TheRealBeowulf

@xplosiv I don't think it'll be like in NMS, because it would most likely make it a bit complicated to land on player made constructs, like on landing pads or even in hangars. But being able to come close to the surface doesn't necessarily mean that your ship will take damage if it crashes...

For the "crash" questions: There already is a topic with a good amount of info, suggestions and opinions on this matter: https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/10055-collision-damage-workaround-suggestions I would like to invite you to join the discussion Physically correct crash damage like in SE won't be a thing in DU, but NQ said that they remain open for workaround suggestions. Besides the technical limitations, balancing would be a not-to-underestimate task, and there are a lot of different opinions about the possible gameplay effects of this matter (battle tactics, griefing etc.). So it's not only about the question if it could be implemented, it's also about if it should. (if you ask me, I'm definitely on the pro collision damage side )

Okay, but how does the game engine know that the hitboxes are overlapping, if it doesn't know where they are overlapping? I mean, the game has to keep track of the exact position of the hitbox to determine if there is a collision ir not, and it only stops the construct when it actually touches something - how does that work if the engine doesn't know where the intersection is? Also, the weapon damage model does take the firing angle into account, so it has to know where exactly the firing weapon is, and where the impact point is. Isn't that also calculation heavy? Sorry if I missed something, maybe I just can't follow you...

@shynras: I get your point, but isn't that pretty much the same for calculating the impact point of a weapon?

@wizardoftrash: Okay I get your points. I didn't mean to offend you, I'm just discussing things. In my opinion this discussion is getting more in the "personal taste" direction. I don't say that collision damage is something that has to be in the game, for me personally it would just be nice to have. I must admit that I'm more into the building and simulation / survival aspect and don't care so much about the classic MMO mechanics. It's just that DU gives you to freedom to build and engineer a construct and after that actually put it to a good (or bad ) use. Instead of just staring at it or showcasing it on YouTube, you can share it with hundreds and thousands of people - that's what I like the most about the idea of DU. And I bet I'm really not the only one in the community who sees it that way. We'll have a lot have people coming from NMS, who are more into the survival and exploration aspects, Minecrafters who like to build and of course people from Space engineers (like myself) who like the scifi-engineering part. Dual universe mixes a lot of genres, so it's not only the MMO aspect that attracts people - so it will most likely also be a genre mix in terms of gameplay, not a classic MMO. Maybe the examples with the racing games weren't the best ones. What I wanted to say is, that every game expects you to learn it's mechanics - an MMO expects you to learn which skills and armor are the best for your playstyle. I would also assume that learning how to fly the more basic constructs won't be such a big deal at all, so it isn't that much about unskilled pilots, more about careless ones. The point with the real accidents caused by lags and disconnects is something that is a real problem, but it's pretty much the same if you have a disconnect in the middle of a battle... I would just say that if you are approaching a space station, you should fly a bit carefully anyway - so no bad crash would happen

@shynras: Okay don't know how exactly that works too, but if it's a voxel construct, I would assume that the collision box would have to be pretty much the same shape. I don't know how they could use predefined collision boxes with custom built voxel constructs. So, if the engine knows that for example a wingtip, or a landing gear touches a surface, that would be a pretty precise point - at least precise enough to generate an area of effect - or am I missing something?

@shynras: But the game engine already does the collision calculation, that's nothing I want to add, It's already there. Without collision checks you couldn't land or walk on anything... My idea was to just combine the weapon damage with the collision checks.

@velenka: You are making a good point, but I think if they would use the weapon damage model, there would be a limit to the possible size of the damaged area. Otherwise it would take too much calculation power to do all the voxel damage. This workaround has it's limits, and the possible max. amount of damage is one. If there are shields against collision damage, you would be able to avoid getting damaged even if you collide - It's just that this would take some effort. Also, if you are disconnected, I would assume that the ship control unit would just stop your ship if not piloted. If you didn't have enough stopping force before the disconnect, you would have crashed anyways. Edit: Autopilots have already been mentioned by NQ - if the autopilot can't avoid the collision, the ship wouldn't have been able to do so in the first place, whether or not you are on board. If you get a disconnect during battle, you would most likely also loose your ship - so disconnects are a problem anyways.

Btw: Server hiccups in battle can also lead to some hits not being counted, leading to ships that would usually already have been destroyed still firing at you, and so on. In a MMO of this scale you can't expect everything to be perfectly fair at any time. Edit: In an MMO, that is nearly completely player driven without too much story, I would say that immersion is a top priority - immersion is what keeps you going further, explore, build, create new content - I would not underestimate the immersion factor as fuel for players and emergent story.

I'm sorry to say, but your argumentation seems a bit pointless to me... Look at racing games for example: Does Need for Speed expect you to know how an engine works? Not really - still you are able to tune it. Does any Formula 1 game expect you to be able to drive a F1 race car in real life? I would also say no. But do they expect you to stay on the track and avoid collisions? Definitely yes! Why? Because those are games about racecars. So why should a game about scifi civilization and spaceships not expect you to learn how to properly fly a spaceship? DU also expects you to be able to build a spaceship, even to place the engines on your constructs in the right configuration. Why give all that freedom and possibilities to the player, if an A.I. babysitter magically keeps you away from collisions? If the A.I. and shields are so advanced, why allow combat at all? This is a player driven game, so if nearly everything is up to the player base, you'll have to learn the basics for every profession. So why shouldn't you learn how to fly if you want to be a pilot? And why on earth should this be a griefer tactic? I mean, we could basically just take a big gun if we wanted to annoy you, so why should we even put effort in this topic?

