Combat,stealth,emissions,suits and dynamic systems

Space engineers 2 combat- a write up

To preface after this week's sneak peek i wanted to put into words what I WOULD LIKE TO SEE from space engineers 2

Firstly lets start with how you find things

1. Lets call this ( radar and scanning )

For space engineers 2 to implement this feature in any capacity it would need to have a few key features –

1.--all blocks need emission value that is dynamic depending on the current condition of the surrounding playerspace —- asteroid field —planet–open space–items off items or on and weapon and thrusters firing etta

2.--each type of object would need to have modifiers Things like asteroid fields -gas clouds and other bigger player spaces that could have attributes–-objects that have no signature and atmospheres should dramatically reduce the signature range of objects dynamically based on how close and far you are.

3. Blocks and conditions of blocks should have a signature output

Example

1.Blocks have no signature

2.Reactors ion thrusters jump drives shields all have extreme signature

3.Things like hydrogen thrusters , and generators have lower signature

States of blocks and how they are placed should also make a big difference on signature and direction detectable (for example a ship that has a mix of high and low output blocks–reactors vs batteries hydrogen generators and such can turn off high output items to opt for lower overall power and capability but significantly less signature.) If you make the system dynamic things like thruster covers(blocks on rotors that cover the thruster port) can work to hide signatures till only when they are firing. Or another example is thrusters hidden very deep inside of ships so all but one direction is covered.

Power output vs capability

Things like shields should require so much power they should be detectable from a great distance - lets say that one large shield generator (covers a red ship sized ship in the xyz) requires 3 large reactors to run at full – two very high output systems produce extreme signature able to be seen from 50k(or a large balanced distance away) or more … but if they have all of those systems off you might only be detectable at 15km a massive difference promoting using cover concealment(asteroids and atmospheres) and building ships to be stealthy, or loud and proud. Each system in game that is related to high vs low output should be balanced so there is no meta, another way to help this out is if you lock onto a target that was stealth you have there signature till there out of your range (a balanced range according to gameplay) obviously this would need tremendous balance and some good work on the data of the blocks to do but i feel like a system similar to this would be very beneficial to the longevity of the game in a multiplayer setting. Additionally these systems can be used for ai ships to allow for more varied dynamic scenarios and encounters.

On to characters

One of the best ways to progress(in se1) is the character spawn spam into a pirate ship ..its stupid it sucks and with fps npc's and more thoughtful ai and pve systems this hopefully will not be a thing However i have a few ideas so keeping with signature i'll dive into character combat as well Suits

suits should have traits that make them good for specific jobs.

suits should come in three flavors medium heavy and special

1.Medium is the default suit you start with. Good at everything does a little resource processing and basic backpack building. This has a signature of one small reactor

— - sight is 200m radar searching is 750m etta

2.Heavy armor allows for several attachable gadgets like breaching charges manual door openers hacking units and localised emp generators and access to heavy weapons - belt fed machine guns grenade launchers missile launchers this suit has a double jump assisted by microthrusters but altogether is slower and heavier

Has the signature of 5 small reactors as an example

—---Sight is 500-radar is 1.5km

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/W6Vnv for inspiration

And for special suits you have

3.Heavy mining suit

—---Sight is 500-radar is 1.5km

Has a space only hyper efficient jetpack (has .8 thrust to weight in 1g ) so you can use it in atmo to not fall to death but cant fly traditionally- you can hop and leap with a double jump(jetpack) but cant fly

4..Low signature suit

Jetpack is very low thrust and is hydrogen only and has low capacity-had a built in emergency planetary landing thruster (one use ). -(cable to attach to ships and reel you in)

Only access to light weapons - smg pistols and small gadgets like breaching charges hacking charges and localised emp devices—---Sight 50m radar is 50m

All of these should make the gameplay of boarding a ship more varied, some additional systems to help with this would be - dedicated pdc turrets for cwiz and anti personnel boarders 1500m and in (or a balanced distance) and make the tracking significantly better so you CANT board without disabling at least one of the turrets on one side through a missile, torpedo, handheld rocket launcher, railgun, or emp weapon.

