Window Shutters (Functional Block Idea)

SEModder4 ●

Something like this mod for SE 1.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=885670358

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Valourant ●

We basically have shutters in SE1 they just aren't functional.

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Waterlimon ●

I would rather have it be an integrated function of the window itself.

Basic window
Smart window with a shutter and maybe a dimming function

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Valourant ●

Yeah, I think both can work, if you look at SEM's mod he has versions for both.

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SEModder4 ● ●

Something like this mod for SE 1.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=885670358

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1

Valourant ●

The Player/Mod/Modder SEModder4™[Supercharged] basically had this idea a long time ago and made a mod for SE1 that demonstrates this idea perfectly. And his modded block is a functional block, the shutters open and close and protect windows for SE1 (which is a much older game).

You can find the link to the mod here.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=885670358

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2

4Peace ●

Like a proper heavy block, similar to SE1 viewport but with bigger windows and a massive shutter. It can have same integrity as heavy armor when closed. Or even when opened, like why not, opening/closing them is just for the roleplay anyway. And If you play first person camera only at least you can have a good option :)

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Valourant ●

https://youtu.be/TK8DYeP78kw?t=42

Here is a proper video showing how the idea worked in SeModders SE1 Mod. He had three functional designs.

- Window shutter design

- Panel that open and closes top down.

- Panel that opens outward leaving a flap on the top and bottom.

And he even could make these as apart of windows themselves. But I want to leave the option open for devs to include it as a new block entirely that fits in front of windows as well.

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Valourant ●

This would help alleviate the issue with cockpits being shot out during combat. Window shutters would basically be an extra layer of armor that is functional and looks cool, but also allows the players to display their windows/cockpits when the shutters are open outside of combat.

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Tael ●

I'd seriously doubt windows with shutters will so significantly affect cockpit-snipes, the majority of the times I've seen someone blown out of their cockpit were either poor design (cockpit was the nose of the ship and sat center-mass, or in a poorly protected spot on the outer-hull just far enough off of something worth shooting that it would be hit by missed shots) or a significant disparity in defense vs incoming fire (inadequate evasion against shots that are either blowing clean through or have shredded everything so quickly the pilot hasn't registered that the hull they can still see is just a wreck.

Don't get me wrong, an armored window is cool, and I love the idea of having blast-shields or the like that can be opened and closed over it, but a slight bit more armor wont save anyone from poor decisions/awareness.

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Valourant ●

Well my wording was that it would 'help', not that it would solve the problem or eliminate the problem entirely. How much it could help also depends on how combat is implemented. How good will point defense (pd) be in SE2? Marek was suggesting that they might look into shield systems, how good would those be in SE2? I heard people talking about how SE2 has true armor, so potentially we could have thin armor panels that actually behave like true armor does, and how might that affect combat etc? How will weapons function? Will weapons have heat based systems? etc.

As well awareness in SE1 didn't 100% solve the issue of your cockpit being shot out either. So I would actually argue awareness was just another tool, to help prevent it maybe, just like window shutters might be. And the reason I say this is because you could be fast, fly unpredictably, manoeuvre, and be super aware, and even face away from shots, and all the person needed was 1 lucky shot on your cockpit. All they had to do was overwhelm you with shots, not even aim, and you would eventually get hit and lose the cockpit, even if most of your ship was still intact. Especially rail guns which could penetrate armor and snipe the crap out of your cockpit.

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Tael ●

Didn't say it would solve it, I like it, but I don't expect it to create significant improvement.

As for the rest of that... we'll need to pull SE1 info/references until SE2 gets weapons, but lets examine it.

-If you are getting cockpit-sniped by point-defenses (ints/gats), then either your design or your tactics need work. If on the other hand you are suggesting point-defenses to intercept incoming bullets... that may be a bit too anime for an engineering game.

-Shields are just a bad idea in general in a game like SE. Sure they're cool, but they'll just turn defense in to a math-problem that creates a hard meta in short-order.

