Ship warps out when boarders in cockpit

Discuss problems related to FTL here. If you are having a problem or experiencing a bug PLEASE READ THE "MUST READ" POST.
Derakon
Posts: 111
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:05 am

Ship warps out when boarders in cockpit

Postby Derakon » Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:09 am

I just had an enemy ship warp out while my crewmembers were busily occupying its cockpit and fighting its crewmembers. I know my pilot can't engage warp if there's anything distracting him, so the enemy shouldn't be able to either. I'm a little peeved that I just lost my two best raiders to an asymmetry in how the game treats the player vs. the AI.
User avatar
Matthew
Site Admin
Posts: 968
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:31 am

Re: Ship warps out when boarders in cockpit

Postby Matthew » Wed Sep 19, 2012 5:30 am

Hi Derakon. Actually, you can also pilot the ship when boarders are occupying you. It might not make the most sense realism wise, but distracting the pilot resulting in 0% dodge was just too powerful regardless of if it was the enemy or the player. You just don't get his skilled bonus (the +5% to +10% for actively manning the console), but even in a brawl your pilot can manage to keep the ship on course or slam that jump button in a moment of desperation.

If that hasn't been your experience, can you take a screenshot when it happens again for help debugging it?
Matthew Davis, Subset Games Developer - If you're looking for tech support, you'll get help faster emailing directly, contact info here
Derakon
Posts: 111
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:05 am

Re: Ship warps out when boarders in cockpit

Postby Derakon » Wed Sep 19, 2012 5:49 am

Hm, I admit I don't recall specifically being unable to jump when there's boarders in my cockpit. I usually focus on killing off the boarders (after all, whether or not I warp they'll still be there, and by warping I lose the spoils from winning the fight). I'm also disappointed that having boarders in the cockpit doesn't null out the enemy's dodge chance, since it makes intuitive sense (how the heck can you make evasive maneuvers when there's a guy trying to beat you up right there?). I can understand you finding it unbalancing, but I hope you also understand me finding it frustrating when my opponents have a >50% effective dodge rate and there's nothing I can do about it except hope that enough shots get through to damage the cockpit/engine. Ahem. Anyway...

This also would seem to mean that you basically cannot risk having boarders on the enemy ship if you get the message that they're trying to warp out, which is disappointing. Have you considered having a 1-2 second delay between "pushing the button" and actually warping out? Something like in Escape Velocity, if you've played that game -- the warp engines warm up and then the ship jumps out. This would allow you to "fix" the getting-shot-while-warping-out bug without actually changing game balance, it'd add a little more tension to escapes, and of course a player with quick fingers could get his crew out of there before the warp goes through. :roll:
DrNoid
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 9:40 am

Re: Ship warps out when boarders in cockpit

Postby DrNoid » Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:25 am

Actually, I think boarders in the cockpit should inhibit the FTL drive and dodging, unless you have upgraded the autopilot. It would be a good reason to get that upgrade, that is pretty useless now in my opinion.
boran_blok
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 1:35 pm

Re: Ship warps out when boarders in cockpit

Postby boran_blok » Thu Sep 20, 2012 2:21 pm

I agree, giving the autopilot this functionality (maybe lvl 1 has 50% FTL charge rate and lvl2 the regular FTL recharge rate) would increase the usefulness of this upgrade.