Minimum Voxel/Decoration Budget

[Taelessael]

TL/DR: we need some manner of minimum-voxel-budget for ships so that pvp players (and soon everyoneelse) stop flying around disjointed element-only bundles. 

 

 

The up-coming Athena patch will quite handily destroy the nano-M/L-core meta with the speed cap. Unfortunately it will also provide players even more encouragement than they already have to have no voxel at all on their ships in order to keep them as light as possible for speed-cap reasons. 

 

As such I would propose the introduction of a minimum voxel/decoration budget, where by an amount of voxel below a certain threshold (based on core size) does not increase a ship's weight, CCS, or cross-section, as this would encourage players to have an actual decorative hull on their ships without substantially altering the game's balance.

 

Any thoughts?

[RugesV]

Shield hp should be a factor of voxel hp.

[Hirnsausen]

But if you need honeycombs, you could produce them in your factories. And if you want a beautiful ship, you can make them easily by yourself or purchase them on DU-Creators.org.

Also, if that comes true, then players would simply add a block of honeycombs to their ship. No beautiful shapes, as no one with sense would invest time and design on a ship for PVP space. The best you may get is some thing like a basic frame of honeycombs, the worst would be above-said cube.

But I may be wrong with my interpretation of your wishes behind your suggestion. So please tell me, WHY you want honeycombs to be involved?

[Taelessael]

If shield hp were tied in to how much voxel a ship had via a mechanic like ccs, then it would have an effective falloff curve above which people wouldn't get much more hp. This curve would keep people from just filling the build volume with voxel.

 

While less artful individuals would just add a block of material over everything to reach their desired hp, there are plenty of people that would use it as an excuse to fly something that looks at least a bit nicer than your average brick or disjointed element string.

 

 

Regardless, I still think that if there was a voxel weight/volume floor beneath which the voxel did not alter a ship's mass/ccs/cross-section, then players from either side of the pvp line would have fewer hinderances in having at least some level of decoration on their ships.

[RugesV]

10 hours ago, Hirnsausen said:

But if you need honeycombs, you could produce them in your factories. And if you want a beautiful ship, you can make them easily by yourself or purchase them on DU-Creators.org.

Also, if that comes true, then players would simply add a block of honeycombs to their ship. No beautiful shapes, as no one with sense would invest time and design on a ship for PVP space. The best you may get is some thing like a basic frame of honeycombs, the worst would be above-said cube.

But I may be wrong with my interpretation of your wishes behind your suggestion. So please tell me, WHY you want honeycombs to be involved?

Your saying people would just build ugly ships if they made the change. I am saying people cannot build nice ships unless they make the change.

[Hirnsausen]

I, for example, think my ships look good, even a bit outside average. But I would never ever use them for PVP, too stressful, and I already live in a country (Jamaica) where I have plenty violence around me, no week without gun shots somewhere around, and killed or badly injured humans. Maybe that explains, why I am not much a big fan of even more violence inside games. I simply have enough of that around me and know, not to heroize violence, robbery, destruction and killing.

I would not understand, why players would spend artistic work on any ship that might just likely to become a total loss. But, who knows - let the game and the players surprise me.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Hirnsausen

[Taelessael]

7 hours ago, Hirnsausen said:

...I would not understand, why players would spend artistic work on any ship that might just likely to become a total loss. But, who knows - let the game and the players surprise me.

Its the same reason you or anyone else likes flying a good looking ship: because they like having a good looking ship. Art in DU is not irreplaceable, people make blueprints they can redeploy from if they are damaged or destroyed, and resources are quite plentiful with which to produce replacements. The only thing stopping some people from doing it now is that  they have the option to choose between small numerical bonuses or decoration, and they'd rather "win" just a bit more often, so they chose the small bonuses.