Mralexs's great big pods rework idea thread thing

[mralexs]

So pods are kind of lackluster in their current iteration. I am not saying they aren't powerful, but the options we have to improve and tinker with them are fairly limited. I propose a pod rework. Here are some of the features I would love to see:

• Weapon power: Weapons should draw from a reservoir of energy that is charged by the engine. Each weapon would have different power draws, and having low weapons power would prevent you from firing.
  
• Shields: also charged by the engine, most pods would have basic shielding systems that would recharge slowly and basically protect the ship from impacts. 
  
• Afterburners: A limited speed boost that would run off another energy reservoir like weapons. Recharge rate would scale with how much energy is set to the propulsion system, which leads me too…
  
• Energy manipulation: basically the ability to shunt engine power around. Want more weapons energy? Take energy from the shields and propulsion system. 
  
• Subsystem damage: in the current iteration, it seems like the only system on the pod that takes damage is the engine, which is totally destroyed. I propose that subsystems, like the comms and weapons could be damaged. This doesn't mean destroyed, but for example if the weapons system is destroyed, the ship is unable to fire their weapons until the system is repaired. Systems would start having degraded performance when damaged and could auto repair slowly to full if the damage is above 50-60%.
  
• New weapons: the weapons we have are very basic and are just a scale. I propose more guns, each with different use cases. Have an enemy with a thick hull but anemic shields? Take a gun that does more hull than shield damage. Want to capture someone in a pod alive? Take a disruptor and damage their subsystems with little to no hull damage. I'd also love secondary weapons like missiles and rockets. Mining could have concussion rockets to blast away rock, Security could have heatseeking EMP missiles, the syndicate could give their operatives radar guided swarm missiles for taking down any possible threats.
  
• New hull types. So right now we have big pods and small putts. Now I don't want to just diversify them into different fighter classes, but also utility ones. Stuff like cargo tugs and exploration vessels would be great to have. 
  
• Comms: Right now all comms are used for opening portals. I propose that comms should be used to communicate to the station when you're on another z level. Your radio headset shouldn't be able to reach the station when you're in deep space!
  
• Sensors: I know this would be difficult to add, but radar for detecting things instead of sensor pings would be nice. The mining radar could be better at detecting rocks but has trouble making out enemy drones/pods for example of how radar could be differentiated. 
  

These are just a few ideas I had, feel free to add or give me much better ideas!

[RelentlessGarbage]

So pods are kind of lackluster in their current iteration. I am not saying they aren't powerful, but the options we have to improve and tinker with them are fairly limited. I propose a pod rework. Here are some of the features I would love to see:

• Weapon power: Weapons should draw from a reservoir of energy that is charged by the engine. Each weapon would have different power draws, and having low weapons power would prevent you from firing.
  
• Shields: also charged by the engine, most pods would have basic shielding systems that would recharge slowly and basically protect the ship from impacts. 
  
• Afterburners: A limited speed boost that would run off another energy reservoir like weapons. Recharge rate would scale with how much energy is set to the propulsion system, which leads me too…
  
• Energy manipulation: basically the ability to shunt engine power around. Want more weapons energy? Take energy from the shields and propulsion system. 
  
• Subsystem damage: in the current iteration, it seems like the only system on the pod that takes damage is the engine, which is totally destroyed. I propose that subsystems, like the comms and weapons could be damaged. This doesn't mean destroyed, but for example if the weapons system is destroyed, the ship is unable to fire their weapons until the system is repaired. Systems would start having degraded performance when damaged and could auto repair slowly to full if the damage is above 50-60%.
  
• New weapons: the weapons we have are very basic and are just a scale. I propose more guns, each with different use cases. Have an enemy with a thick hull but anemic shields? Take a gun that does more hull than shield damage. Want to capture someone in a pod alive? Take a disruptor and damage their subsystems with little to no hull damage. I'd also love secondary weapons like missiles and rockets. Mining could have concussion rockets to blast away rock, Security could have heatseeking EMP missiles, the syndicate could give their operatives radar guided swarm missiles for taking down any possible threats.
  
• New hull types. So right now we have big pods and small putts. Now I don't want to just diversify them into different fighter classes, but also utility ones. Stuff like cargo tugs and exploration vessels would be great to have. 
  
• Comms: Right now all comms are used for opening portals. I propose that comms should be used to communicate to the station when you're on another z level. Your radio headset shouldn't be able to reach the station when you're in deep space!
  
• Sensors: I know this would be difficult to add, but radar for detecting things instead of sensor pings would be nice. The mining radar could be better at detecting rocks but has trouble making out enemy drones/pods for example of how radar could be differentiated. 
  

These are just a few ideas I had, feel free to add or give me much better ideas!

I'm guessing this thread is in development, then?

Personally, pods seem like they're in an alright place. I'd be curious to see what changes you'd propose, though.

[mralexs]

So pods are kind of lackluster in their current iteration. I am not saying they aren't powerful, but the options we have to improve and tinker with them are fairly limited. I propose a pod rework. Here are some of the features I would love to see:

• Weapon power: Weapons should draw from a reservoir of energy that is charged by the engine. Each weapon would have different power draws, and having low weapons power would prevent you from firing.
  