Moving on the ship durability shields and most importantly weapons

Ship durability should depend on three things.

Armor (design) not an arbitrary armor number that's added based on the amount of health each armor block has.

Shields- shields based on size and power consumption. Can be set to have more recharge or capacity depending on modifier blocks-(upgrade slots)

s=3 small reactors-

m=3x 1 m reactor-

L=3 large reactors-

xl=5 large reactors-

c=10 large reactors

I'd like to advocate for a more interesting approach -this is space engineers after all

Weapons should have things like deflection / penetration /shattering

Non pen and explosives should be affected by what they hit - for example if i have a plate 2m away from the hull of my ship I would expect a weapon that has a blast range of 3m to not damage the hull just the plate like the explosive was stopped.

Deflection angles based on type of weapon ammo and angle of hit

PDC gatling - 80-100 =pen/ 50-70 =70% chance of pen/30-60=40% chance of pen

Autocannon - 60-100 =pen/ 30-50 =70% chance of pen/10-40=50% chance of pen

Cannon - 50-100 =pen/ 30-40 =60% chance of pen/10-20=40% chance of pen

Light railgun - 30-100 =pen/ 10-20 =50% chance of pen

As examples

Penetration should happen by the amount of blocks thick and block type and angle hit or just use any block classifier like a gatling can go through and light armor .5m blocks at any angle but heavy has the deflection stuff like that would go a long way to add a rock paper scissors approach to size thickness and layering

With this configuration of damage, ships built with smart and thought out armor and protection mean a lot more and you have a variety of ways to make ships more durable.

Example

Exterior hull is a thin layer of heavy sections topped by spaced armor with heavy plating and interior engineering areas like reactors and such with another thin layer around those.

Missiles explode on the outside of the spaced armor blow a section out but doesn't touch the hull

Gatling guns and autocannons pepper the rest of the hull bounce off of armored areas and penetrate soft sections

Autocannon cannon fires and bounces off of an angled slab of armor

Railgun goes straight through but stops at the interior armor around the reactor

A heavy railgun goes straight through, hits the hydrogen tank and implodes the ship.

End..

Adding more dynamic systems allows for this please dont simplify it to much like se 1 or like avoirions system let us build armor that works.

Weapon types and sizes

Based on 1m sized turrets of se1

Gatling gun 1500 rpm /high damage/ low penetration and accuracy

PDC ( gat gun turret ) 2500 rpm /high damage/ low penetration/ low engagement range

Autocannon 300 rpm /high damage/ medium penetration/high accuracy

Autocannon ( turret ) 600 rpm /high damage/ medium pen med /medium engagement range

Cannon 30 rpm /high damage/ medium pen /medium accuracy

Cannon ( turret ) 60 rpm/high damage/ medium pen /medium accuracy

Special weapons-fixed

Railgun light 20rpm/ high damage /extreme pen/extreme accuracy/high power cost

Railgun heavy 2 rpm extreme damage extreme pen extreme accuracy extreme power cost

Cannon heavy- 6 rpm extreme damage medium pen med accuracy

Special weapons turrets or other-

Laser (pdc) high damage low pen high accuracy

Torpedoes-light/medium/heavy- extreme damage extreme range 1rpm(or less) ( targetable by player and has high signature ) tracking is good but poor turning performance. (SAP WARHEAD= HITS PENS 2 SECOND DELAY TILL EXPLOSION)

Missiles -light-medium-heavy multi fire - high tracking great maneuverabilities ( HE WARHEAD )

MISSILE TURRET -light-medium-heavy multi fire - high tracking great maneuverabilities ( HE WARHEAD )

Various guided bombs

PMW-tools like an ai core for manufactured torpedoes - generally can be better than premade but require set up- or even the ability to customise weapons like in FROM THE DEPTHS but in a scene please

And other crazy stuff like plasma fire and other weapons

Keen se2 can be crazy please give us some variation of this we love you keep it up