-If by "true armor" you mean something along the lines of thin high-density layers that take little to no damage from weapons that "don't hit hard enough"... that would be cool, and it would cause a lot of balance problems, but unless you're regularly being cockpit-sniped by point-defenses it won't help much. SE1 rails and artys can cockpit snipe things in the core of a larger ship precisely because they are the big heavy-hitting high-penetration weapons you'd use to counter "true armor".

-Heat is a thing I want, but it doesn't prevent cockpit-shots.

-Awareness helps, but "100% solving the issue" of cockpit shots is like "solving headshots" in an FPS. Its a feature, not a bug. I get wanting a good-looking glass bridge with a good view to command from, but in an engineering game you're going to run in to times where you need to chose between looks and function. A tank doesn't have big windows, an F-22 doesn't rely on armor, if you're getting blown out of the cockpit a lot while the rest of the ship is still flyable then you should probably look at how to engineer a solution you are happy with. If you want, I would be happy to assist.

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Valourant ●

If you are getting cockpit-sniped by point-defenses (ints/gats), then either your design or your tactics need work. If on the other hand you are suggesting point-defenses to intercept incoming bullets... that may be a bit too anime for an engineering game.

This is dichotomous/or binary thinking, I don't think those are the only two reasons or options. It also makes the conversation personal. For example I can state my design choices are great, and that my tactics are good, yet my cockpit still gets shot. Now it becomes a conversation about me as being the problem or whatever. Instead take my word for it? And then hypothesize if there is actually more options as to why this happens.

Shields can be good if implemented properly. You can see my thread here as one way of implementing shields that would likely be okay. https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/48101-shielding-upvote-if-you-want-se2-to-have-new-technologies

Mostly, I want to get back on point that window shutters can be implemented in many ways. There are many designs of window shutter in SEMS mod, and the shutter can be a separate block from the window (which actually allows you to have external cockpits. Why? Because instead of burying my cockpit in a ship behind armor, I can have it above the ship behind armor (the window shutter itself is now the armor). So it directly helps with freedom of design. And of course we could get window shutters that are built into the window itself, so the shutter and window are 1 block.

The window shutter is supposed to be:

an aesthetic version of surrounding cockpit in armor, but changing modes allows you to still see outside.
extra hit points for windows.
it also obstructs view (like opacity on windows would)
but it can also serve as a porthole that opens and closes for guns you want to protect.

If you are getting cockpit-sniped by point-defenses (ints/gats), then either your design or your tactics need work. If on the other hand you are suggesting point-defenses to intercept incoming bullets... that may be a bit too anime for an engineering game.

This is dichotomous/or binary thinking, I don't think those are the only two reasons or options. It also makes the conversation personal. For example I can state my design choices are great, and that my tactics are good, yet my cockpit still gets shot. Now it becomes a conversation about me as being the problem or whatever. Instead take my word for it? And then hypothesize if there is actually more options as to why this happens.

Shields can be good if implemented properly. You can see my thread here as one way of implementing shields that would likely be okay. https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/48101-shielding-upvote-if-you-want-se2-to-have-new-technologies

Mostly, I want to get back on point that window shutters can be implemented in many ways. There are many designs of window shutter in SEMS mod, and the shutter can be a separate block from the window (which actually allows you to have external cockpits. Why? Because instead of burying my cockpit in a ship behind armor, I can have it above the ship behind armor (the window shutter itself is now the armor). So it directly helps with freedom of design. And of course we could get window shutters that are built into the window itself, so the shutter and window are 1 block.

The window shutter is supposed to be:

an aesthetic version of surrounding cockpit in armor, but changing modes allows you to still see outside.
extra hit points for windows.
it also obstructs view (like opacity on windows would)
but it can also serve as a porthole that opens and closes for guns you want to protect.

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1

Tael ●

@Valorant

"This is dichotomous/or binary thinking,..."

-Actually it was meant to be a mildly funny/sarcastic attempt at "comically missing the point" in the hopes you would then explain the point of involving point-defenses in a discussion about cockpit snipes. Apologies that it didn't come across that way.