• Shields: also charged by the engine, most pods would have basic shielding systems that would recharge slowly and basically protect the ship from impacts. 
  
• Afterburners: A limited speed boost that would run off another energy reservoir like weapons. Recharge rate would scale with how much energy is set to the propulsion system, which leads me too…
  
• Energy manipulation: basically the ability to shunt engine power around. Want more weapons energy? Take energy from the shields and propulsion system. 
  
• Subsystem damage: in the current iteration, it seems like the only system on the pod that takes damage is the engine, which is totally destroyed. I propose that subsystems, like the comms and weapons could be damaged. This doesn't mean destroyed, but for example if the weapons system is destroyed, the ship is unable to fire their weapons until the system is repaired. Systems would start having degraded performance when damaged and could auto repair slowly to full if the damage is above 50-60%.
  
• New weapons: the weapons we have are very basic and are just a scale. I propose more guns, each with different use cases. Have an enemy with a thick hull but anemic shields? Take a gun that does more hull than shield damage. Want to capture someone in a pod alive? Take a disruptor and damage their subsystems with little to no hull damage. I'd also love secondary weapons like missiles and rockets. Mining could have concussion rockets to blast away rock, Security could have heatseeking EMP missiles, the syndicate could give their operatives radar guided swarm missiles for taking down any possible threats.
  
• New hull types. So right now we have big pods and small putts. Now I don't want to just diversify them into different fighter classes, but also utility ones. Stuff like cargo tugs and exploration vessels would be great to have. 
  
• Comms: Right now all comms are used for opening portals. I propose that comms should be used to communicate to the station when you're on another z level. Your radio headset shouldn't be able to reach the station when you're in deep space!
  
• Sensors: I know this would be difficult to add, but radar for detecting things instead of sensor pings would be nice. The mining radar could be better at detecting rocks but has trouble making out enemy drones/pods for example of how radar could be differentiated. 
  

These are just a few ideas I had, feel free to add or give me much better ideas!

I'm guessing this thread is in development, then?

Personally, pods seem like they're in an alright place. I'd be curious to see what changes you'd propose, though.

For some stupid reason copying from google docs screwed up the formatting

[Kotlol]

While cool, it feels more like these pods are suppose to be fully fledged spaceships only pilots can handle.

And while a COOL idea. You gotta understand the POD SYSTEM is also....
- The car system
- The Submarine System

Anything you change to pods, is changed to those as well.

I have no problem with more complexity in the game for spaceships and spaceship like wars, but...I feel like pods should remain "simple as possible"

BUT I would welcome a "Smaller Spaceship" kinda deal. We've seen it on other code basis too.

Just keep pods being pods, keep that system as it is.. since it's tied to so much smaller things. But if you build a "spaceship" system ontop of it where people can manage and fix ships. We can have spaceship wars and the such.

[StaringGasMask]

So pods are kind of lackluster in their current iteration. I am not saying they aren't powerful, but the options we have to improve and tinker with them are fairly limited. I propose a pod rework. Here are some of the features I would love to see:

• Weapon power: Weapons should draw from a reservoir of energy that is charged by the engine. Each weapon would have different power draws, and having low weapons power would prevent you from firing.
  
• Shields: also charged by the engine, most pods would have basic shielding systems that would recharge slowly and basically protect the ship from impacts. 
  
• Afterburners: A limited speed boost that would run off another energy reservoir like weapons. Recharge rate would scale with how much energy is set to the propulsion system, which leads me too…
  
• Energy manipulation: basically the ability to shunt engine power around. Want more weapons energy? Take energy from the shields and propulsion system. 
  
• Subsystem damage: in the current iteration, it seems like the only system on the pod that takes damage is the engine, which is totally destroyed. I propose that subsystems, like the comms and weapons could be damaged. This doesn't mean destroyed, but for example if the weapons system is destroyed, the ship is unable to fire their weapons until the system is repaired. Systems would start having degraded performance when damaged and could auto repair slowly to full if the damage is above 50-60%.
  
• New weapons: the weapons we have are very basic and are just a scale. I propose more guns, each with different use cases. Have an enemy with a thick hull but anemic shields? Take a gun that does more hull than shield damage. Want to capture someone in a pod alive? Take a disruptor and damage their subsystems with little to no hull damage. I'd also love secondary weapons like missiles and rockets. Mining could have concussion rockets to blast away rock, Security could have heatseeking EMP missiles, the syndicate could give their operatives radar guided swarm missiles for taking down any possible threats.
  
• New hull types. So right now we have big pods and small putts. Now I don't want to just diversify them into different fighter classes, but also utility ones. Stuff like cargo tugs and exploration vessels would be great to have. 
  
• Comms: Right now all comms are used for opening portals. I propose that comms should be used to communicate to the station when you're on another z level. Your radio headset shouldn't be able to reach the station when you're in deep space!
  
• Sensors: I know this would be difficult to add, but radar for detecting things instead of sensor pings would be nice. The mining radar could be better at detecting rocks but has trouble making out enemy drones/pods for example of how radar could be differentiated. 
  