@sualtrev: I agree on that one. @wizardoftrash: I understand your point and I respect your opinion, but I don't agree. Damage that is caused by weapons is not necessarily caused with intention. What if, for example, you have an auto defense script running on your ship that shoots at basically everything, and you forget to turn it of while entering the territory of another org? Would be hard to explain... On the other hand, if you accidentally crash into someone's construct and cause damage, then you should stay to clarify things and pay for the damage, or at least contact the owner. Otherwise it would be absolutely understandable if you end up on the wanted list. If you run from an accident that you have caused in real life, you would also get real big problems with the police... I also don't get your point with collision damage being more precise than weapon damage. If you don't hit your opponent in a ramming maneuver, you won't cause damage, if you hit - you hit. Basically the same with weapons, the only difference is, that weapon damage hit probability would depend on stats, while ramming damage depends on piloting skill. There's still a high chance not to hit, at least for moving objects. And also the higher risk for yourself... Most of your points also apply to weapon damage, so I don't see why it should be that much more of a problem for collisions. I also don't get the point, why it should be the weapon of choice for griefers, because if they would use the same mechanic as for weapons, safe zones and bubble shields would also be safe - basically, collision damage would only be possible where weapon damage is also possible. (weapon damage not being possible everywhere could also be called inconsequent, but you don't seem to see a problem with that) I already said that for me personally, the main reason to hope for a basic collision damage model is not so much the combat aspect. For me it's more the immersion and engineering side. I would really appreciate it, if a well designed ship with proper thruster distribution had a serious advantage against other less well designed constructs, because it would be able to land safely. Last but not least: I'll say it again: the whole idea of this topic was NOT to invent a new and complicated system for collision damage, but to use already existing (planned) mechanics as a workaround, so they don't use much additional resources in terms of computing power and development time. I totally agree that it should not be implemented if it is game breaking, but from what I've heard so far, I just don't think that a simple workaround necessarily is - neither from the technical, nor from the gameplay side. @velenka: I understand that your worries about the problems that collision damage could potentially cause, but I think that with CvsC combat it is basically the same - both just have to be balanced - and nobody complains about the possible issues with CvsC. If you have an idea for a simple workaround, would you like to share it?

@falstaf: No need to apologize at all I'm just trying to explain my point. It's just that a lot of the "technically not possible"- posts seem to refer to more realistic models, maybe even some kind of almost physically correct, simulation-like collision model, which NQ has already said will not be in the game at any time soon after release. I'm just looking for a more basic workaround which would (in my opinion) add some features to gameplay - in the first place reasons to avoid collisions, for example hard crashs on a planet's surface. About the gameplay reasons: Disclaimer first: the following examples are not about a realistic collision damage model, just about collision damage in general One reason, why I think ramming is such a thing in other space games like SE, is that it's relatively easy to get the necessary resources for ship building. Even larger ships just take you up a few hours to collect materials and fuel once you have a basic mining vessel. If you would need some days or even weeks / months to build (or repair...) a larger ship, you would most likely think twice before you crash it into anything. Another point is, that most player made torpedo / missile designs, that you can find in for example in SE, are complicated to handle, mostly unguided and only effective as long as they are fired at immobile objects without proper defensive weapons. If you try to use them in pvp, you'll most likely not hit anything - and get yourself killed by ships with more standard weaponry, while you're still trying to line up to your target and fire your torpedoes... So, they may be fun to mess around with a few friends in creative mode, but no real option if you have to use your rare resources for them. There may be some exceptions, like the guided missiles of whiplash141, but this very well designed system also requires some effort to correctly set up, and some resources to build. Also, it would most likely be a lot more difficult to use something like that in DU, because of the less frequent updates for distant objects. Sorry for another rather long explanation... To sum it up: - I think there might be some way for a workaround that is already technically possible, - I don't think we would actually see a lot of people ramming their ships into each other, because of the economical consequences

@falstaf: If they would use the weapon damage system, this could be easily balanced, because you would also be able to have shields against that. Maybe they have some kind of kinetic damage weapon type, then this could also be used as damage type for collisions. Shields that are effective against kinetic weapon damage would then also be effective against collisions. I really don't think this system would lead to amounts of ramming ships that are really worth mentioning, because if you put the same effort and resources into building a standard ship with moderate weapons, you would most likely have something much more effective. As I said, since JC mentioned that resources will be a crucial part of the game, I think that ramming would cause too much damage to your own ship (repair costs), so most people won't go for this. A turret can deal damage without taking damage itself, that doesn't work for collisions. If I didn't get JC completely wrong, the main reason for saying no was, that a realistic collision damage model is not yet doable in such a large MMO for technical reasons. Being asked about this again, Novaquark said that they know it's not the best in terms of immersion and that they remain open for workaround suggestions (which is what this topic is about ) I get your point / JC's point, that you don't want to have everyone ramming ships into each other, but I actually think that a balanced collision damage model is a way to do that. Think about it that way: the game already does collision checks, so if there's no damage, people might very often collide with buildings and other ships (cause there's no real downside to this) - so the engine could be very busy with collisions. If there's a risk of damaging your own ship, you would have a good reason to avoid collisions. @lurknautili: Glad to see another one on the pro-collision-damage side I already was worrying I could be pretty much alone with my hopes for at least a very basic collision damage model.

I'll keep on trying

@falstaf: The idea on how to use that for collision basically the following: JC said, that the damage-AoE will be generated around a point (-> coordinate) that the gun is aiming at. A collision point is basically also just a point (coordinate) So why shouldn't they be able to generate the AoE there? The only difference is, that instead of using weapon stats and player skills to define the amount of damage that the AoE can deal, you could use construct speed and mass. This means that a heavier or faster ship would deal more damage on impact.