As for taking anyone's word for it... no. There have been entirely too many times someone has told me they were an ace pilot in the best ship ever, and then they told me their "brilliant strategy" of flying in a strait line directly in to turret fire and posting pictures of a ship that wouldn't be much worse for the job if it were using armed warheads for armor. If your desire is for me to take seriously a complaint that cockpit snipes are happening too often, post pictures and stats for the ship you're flying (or better yet a Steam WS link to it), explain your tactics, maneuvers, and engagement ranges, describe your opponent/target and any special other things to consider (mods, specific environment, additional opponents, ect...), and I will look to see if either I run in to the same issue, or if there's an engineering/tactics problem I see that is resulting in said cockpit snipes.

I get that not everyone wants to "engineer". Some folks just want to hop in a cool ship and do cool stuff without regard for engineering, and they are not wrong to want that. Unfortunately SE is an engineering game, there isn't a difficulty setting to play with, so unless one wishes to use mods there's no escaping the engineering.

"Shields can be good if implemented properly..."

-As I recall, we went back and forth on the topic due to a difference of views and got nowhere. You thought they would fix problems, I thought they were an unfixable source of worse problems. A quick glance reveals our discussion started 5th-ish post down, and ended with you saying I was not interested in a good-faith discussion because I wasn't willing to try and find a solution to the problems, and me wishing you the best of luck in finding a way to prove me wrong. I still don't think they can be fixed, I have never seen anyone else make that math work out in a game like SE, and in spite of my best efforts I can't solve it myself. I can support them being an extra, a quick checkbox the host has to click to have such an undeniably cool feature enabled in their server, but not something that is enabled by default. If that isn't good enough and you think they must be enabled as part of the default vanilla game then I still wish you the best of luck in proving me wrong.

"...shutters can be implemented in many ways..."

-Agreed, and I want all of them in the game because they are all genuinely cool and have an extensive list of uses, I just don't think significantly reducing cockpit-snipes is on that list.

@Valorant

"This is dichotomous/or binary thinking,..."

-Actually it was meant to be a mildly funny/sarcastic attempt at "comically missing the point" in the hopes you would then explain the point of involving point-defenses in a discussion about cockpit snipes. Apologies that it didn't come across that way.

As for taking anyone's word for it... no. There have been entirely too many times someone has told me they were an ace pilot in the best ship ever, and then they told me their "brilliant strategy" of flying in a strait line directly in to turret fire and posting pictures of a ship that wouldn't be much worse for the job if it were using armed warheads for armor. If your desire is for me to take seriously a complaint that cockpit snipes are happening too often, post pictures and stats for the ship you're flying (or better yet a Steam WS link to it), explain your tactics, maneuvers, and engagement ranges, describe your opponent/target and any special other things to consider (mods, specific environment, additional opponents, ect...), and I will look to see if either I run in to the same issue, or if there's an engineering/tactics problem I see that is resulting in said cockpit snipes.

I get that not everyone wants to "engineer". Some folks just want to hop in a cool ship and do cool stuff without regard for engineering, and they are not wrong to want that. Unfortunately SE is an engineering game, there isn't a difficulty setting to play with, so unless one wishes to use mods there's no escaping the engineering.

"Shields can be good if implemented properly..."

-As I recall, we went back and forth on the topic due to a difference of views and got nowhere. You thought they would fix problems, I thought they were an unfixable source of worse problems. A quick glance reveals our discussion started 5th-ish post down, and ended with you saying I was not interested in a good-faith discussion because I wasn't willing to try and find a solution to the problems, and me wishing you the best of luck in finding a way to prove me wrong. I still don't think they can be fixed, I have never seen anyone else make that math work out in a game like SE, and in spite of my best efforts I can't solve it myself. I can support them being an extra, a quick checkbox the host has to click to have such an undeniably cool feature enabled in their server, but not something that is enabled by default. If that isn't good enough and you think they must be enabled as part of the default vanilla game then I still wish you the best of luck in proving me wrong.

"...shutters can be implemented in many ways..."

-Agreed, and I want all of them in the game because they are all genuinely cool and have an extensive list of uses, I just don't think significantly reducing cockpit-snipes is on that list.

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Window Shutters (Functional Block Idea)

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