These are just a few ideas I had, feel free to add or give me much better ideas!

Some of these systems are already implemented... In a way.
We have engine-dependant power distribution and consumption by the weapons and systems, if the engine doesn't output enough power, you can't fire the weapons without disabling other subsystems. They can also be disabled, although I'd really like to see a disruptor rework for the pods, as they're currently underwhelming. For instance, the standard blue disruptor is generally considered the worst pod weapon, probably because the ability to stun the driver noted in the wiki doesn't even work.

Then, pod-seeking artillery exists, 40mms can be found in the armory, although they don't have a platform to fire outside of the riot launchers (which I'm not even sure are compatible).

That being said, most of these ideas are flawed or broken, so I'd like to see a full rework of how subsystems and weapons are handled, it could add more uniqueness to pod-to-pod combat, and giving them some sort of armor would prevent an individual with a jetpack and a spacesuit from destroying pods and putts with just an extinguisher.

[Frank_Stein]

• Afterburners: A limited speed boost that would run off another energy reservoir like weapons. Recharge rate would scale with how much energy is set to the propulsion system, which leads me too…
  

• Comms: Right now all comms are used for opening portals. I propose that comms should be used to communicate to the station when you're on another z level. Your radio headset shouldn't be able to reach the station when you're in deep space!
  

• This would be a fun thing to involve toxins in. The Pods already accept gas tanks. Having some kind of afterburner that runs on an internal gas tank opens the door up for tweaking by having different gas mixes. Maybe you go for slower burning for fuel efficiency, or optimize speed.
  
• Comms I would like to see have more pod to pod functions. Like, being able to hail a ship and open or close direct line with them. Maybe having group chats if you wanted to form a squadron or something. Maybe the Station Bridge has it's own Pod Comms system, or it uses the phones
  

[mralexs]

• Afterburners: A limited speed boost that would run off another energy reservoir like weapons. Recharge rate would scale with how much energy is set to the propulsion system, which leads me too…
  

• Comms: Right now all comms are used for opening portals. I propose that comms should be used to communicate to the station when you're on another z level. Your radio headset shouldn't be able to reach the station when you're in deep space!
  

• This would be a fun thing to involve toxins in. The Pods already accept gas tanks. Having some kind of afterburner that runs on an internal gas tank opens the door up for tweaking by having different gas mixes. Maybe you go for slower burning for fuel efficiency, or optimize speed.
  
• Comms I would like to see have more pod to pod functions. Like, being able to hail a ship and open or close direct line with them. Maybe having group chats if you wanted to form a squadron or something. Maybe the Station Bridge has it's own Pod Comms system, or it uses the phones
  

The latter idea would be amazing, especially for sec wanting to coordinate when comms are compromised

[StaringGasMask]

• Afterburners: A limited speed boost that would run off another energy reservoir like weapons. Recharge rate would scale with how much energy is set to the propulsion system, which leads me too…
  

• Comms: Right now all comms are used for opening portals. I propose that comms should be used to communicate to the station when you're on another z level. Your radio headset shouldn't be able to reach the station when you're in deep space!
  

• This would be a fun thing to involve toxins in. The Pods already accept gas tanks. Having some kind of afterburner that runs on an internal gas tank opens the door up for tweaking by having different gas mixes. Maybe you go for slower burning for fuel efficiency, or optimize speed.
  
• Comms I would like to see have more pod to pod functions. Like, being able to hail a ship and open or close direct line with them. Maybe having group chats if you wanted to form a squadron or something. Maybe the Station Bridge has it's own Pod Comms system, or it uses the phones
  

Toxins based energy output seems like an awesome idea, especially because while all the other science sub-departments have the potential to be insanely helpful with artifacts, or recovering bodies with the click of a button, or just dishing out a constant stream of combat drugs and healing cocktails for sec and medbay from Chemistry, toxins' only purpose is making bombs that aren't even usable unless you're an antagonist, and even if you just make them as an experiment, to, say, try to get a canbomb working, only TTVs are implemented in the VR test room.
Giving them some actual work would be muchappreciated

[mralexs]

While cool, it feels more like these pods are suppose to be fully fledged spaceships only pilots can handle.

And while a COOL idea. You gotta understand the POD SYSTEM is also....
- The car system
- The Submarine System

Anything you change to pods, is changed to those as well.

I have no problem with more complexity in the game for spaceships and spaceship like wars, but...I feel like pods should remain "simple as possible"

BUT I would welcome a "Smaller Spaceship" kinda deal. We've seen it on other code basis too.

Just keep pods being pods, keep that system as it is.. since it's tied to so much smaller things. But if you build a "spaceship" system ontop of it where people can manage and fix ships. We can have spaceship wars and the such.

Regular pods would still be in, just with new features. None of my ideas would conflict with subs/cars/custom vehicles.

[Jakson]

Idea: pod turret that a secondary co-pilot can control, without having to be locked with 45 degree firing directions. Intended to be used against personnel, but weak against armor and pods. Essentially a turret mounted phaser/kinetics that draws from the engine power of the pod for sustained fire that is far more easily controlled but only by a co-pilot.