Jump Drive Counter / Gravity Well

captainbladej52 +1

Conceptually interdiction is cool, practically the ability to lock someone down like that and force them in to a fight where they are punching up is terrible for balance.

If we want to properly balance something like this we would instead need to find a way to force it to only be operated by very small ships (that isn't a subgrid on a larger ship) operating inside turret range so that we don't just end up with someone either playing the interdiction-troll or leveraging the fact that larger ships in SE can outmaneuver and out-accelerate smaller ones.

Why would you join a PVP server if your a PVE player and then complain about getting shot at? This kind of block is obviously geared towards the PVP side of the game. In PVE it would obviously have no effect in the same way shooting someone in PVE would have no effect.

For gameplay reasons, everything in the game should have a valid counter. Currently there is none for the jump drive other then an extremely small window of time in which a player has to blow up a good chunk of their ship and hopefully take out their jump drive in the process.

The pve players have no interest in balance. They want to be able to shoot npc pirates while still having the option to jump out if things go south, and are concerned with being unable to run from pvp players that find them on servers with damage enabled. As for me, I recognize that jump-drives have no counter in SE1 but could probably use one, but that ship-mounted interdiction itself would be a powerful enough tool to create its own issues.

-To start, someone using an interdiction-field-emitter logically still has the ability to turn said emitter off if they themselves decide to jump out, creating an imbalance in favor of the person mounting the field-emitter.

-On top of that even if it had warmups and cooldowns and other features to keep people from just switching it on and off at will it would still absolutely become the tool of innumerable griefers who's only interest would be in finding people well before they have any hope of even providing a challenge and repeatedly kicking them all the way back to stone and hand-tools.

-As such we would need either something that nullifies the effect (which would likely tip the balance back toward jump drives while simultaneously raising the question why have interdiction at all since everyone would fit the counter), or something that puts the interdictor at a disadvantage. As a general rule E-war equipment is a force-multiplier, and as the goal is balance that means we shouldn't be mounting it to things that already have the advantage. To that end I would propose it be balanced by allowing its use only on small craft (or fixed structures), perhaps by setting its power-draw to something like "(power in wats) = 1MW + (total grid mass) x (total grid pcu) x (effect radius in meters) x 0.1" with some lore-hand-waving about the interdiction-generator having to compensate for the ship its attached to.

Any thoughts?

Maybe it could be an electromagnetic beam weapon where you manually aim it at a ship within range and that ship can't jump until it shakes you off. For balance it would need to be maintained a few seconds before the effect builds up. That way evading it is possible.

@Warlord: There's a difference between pvp and straight up griefing people which you should know full well. If you have 2 people of as equal resources and skill as possible fighting, that's an actual pvp fight. However you know as well as I do that's not what that block would be used for and is purely for people who want helpless victims. Blocks like this are nothing but a griefer's wet dream and no feature should ever exist that can harm another's build purely by existing. If one's pvp build is good enough you will be able to knock out their jump drives before they jump out. Otherwise as much as I hate to say it, this is one of the instances where "get good" applies. It's the same concept as people who whine about "but flying ruins world pvp and shouldn't be allowed" in world of warcraft. If a cheat block like this is the only way you can win, then the problem is you. There's pvp where you have move and countermove, then this garbage where it's an "I win" someone can push anytime to give themselves a handicap which is not real pvp.

@Tael: If my pointing out this will be nothing but a griefing tool is "pve players not caring about balance and wanting to shoot NPCs and run from them or pvp players if things go south" then this block is nothing but pvp players demanding an "I win" button because they're not good enough otherwise and they want helpless victims. So they demand unconterable trash like this. If you care about pvp balance as much as you say you do, then you know as well as I do what this block would be used for and will NEVER be used in a fair fight, only to gank. Like it or not someone using a jump drive is a valid combat maneuver and if that alone is causing you to lose, then you deserve to lose.

I'm so tired of the ignorant gaslight of "you just don't care about balance" when every time something comes up, be it this, shields or something else, it's always the pvp types whining about "but balance" and demanding everyone else sacrifice for their gameplay while never being willing to show that same sacrifice for anyone else. If you're going to say shields are bad because they can't be balanced as you did elsewhere, then a feature like this sure as heck can't. Any feature that can harm another's grid purely by existing and especially with no counter is a bad idea and goes against the spirit of the game Keen has set since 2013. They've never allowed anything block wise that harms the grid of another purely by existing, nor should they start now.

@captainbladej52 You should pay more attention when you read, this has all of 4 votes after more than two weeks so it probably wont happen, and I already pointed out the griefer thing.

-As for balance, I'm fairly certain that you don't care about balance, and if we were to debate balance then you'd throw out fallacies, false equivalences, and insults/accusations again to try and argue your point, and we'd be wasting time doing exactly what I was warning Warbird away from doing over something that isn't going to happen regardless.

