Derelicts

[Murph]

I brought this up in the old RB... er... semi-old ;)

I just find it weird that when you destroy a cap ship... the ship vaporizes into little puffs of matter...

Wouldnt it be cool to have disabled smoking wrecks floating around space instead of puff bang its gone? There are two advantages for these wrecks.

A: You can salvage them for rus or repair them into a battleworthy vessel again.

B: You can hide strike craft in it. Not only will it hide the strike craft from the enemy, the fighters can use the derelicts as COVER. Imagine... enemy ion frigates moving amongst the rubble. A dozen bombers pop up in front of an abandoned heavy cruiser and bomb the frigates and they run back into shelter. Now the ion frigates have to either shoot through the cruiser blindly or manuever around the cruiser. Derelicts would add an entire new dimension of 3d warfare.

[x-crispy]

Ja. Das ist gut.

[MrNonchalant]

Great idea, would tax computer systems but on a managable level. Something similar to the wreckage of the Kar-Selim. It would be interesting to see a dozen wrecks strewn about after a major Mothership rush was stopped. And you could tow more derelicts into strategic positions with your Salvettes. Kind of like resources (as far as hiding is concerened) but bigger, with some armor still clinging, and you can move them more easily. I say go for it!

[Superconductor]

Also being able to salvage the hulks for resources would be a nice option as well.

Superconductor

[Fallen-Solo-ATC]

1 SL Chris Z-S, I think that the arguement that certain features will "tax" computer systems is pretty lame. In order to compete in the 3-D RTS genre, the makers of HW2, EVE online, or O.R.B. or any of the other games in developement are going to have to include features that will require relatively strong systems in order to play them well.

Floating debris, more incorporation of Newtonian physics (in certain respects),Better AI, Better player communications systems, more textures and shading, and other CPU intensive features are probably going to HAVE to be incorporated because the competition is going to be including it in their 3-D RTS games.

I think this is a good idea, as well as many other ideas that will tax current computer systems. However, there will be options to turn the texturing and detail WAY DOWN so that, say a 500 Mhz system with a 16 MB graphics card can handle it - but the experience will be greatly diminished.

With regard to debris, I would think that it would be more RU intensive, because (as I've said in another thread in this forum), they would already be refined. However, because they are moving and sharp jaggedy things, they should be hard and risky to collect.