Subset Games Forum

Just a thought. If life support was damaged would it be possible to cause the crew, friendly or otherwise, to be slowed as well as the oxygen levels declining? The reason for this is that assuming in the future, the life support will ALSO provide heat to the ship out in the void in space. This is because when a fluid is introduced to a lower pressure vacuum at lower temperatures, the fluid requires a lower state of energy to freeze is greatly. However this 'Freezing' should not occur instantly but over a period of time.
This would probably make the life support a more viable target in engagements as the crew's blood would freeze slowing them down, as well as been suffocated to death...

That would be interesting; I suppose it could be implemented and balanced in the beta.

Yea it always seemed as though life support was a little bit of a weak target.

Interesting idea. And easily implemented! Currently, I agree that life support is not a very interesting target when shooting at the enemy, but it is rather frightening when the player life support system goes down. I'd be slightly concerned about making it even more brutal when it breaks as a player, but it's definitely worth looking into.

It could also become a benefit in the opposite direction if the life support system actually improves crew speed/effectiveness as you upgrade it. We've been considering ways to make the life support system more attractive to upgrade lately anyway.

Maybe we'll put it in to test it out during the beta at some point.

-Matt

Well i like the upgrades as they are now. I don't see how speeding up crew for upgrades would be possible for a life support system to do. I imagine if the air went bad a little faster (would need testing of course) it would make it more worthwhile.

The idea that people freeze in space is actually inaccurate.
For something to freeze, the heat in the object needs to transfer to another object that's in direct contact. Space, being a vacuum, doesn't have much that makes direct contact with anything else, as such the rate of heat transfer is very low.

In space, most heat is lost in the form of radiation, which is much much slower than simply touching something cold.

That said, the idea of loss of life support causing the crew to work slower is quite plausible, as oxygen deprivation does effect your ability to think and work.

As for an idea for making life support a more attractive target. How about an option to sabotage it, so it releases toxic gasses through the enemy ship?

This could be an ability a special weapon system gives, or it could be something achieved if you teleport your crew over to sabotage it directly.

Maze1125 wrote:As for an idea for making life support a more attractive target. How about an option to sabotage it, so it releases toxic gasses through the enemy ship?

This could be an ability a special weapon system gives, or it could be something achieved if you teleport your crew over to sabotage it directly.

I like the idea but why put so fine a point on it. Its not unreasonable that if a fire is in the O2 room (or if its just heavily damaged for that matter) that it will spread toxic fumes throughout the ship. I think this is probably the single best idea for making it a worthwhile target! Good job. I imagine it wouldn't have to be much ether. Rate of toxins filling the room = to the base rate of O2 refill should be fine i would think. Toxins at first = slowdown but then build to health damaging lvls