Directional Damage Discussion

[Phoenix-D]

The SF stuff didn't get included IIRC because it was felt that what worked for a 1-ship controlled RPG wouldn't work for 50 ship tactical combat.

That and the AI doesn't handle it very well.

[Suicide Junkie]

If you include "directional armor", then it would actually be pretty easy to include "directional shields" too... basically directional armor with less hitpoints and some organic regen.

The downside being that all the shields would have to be drained before the ship explodes. If you keep the hitpoints low and the regen high, that won't be a problem.

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The main differences between SF and SE5 damage that I can think of:
- SE5 directional damage is snapped to the four main compass directions. This is a vast simplification and probably makes a difference in combat calculation time, especially with big fleets.
- SE5 dosen't have custom slots. SF didn't have custom slots for a long time either, so we may see these appear later.
- SE5 dosen't pro-rate ability amounts; it is either functioning or not. This is a very major savings for combat calculations.
- SE5 has way more flexibility in damage types and effects. Especially now that negatives and >100% penetration and damagefactor are allowed.
- SE5 drops the firing arcs. Between big fleet control and AI and shipsets not being under mod control, arcs would just be bad news.