Ballistics and combat overhaul

Yes, we don’t know the exact characteristics or design of the target, nor the computational mechanisms behind it. So maybe the thread title about an "overhaul" isn’t entirely accurate. This suggestion is purely based on SE1 and my vision of combat. I don't think the devs are going to change it in SE2—at least, I haven’t heard anything that suggests they will. So I believe SE2's combat will likely remain similar to what we had in SE1.

As for your mention of AP rounds—yes, they do seem to be the most effective against armor in real life. But I haven’t brought up ultra-realistic armor penetration mechanics, since those would be hard and computationally expensive to implement. What I had in mind was a more casual and accessible system: something like "more direct damage," "more area damage," or a "balanced option."

Regarding calibers, I didn’t specifically mention them when talking about shell types because I thought it was obvious that complex shells are meant for large-caliber guns—like artillery—not for rifles or machine guns.

One of the problems of simulating target hit (and subsequent effects) on game computers is ... I can't think of an appropriate term...

I'll try to describe it:

You can imagine simulating the encounter of a 0.1x0.1x0.5 meter projectile flying at 1000m/s and a 5x5x10 meter target flying at 100m/s.

How fast, how many times per second, must the computer recalculate the relative positions to reliably assess whether the projectile actually hit the target?

100 times per second?

The projectile position step will be 10 meters, the target position step 1 meter... The projectile can literally “tunneled” through the target without collision, like an electron through an energy barrier in quantum physics... And you can't increase the speed of the simulation, speed it up, because In a complex battle of several ships and swarms of fighters, several hundred such simulations can run in parallel... maybe even more...

How to deal with this?

One option is to limit the FPS speed.

The position calculation cycle will be hardcoded to 1/60th of a second, so that even lower-end computers can handle it.

Adjust the projectile dimensions - instead of a 0.1x0.1x0.5 meter projectile, the collision object of the flying projectile will have dimensions of say 1x1x10 meters (or so...) And we will limit the speed of the projectile and the speed of the target. Plus - we also have to remember the positions in the “previous step”.

If the collision object of the projectile intersects with the collision object of the target, we can proceed to evaluate the hit in more detail - using the “remembered previous step” we can make a more detailed evaluation - interpolate the positions and determine where the target was hit.

IMHO this is the reason for the hard set FPS that many players complain about.

And also the reason why projectiles are only of one type...

Note: I'm not an expert in network communication - but someone could clarify how these effects manifest themselves in conjunction with the speed of the internet connection (packet size, download and upload speeds - and latency (ping))...

The most cost-efficient way to implement shooting in games is a technique called raycasting. It “shoots” an invisible ray from a point in the world in a specific direction and instantly detects any hits. This method is mostly used for small-caliber guns.

For large-caliber weapons, games typically simulate projectile shells instead. To reduce network usage during multiplayer gameplay, in almost all games, bullets or shells are simulated only on the server. The client merely displays the shooting animation and a visual representation of the shell (its trajectory is simulated client-side, but it’s usually not in sync with the server).

The exact shell position is not synchronized between client and server. Instead, the server just sends events to the client indicating when a weapon fires and when it hits something.

P.S. This is just a general concept of gun simulation used in various games. I'm not sure how it's handled specifically in Space Engineers (SE).

And again. I do not suggest accurate simulation of shells. Shells already implemented in SE1 and they are working. Even in MP. For indirect fire I just suggesting to increase guns range. For optimizations, it can be made that only player controlled weapons shoots 1+KM, than AI controlled and automatic shoots just like in SE1. In SE1 manually controlled weapons also has slightly better range. About shell types, I suggest only changing blast radius and damage. SE1 guns already has different damage and blast radius. So adding few shell types, where one has small blast radius and large damage, and one with large blast radius and small damage is not hard enough.

Of course yes, the environment MUST affect the performance and function of the weapon. Because the environment does indeed affect the function and performance of weapons.

Maybe you know, maybe you don't, but artillerymen at altitudes above about 2000 meters use special “mountain firing tables”, different from standard “firing tables”.

It is also normal in aviation that gunner and bomber sights have as one of their input parameters the altitude of the aircraft, but also the altitude of the target.

That is, atmospheric pressure alone has a significant effect on the ballistics of a missile's flight. For example, on the Moon, in vacuum conditions, the missile would not fly along a “ballistic curve” but simply along a parabola.

