Posted by: Narmio
« on: March 06, 2011, 08:12:54 PM »We actually do already have something approximating a metric for how dense the outside of a ship is. Armour thickness.
I'm not sure that we need to really expand the mechanics for ramming, they're a pretty situational thing, but theoretically something based on the mass and delta-v of the ramming ship should decide the "total damage", and how that damage is divvied up between the target and the rammer could be dependent on their relative armour thicknesses? If they have the same armour, damage is equal, if the rammer has twice the armour, damage is 75% applied to the target, etc. You could make the function start at about 75/25 in the rammer's favour to represent that you're probably ramming a weak part of their ship with a strong part of yours.
As civilian ships tend to be unarmoured this would produce pretty similar results most of the time. A big, fast, heavily armoured ship would make the best rammer, but even then would still take some damage. You don't want ramming to really be a viable tactic, it's kinda silly. But if all your other weapons are offline and you just need one more strike. . .
I'm not sure that we need to really expand the mechanics for ramming, they're a pretty situational thing, but theoretically something based on the mass and delta-v of the ramming ship should decide the "total damage", and how that damage is divvied up between the target and the rammer could be dependent on their relative armour thicknesses? If they have the same armour, damage is equal, if the rammer has twice the armour, damage is 75% applied to the target, etc. You could make the function start at about 75/25 in the rammer's favour to represent that you're probably ramming a weak part of their ship with a strong part of yours.
As civilian ships tend to be unarmoured this would produce pretty similar results most of the time. A big, fast, heavily armoured ship would make the best rammer, but even then would still take some damage. You don't want ramming to really be a viable tactic, it's kinda silly. But if all your other weapons are offline and you just need one more strike. . .