The extremely simple solution to sundiving and atmodiving

[Athena]

Just make ships immune to atmospheric burnup, radiation, and collision damage while being flown by an AI helmsman. Make sure to give those things new damage types that aren't used by anything else so that ships don't become immune to lasers or something while being piloted by the AI.

Occasionally getting stuck to the surface of something during a lag spike is a small price to pay for not hemorrhaging ships and time to celestial bodies.

[Rockinsince87]

Just make ships immune to atmospheric burnup, radiation, and collision damage while being flown by an AI helmsman. Make sure to give those things new damage types that aren't used by anything else so that ships don't become immune to lasers or something while being piloted by the AI.

Occasionally getting stuck to the surface of something during a lag spike is a small price to pay for not hemorrhaging ships and time to celestial bodies.

Question about this for further clarification. Would you still want this if a player avatar holds a berth on the ship? or only apply this if it's a pure AI ship? 

I had some similar ideas about this, like if it's a pure AI ship then grant it the ability to have higher decelerate speeds (say 10 times the overall acceleration) so they can stop faster. It would look strange to see a ship stop that fast but like you said, small price to pay.

[Athena]

I think it needs to apply whenever an AI crewman is at the helm and actively controlling the ship, whether there's an avatar on board or not. Taking the helm should temporarily remove the invulnerability.

[Rockinsince87]

I think it needs to apply whenever an AI crewman is at the helm and actively controlling the ship, whether there's an avatar on board or not. Taking the helm should temporarily remove the invulnerability.

Ok got it, makes sense. 

I like because it helps new players and existing players stick with the game and improve things until the issue/bug/mechanic is fixed. 
Yes it will need to be fixed so I would consider this as relief until it's fixed and not a solution to the problem.

[QuakeIV]

It might be because I haven't had an atmodive once yet, but I don't think this is a good solution, I feel it will be used for nefarious purposes and in some cases it might be better to just destroy and respawn the ship than have it be stuck somewhere it cant get out of like a really intense gravity well (or wedged inside the geometry of a planet or something).

[Rockinsince87]

It might be because I haven't had an atmodive once yet, but I don't think this is a good solution, I feel it will be used for nefarious purposes and in some cases it might be better to just destroy and respawn the ship than have it be stuck somewhere it cant get out of like a really intense gravity well (or wedged inside the geometry of a planet or something).

Speaking of not atmo-dive, yeah I've noticed it seems to only happen in certain situations. I did some recent tests with a 300m/s ship flying between two planets in the same system. If I asked the crew to "orbit the planet" they seemed to be a bit suicidal. If I asked the crew to move to the closest station, they flew quite safely. Same tests with 900+ m/s engine and the issues were reduced quite a bit. 


Now here is how you know it's something lag/de-sync related and is the actual issue. In Hazeron Starship, I have yet to atmo-dive after two or three thousand hours of play and I still have not atmo-dived yet even after in the single player. 


It really could. Any kind of "aid" could be exploited. I was actually thinking more about this. QuakeIV, what if it was only on ships that had no players berthed? Pure AI crew only? 
Or no invincibility but just give pure AI crews rapid stopping power? Because if the issue is actually lag/de-sync related it's going to be a very difficult issue to resolve.

[danthemanisme95]

I'd advocate for a sheild type called atmospheric which when active would negate all atmosphere damage types.

[Deantwo]

I'd advocate for a sheild type called atmospheric which when active would negate all atmosphere damage types.

I have suggested that in the past as well, and Haxus seemed interesting in the idea.
However it doesn't actually seem relevant to the discussion in this thread.