But this is quite simple - the range of pressures is only 0 Pa - 0.1MPa and the range of ambient densities is 0 - 1.29kg/m^3. This can be handled with the same weapon design and virtually the same bullet design. In a gaseous atmosphere, up to a pressure of roughly 50atm (5MPa), all "terrestrial" firearms will function more or less "normally" - of course their muzzle velocity and range will drop. The main difference will be in the aiming. And that can be handled by a ballistics computer.

Water - that's a completely different problem.

First of all, it is 775 times denser than air. It is a liquid, and liquids are difficult to compress. Another fundamental difference is the viscosity of liquids - it is several orders of magnitude higher than the viscosity of gases. This has a major effect on the hydrodynamic drag, which is also several orders of magnitude higher than the aerodynamic drag.

The use of firearms underwater also encounters another problem - the barrel channel is flooded with water. The weight of the air in the barrel can be neglected - the addition to the weight of the accelerated bullet is less than the factory tolerance for bullet weight. The weight of the liquid (water) in the barrel cannot be neglected - the weight of the water is comparable or greater than the weight of the bullet in conventional handguns.

As a result, only self-propelled weapons can be used in water at distances greater than a few tens of metres. And at greater depths (>100m) only self-propelled weapons on the hydrodynamic principle (propeller) or on the magneto-hydro-dynamic principle.

So even a speargun will not succeed. It will only range a few meters (or few ten meters).

A depth bomb/charge is also just a "shallow water" weapon. It almost doesn't stand a chance against a nuke submarine at 200-300 meters depth - it takes many tens seconds to descend to depth, and a nuke submarine is not only fast (it's faster than most surface ships of comparable size), but apparently surprisingly maneuverable at its speed. In one Russian video it was said that a nuclear submarine (I don't remember the class) will make a circle in less than two minutes.

I think the medium in which a weapon is used should affect its performance. Semtex wrote great article about it.

About water, I think torpedoes should be the main weapon for underwater combat, since in reality, they're nearly the only effective option for underwater engagements.

Depth charges could also be used as a cost-efficient weapon against slow or static underwater targets, like underwater bases.

And as for spearguns, they could serve as a personal weapon for characters.

Underwater weapons.... Liquids are difficult to compress...

An acoustic strike can be quite an effective “long range” weapon. At least for slow objects like depth charges...

Harpoon or spear as a personal weapon - the harpoon, as an inertia “flying” projectile, has almost all the vices of firearms...

Spear, knife... Anyone else remember how fighting went in the first ever versions of SE1? >:-D

I don’t clearly remember how combat worked in early SE1, but it seems there were only machine guns and rocket launchers available.

I haven’t heard much about acoustic strikes—how do they work?

And what kind of damage can they cause to metallic structures?

As for the harpoon (speargun)—yes, it behaves similarly to a firearm.

It won't shoot very far in shallow water, but player visibility underwater will probably be limited anyway (I think).

In deep water, it realistically shouldn’t work at all.

But players in deep water probably shouldn’t survive either—due to pressure.

Also, most firearms can’t shoot underwater, so a harpoon is a cheap and reasonable choice for underwater close-combat scenarios.

That said, I don’t expect the game to have very deep water or physically accurate underwater pressure, because simulating water is expensive.

Water physics is hard, and it would likely be too costly to simulate in detail.

...Ammo types would be interesting, though more often than not I'd expect everyone to just load AP since targets soft enough to make swapping to HE worth the time aren't likely to live very long regardless...

...Propper artillery is cool, but I don't think I've ever seen dedicated ground-combat vehicles used outside of rover-only or other similarly themed servers. The ease of manufacture and extra mobility rather dramatically out-weigh the limited extra durability a ground-vehicle allows. Additionally, it would also be rather difficult to aim as most people have a hard time hitting things they can't see without help, and the combination of limited number of players in a standard server and overwhelming resource availability would not lend itself well to having a player serve as a spotter for another player instead of just having both flying their own America's worth of ordinance in to hit a target...

...Targeting reticule is cool, I'd like a variety of options, but if they keep SE1's target-locking then it won't be a huge deal...

...Character-weapons...

