08-06-2018, 09:27 AM
I think we can mitigate a lot of the problems here, but there's still a kernel of truth in it. First, boarding is really difficult - even humans boarding other humans. In modern warfare, boarding actions under fire are extremely rare, for a good reason. The Royal Navy last boarded someone in combat on 16th February 1940. That's 5 remaining years of WWII (+Suez, the Falklands etc.) during which they didn't board anyone. And even then, it wasn't a warship. All you get now are police actions after the enemy has already surrendered.
If you do plan to board someone, you're going to need the SBS or the American Navy SEALs, backed up by weeks or months of careful naval intelligence, which probably begins with getting hands on the target ship's blueprints. After that, like any action against a prepared force in an enclosed space with home advantage (e.g. hostage situations), it's going to become a slaughter very quickly if you make any mistakes at all. Remember those old S.W.A.T and Rainbow Six games? Like that, but probably worse. In the new Star Trek film, Kirk and Spock boarded Nero's ship blind, near the end, and immediately they were nearly killed. If they'd been redshirts, they would have died there and then. We're all redshirts in this game, man! Take the redshirt pill, Quake!
Now, boarding is tons of fun, so it should be easier than real life. But I really do think some form of scanning and intelligence is a necessary preliminary. Downloading a read-only copy of all or part of the enemy design is the obvious way to go. It would make shipboard design stations (which are now possible) a really useful thing to have and consistent with the setting; right now they feel a bit meta. Handheld scanners could reveal paths/doors. I've said it all before.
Another thing that'd help would be a "beam to room/part number" setting on the transporter. That would circumvent most traps. You can already do it by offsetting coordinates manually, if the room's position is known. An auto setting would be great. That would lead to situations where you control the ship but not all the internals. Remember the beginning of Star Wars, where Vader has control of Leia's ship, but still has to fight through the inside? Or Stargate: Atlantis and Universe, where I understand they control the alien structures for several weeks/months before fully exploring everything. That could be really cool. Imagine travelling through space in your captured vessel, weeks later:
"Sir, we've just found a bottomless pit on level five. There's a nest of ravenous bugblatter beasts down there!"
"Um, how are they down there if it's bottomless, Lieutenant Ixtihub?"
"Why don't you ask them, sir?"
Finally, forgive me for saying it sounds as if you haven't been using new ships much. Give them a chance! Frustrating interiors have always been possible. Anyone remember robske's ships, with hundreds of totally separate compartments and no doors, so that you had to keep beaming back and forth for hours before you got anywhere? Paladin, you here? But the point is, for every one time you're boarded, there are 99 times when you just get blown out of the sky at max range. Especially in the war situation you suggest, when the enemy takes no risks. And there are 999,000 times when you don't get attacked at all. During those times, you'll have to live with warp monsters that the crew can't reach, warp monsters that you can't reach and make horrific chewing sounds 24/7 while stuck in the ceiling; you'll have to live with that guaranteed time you click on the floor with all crew selected, and now they're all leaving their posts, getting stuck and you have to spend an hour fixing it (because you have no paths). And so on.
Long story short: if you make a "screwy" ship, it inconveniences me for at most, a few minutes out of my life, before I chuckle and laser it into the next galaxy. It causes you yourself untold hours of frustration. Is it really worth it? The fact that almost every ship I've encountered is easily navigable suggests most people think not. Even our resident Munchkin Mortius and our resident Mindscrewer minty make ships that are reasonably practical and transparent, while still being inventive. It's just that some of us probably aren't helping things by posting only our weirdest creations online (*cough* Mortius *cough*)...
If you do plan to board someone, you're going to need the SBS or the American Navy SEALs, backed up by weeks or months of careful naval intelligence, which probably begins with getting hands on the target ship's blueprints. After that, like any action against a prepared force in an enclosed space with home advantage (e.g. hostage situations), it's going to become a slaughter very quickly if you make any mistakes at all. Remember those old S.W.A.T and Rainbow Six games? Like that, but probably worse. In the new Star Trek film, Kirk and Spock boarded Nero's ship blind, near the end, and immediately they were nearly killed. If they'd been redshirts, they would have died there and then. We're all redshirts in this game, man! Take the redshirt pill, Quake!
Now, boarding is tons of fun, so it should be easier than real life. But I really do think some form of scanning and intelligence is a necessary preliminary. Downloading a read-only copy of all or part of the enemy design is the obvious way to go. It would make shipboard design stations (which are now possible) a really useful thing to have and consistent with the setting; right now they feel a bit meta. Handheld scanners could reveal paths/doors. I've said it all before.
Another thing that'd help would be a "beam to room/part number" setting on the transporter. That would circumvent most traps. You can already do it by offsetting coordinates manually, if the room's position is known. An auto setting would be great. That would lead to situations where you control the ship but not all the internals. Remember the beginning of Star Wars, where Vader has control of Leia's ship, but still has to fight through the inside? Or Stargate: Atlantis and Universe, where I understand they control the alien structures for several weeks/months before fully exploring everything. That could be really cool. Imagine travelling through space in your captured vessel, weeks later:
"Sir, we've just found a bottomless pit on level five. There's a nest of ravenous bugblatter beasts down there!"
"Um, how are they down there if it's bottomless, Lieutenant Ixtihub?"
"Why don't you ask them, sir?"
Finally, forgive me for saying it sounds as if you haven't been using new ships much. Give them a chance! Frustrating interiors have always been possible. Anyone remember robske's ships, with hundreds of totally separate compartments and no doors, so that you had to keep beaming back and forth for hours before you got anywhere? Paladin, you here? But the point is, for every one time you're boarded, there are 99 times when you just get blown out of the sky at max range. Especially in the war situation you suggest, when the enemy takes no risks. And there are 999,000 times when you don't get attacked at all. During those times, you'll have to live with warp monsters that the crew can't reach, warp monsters that you can't reach and make horrific chewing sounds 24/7 while stuck in the ceiling; you'll have to live with that guaranteed time you click on the floor with all crew selected, and now they're all leaving their posts, getting stuck and you have to spend an hour fixing it (because you have no paths). And so on.
Long story short: if you make a "screwy" ship, it inconveniences me for at most, a few minutes out of my life, before I chuckle and laser it into the next galaxy. It causes you yourself untold hours of frustration. Is it really worth it? The fact that almost every ship I've encountered is easily navigable suggests most people think not. Even our resident Munchkin Mortius and our resident Mindscrewer minty make ships that are reasonably practical and transparent, while still being inventive. It's just that some of us probably aren't helping things by posting only our weirdest creations online (*cough* Mortius *cough*)...