The rest of this thread isn't about making it happen, because it probably wont regardless of what gets said here, its about discussing how people might try to balance this mechanic and possibly getting inspired with good ideas for other stuff.

@Tael: I read everything and I stand by what I said above. Blocks like this are nothing but a griefer's wet dream and have no place in the game.

As for "fallacies and false equivalencies" and insults/accusations, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You pop onto my comment then start with the immediate gaslight of "pve players don't care about balance" then want to act like you're innocent of throwing shade on people. You need to learn a few things because you think you know more than you actually do. First off, simply because someone disagrees with it doesn't automatically make them a "pve player who doesn't care about balance." You said several times in our previous engagements "people are allowed to disagree" yet you want to pretend disagreeing is automatically wrong "people just not caring about balance." Funny how that works. Second, a counter to jump drives already exists which is destroying them before they can be used, or knocking out the power systems of a grid. You can have balance with a feature that doesn't hurt people purely by existing, but there is no balancing a feature like this that can harm another's grid purely by existing. Its very nature is to give an automatic "I win" handicap to the opponent.

I'm glad you recognize that it gives an unfair advantage to the person who presses the button. That's at least some progress. I'm also glad you recognize that Keen would not add a block like this nor do they need to. Stuff like Jump Inhibitors is definitely the domain of mods just like stuff that gives free resources purely for existing. As for "discussing how people might try to balance this mechanic and possibly getting inspired with good ideas for other stuff", there is no good that come of blocks that are meant purely for griefing, but you do you dude. Otherwise I stand by everything I said above.

So, now that we have (hopefully) concluded the obligatory pve comment on a pvp mechanic...

@Denninja You think a manually aimed beam-weapon instead of a field would be a good idea, I assume you mean as a fixed-weapon like SE1's railgun?

-Would it have ammo? Or is it purely run on a ship's power?

-How big would it be?

-What would the range be?

-How would it interact with subgrids? (if it hits a small ship docked to a carrier or a custom-turret what happens? can it be built in to a custom-turret? ect...)

-What are the reasons behind these decisions?

And, does anyone else have an idea about how to balance interdiction? Or thoughts on other people's ideas?

Tael in terms of my balance my thoughts are as follows:

• The block itself should be huge. Like really big 10x10x10 or more. This would essentially force the users of the block into a designing a ship around the block ie a specialist ship.
• It should be expensive.
• It should weigh a lot.
• It should be draw a huge amount of power when on. This again would force a unique design.
• Turning the block on and off should have an appropriate cooldown time. 1 minute or more.
• The block should affect the ship itself ie the ship with the grav well cannot themselves use the jump drive while its active.

The reason why this block is needed in PVP is two fold. One is obviously to counter jump drives (currently there isn't any real counter.).

The second though is the idea of capturing a ship. Currently the only way to really have a chance at stopping a ship jumping is essentially to blow it to smithereens. With a gravity well such a ship could instead be captured mostly intact.

@Warlord 10^3 large grid is big to be sure, and indeed bigger than I tend to build, but by most standards I've seen in pvp my stuff is small. I can see what you're trying to do with the size/power/cost, but late game I find those are rarely an issue even if I'm the only one mining in a small group. Are you expecting other restrictions that would hinder larger ships?

Well for instance you pair this idea with my idea for a ship class system (https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/46193-ship-class-system) to really fine tune and encourage variation in ship design.

I know what you are saying though that at late game on a PVP server, resources tend to be plentiful however my idea would at least force such a ship to be extra clunky and vulnerable. Perhaps for instance this gravity well device could also be very explosive when damaged..

The ship-class system thing is probably a no-go for the very realistic reason that an SE server has a significant manpower shortage and an overwhelming resource surplus, so nothing will fit in to nice little boxes like that...

...So, large, expensive, and explosive would make for some solid steps in the right direction, but given how often people respond to a problem with "MORE!!!" I doubt it would be enough if they weren't risking bumping in to server caps or the like building that big.

... An interesting concept... Aside from eye-balling some math for crude "+/- damage" figures I don't know that I could make a solid guess on how well that would work to balance interdiction without a lot of actual testing.

The game is currently extremely early in alpha, most of what's there (hidden or otherwise) represents the stuff Keen's been trying to show off more than what we'll have in full release.

As for slight decreases in planet distance and a bump in speed... If I recall correctly Earthlike -> Mars takes a bit under 4hrs with conventional flight in SE1. Tripling the speed limit and moving things slightly closer would still mean we're looking at roughly an hour of drifting while we have to sit and watch to make sure we don't hit a rock. The game doesn't need to stick with jump-drives if Keen wants a different type of fast-travel, but turning interplanetary travel in to the least engaging version of long-haul simulator you can get without doing hauling missions in DU isn't going to go well with the player-base.

I prefer Super Cruise!

In EVE large ships are slow, in SE they can easily be as fast or faster than small grids thanks to gravity drives. Tis why I'd try to limit them to small ships to rely on the "small-tackle" balance.