-grenades would be cool,

-grenade-launchers are an anti-personal weapon (you don't typically use them against vehicles irl) and would probably barely see use if the rocket-launcher returns in SE2,

-mines are a thing you engineer in SE, and the difference between anti-tank and anti-personal is what you set them to detect,

-mortars would be meh,

-snipers would be the thing you carry entirely for the scope's zoom-function, the fact that a turret can point and spray you down a lot faster than most people can snipe will make them irrelevant in combat without other changes to the system.

Indeed, the effectiveness of an ammo type determines how it's used.

Because of this, each ammo type should be carefully balanced, to give players a reason not to rely solely on AP (armor-piercing) rounds.

If HE (high-explosive) shells are properly balanced, then using them against lightly armored or hull-breached ships/stations would be more effective and easier than AP.

With AP, you need to hit a block directly to damage it, while HE can also damage nearby blocks thanks to its blast radius.

So using HE rounds against critical ship modules—like batteries, reactors, gyros, and engines—would be much more effective than just using AP.

In that case, the most efficient combat strategy would be combining multiple shell types, rather than spamming only one.

Sure, hitting targets indirectly without a spotter is almost impossible.

However, the game will include cameras (mostly), which can easily act as spotters.

SE1 already has artillery, but a 1 km range is just not realistic.

If artillery had a greater range, it would be a far more effective base defense weapon—both on the ground and in space.

Unfortunately, in SE1, planetary gameplay lacks depth.

Most players just build a ship and leave, since planets are basically empty.

If ground content were more engaging, ground combat using artillery would actually make sense.

Also, a targeting reticle is just a nice QoL feature, but it only becomes meaningful if artillery range is increased.

As for mortars, grenades, grenade launchers, and sniper rifles—yes, these are primarily anti-personnel weapons.

In SE1, they would’ve been pretty useless, since there weren’t many enemy characters to fight.

But in SE2, the devs have confirmed the presence of NPCs.

If those NPCs function properly, players will need a diverse arsenal to fight them—not just assault rifles.

And of course, NPCs using grenade launchers would be far more dangerous than those with basic rifles, which could make combat far more intense and tactical.

"...each ammo type should be carefully balanced..."

-It isn't so much a balance thing as a design thing. Current SE1 assault, arty, and rail ammo would probably all count as AP given it doesn't actually explode (in spite of visuals) and tends to blow through softer blocks and keep going, and anyone mounting significant fire-power tends to find they have little trouble sheading soft targets without explosive ammo. Structural-stress isn't likely to be a thing, meaning to kill something we generally need to break the internals, and a single shot that leaves a small hole in the hull as it blows through and takes out the reactor works just as well as a shot that leaves a large hole when it takes out the reactor.

Its a cool idea, and I'd like to see it (as long as it doesn't glitch out and refuse to load any ammo like weaponcore-stuff seems to), but I still think most people will just stick to ap regardless.

"...1 km range is just not realistic. If artillery had a greater range..."

Artys have a 2km range (I know, still short, but combat isn't as fun if you can't see what you're shooting at), turret AI just doesn't target beyond 800m on its own and needs either you or an AI block to tell it to by locking a target.

"...If ground content were more engaging..."

-Not the issue there... IRL you could potentially buy several Abrams tanks for the cost of a single F16, and the only things that tank can really do that the jet cant are soak small-arms fire and loiter. In SE resource availability makes the price irrelevant, 95% of the time people that attack us while we are online are going to use vehicle-mounted ordinance, and we don't typically need to loiter for hours or days on end. If Keen adds mech-legs then I'll certainly spend some time paling around with BT, and if they get AI to control ground-vehicles then I'll have some defending my planetary base so I'm not wasting stupid amounts of power sustaining drone-flight, but if I'm going in to a proper non-themed fight then I'll be operating a flying vehicle because flight is just that much better in combat.

"...targeting reticle...becomes meaningful if artillery range is increased."

-If target-locking gets ported over from SE1, then it already shows where to aim and the range-reticule wont help all that much.

"...players will need a diverse arsenal to fight them (npcs)..."

-That sounds very rainbow-six... I'm an engineer with limited personal, lousy aim, and a surplus of resources, I think I'll just build a few (dozen) turrets instead and let them buzzsaw the enemy npc-engineers before they get close enough to be dangerous with those hand-weapons...

Tis all cool ideas, and I'd like to see them happen, but I doubt much would change by adding them.