say, intentionally bad engineering to make sense, and a couple of them are already solved through features in SE1.

Main issue is that it's a shotgun post. There are like 40 topics here. How is anyone supposed to know what we're voting for? That said, for the sake of conversation, i'll carry on.

heat mechanic: Having experienced 250h of Starbase, i do not think it will be good for the perceived qualitative state of SE2. Every single player who tries to build in Starbase asks why their ship just stops working, and it turns out to be some tiny mistake in the heat management system. For it to be a good system you'd have to be able to "see, hear, and feel" ... heat, and it would have to be really obvious where a problem is. In a video game, through speakers and a screen. I don't know how to make this work.

Ammo: the cost of things in SE1 is up to you. If you choose to play on 10x/10x/10x settings, you won't have a problem. But if you choose 1/1/1 it is absolutely a problem to get ammo to the enemy. I know, because i play with these settings in solo. I've had to mine out entire mg deposits just to win a fight. It's also one of the main drivers to build a carrier, so you can carry the ammo without exposing all you own to the enemy at the same time.

Faction warfare: I *really* like this idea but it is also a concern for performance. I want gratuitous space battles with dozens of ships, like Elite dangerous CZ style, maybe where we can have some impact on our own but concerning the scale of the interaction are not expected to defeat everything ourselves. That said this is a far more complicated physics simulating game engine. If the scale of the interaction is controlled, say we dock a fighter to an NPC carrier and then it takes us to a battle in an "instance", this could work. Then, we have to define the universe that these things are happening in, *and* we need reasons to care about these "politics" besides money or standard resources that we could get anywhere. It would be very cool, but i'm not sure its within the scope of se2. Hope i'm proven wrong-- they delivered planets and water and whatnot. evidently, anything is possible.

Shields: I don't like it. The coolest part of SE is the deformation. let's just turn off the coolest feature...?

recoil already exists in SE1. People have built ships that are entirely propelled by it.

Heat from guns in space would be a non-issue because space is a vacuum. Expanding gunpowder would dissipate almost instantly as the round leaves the barrel and impart almost no heat to a standard type of gun with a sealed barrel. Like yeah maybe a "standard gun" will overheat after like 900 rounds, but then also realize there are "recoil-less" types of ammunition where the round is like a tiny rocket and the barrel is just open in the back-- this is the type of weapon that would be used in space, logically speaking. There would be no recoil imparted on the weapon or user, expanding gas that pushes the round dissipates near instantly and doesn't interact with the weapon in any meaningful capacity. You'd have to intentionally design a worse weapon for these constraints to make sense.

Energy weapons: As a late game / rich guy asset .... can make sense. They don't make sense in the early game because ... where exactly are you going to get more energy than it takes to just grind a target with? Solar panels? You'd need a lot of infrastructure, at that point you're the rich guy. Physical ammo needs to be a better choice than using energy weapons, or why would anyone use bullets?