Suggestion: Capital Ship Death

from Sins Forums

I don't have a lot to say regarding game balance issues.   I do have a fair amount to say about the art direction of Sins, but most of it would be closing the barn door after the horses have left.

One thing that does stick in my mind, though, is that when you blow up a capital ship, there doesn't seem to be a lot of physics involved.  It's just a pretty explosion (and one that goes by much too quickly, in my opinion), and then the thing is gone. 

But a capital ship is really big, and so are the space stations and such.  My suggestion is that when they are destroyed that they leave hulks behind, instead of getting blasted into smithereens.  The hulks could be re-harvested for scrap by the builder ships.  Or, if the hulks are ignored, they could spiral into the planet and kill a few citizens.  I mean if you can fire rockets into a planet, surely you should be able to crash space stations and capital ships, too. 

If we can explode gas giants to create damage, why not have death from above from space junk?

I suspect that this idea may have been thought of already and abandoned (since one could also just push asteroids into planets, which would ruin the economy), but on the off-chance that this is an original(ish) idea, I present it now for future consideration.

21,022 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I think debris was kept small so it wouldn't use much computer memory.
There is a tech that allowes your cap ships to collect some of the debris, but I don't think you can see it being done.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
i think i recall something being said about derelicts being considered. I dont know if it is actually planned or not. But i know it is an idea that is at least on the dev's drawing boards.
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Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Interestingly, it seems as though a few of the Vasari capital ships do leave hulks behind. I think that while this is a fun idea, this might add a fair amount of micro.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Fire in space is very dangerous, but certainly not impossible. Look at the sun if you aren't convinced. NO, WAIT, DON'T!!! Ahh, too late, if only he was reading this message at night...

Well, in any case, fire in space is possible if you have a) combustible materials, b) combustible atmosphere, and c) a sufficient source of ignition. The problem with fire in space is that it tends to drastically use up b).

Cracking open a capital ship and setting fire to all the stuff that pours out would be a fearsome spectacle. If the sun hasn't blinded you yet, go watch Starship Troopers (if you are old enough).

On the other hand, for non-Hollywood space fires, you can read about the account of the fire on Mir in the excellent book "Dragonfly". Real fires in space tend to have bubble-shaped flames that snake out in whatever direction the flow of oxygen is coming from. Smoke billows out in massive, choking bubbles. It's an untenable situation.

When Mir caught fire, the cosmonauts made a mad dash for the fire extinguishers. Unfortunately, the firefighting equipment were bolted securely to the wall so that they would not come loose during lift-off, and nobody thought to remove the bolts afterwards.

So, your space station is on fire, your oxygen supply is being consumed by the flames, smoke is everywhere, and in zero gravity you try to pull at a fire extinguisher that is fastened with bolts to the wall.

I imagine a Three Stooges cocoanut sound of the cosmonaut's skull impacting against the fire extinguisher, but I'd also accept an aluminum bat hitting a softball, followed by many curse words in Russian.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Twelvefield: That's hilarious man!