Part damage

[Lazro]

I think most people would like something of this nature to be in-game. The question is to what extent?

I personally would go somewhere near the more strident end of the spectrum. Reducing impact tolerances significantly for some parts, the I-beams, the structural fuselage, and girders in particular, as well as adding altered, "broken" versions of parts when abused (landing on your engine, smacking something into another something, burning something) that would be less or not at all functional.

[vexx32]

For me it's really less of a question of how extensive a damage system one wants, and more of a question of how much the game really needs. Also worth discussing exactly what you mean by damage -- do the parts get crumpled in predefined ways, and can they be fixed; at what point to things like fuel tanks explode, and can they 'vaporise' or otherwise destroy less combustible parts around them; how should being in a vacuum affect damages and/or repairs?

It's been thrown about before several times, but rarely have I seen people actually come to an agreement of what they'd like damage to be as a whole.

[Lazro]

The damaged parts would show up at a certain threshold like the impact tolerance value we have now, maybe a damage tolerance value for each part? Fuel tanks would obviously have much lower damage and impact tolerances. The damaged versions of the parts would have much lower impact tolerances.

Exploding parts would have a blastradius value. Everything in that blast radius gets a certain shock, as if it hit something hard. If it's damage or impact tolerance is low enough, it would also explode and cause a chain reaction.

Certain parts can be fixed on-orbit. Battery packs, antennae, probe cores, and structural pieces come to mind.

Nothing would be affected by a vaccuum. That would be silly. Having to micromanage everything in a vaccuum would get tedious.

[vexx32]

No, I mean things like explosions -- shockwaves won't travel through a vacuum, and flames from an explosion won't get very far due to lack of oxygen -- and a half-decent simulation of what happens when things get a bit banged up if they're supposed to have air inside -- a vacuum has no air pressure, so big dents might just pop back into shape whilst in space, due to the air pressure inside. There are a lot of things to consider, unless you want damage to be very selective in what it does. If it's going to be in, it should affect everything in a reasonably realistic manner, I think