I love the new spotlight as well. As far as ship surface damage, that's actually somewhat realistic, as when you ram things with your ship, you put the entire weight of the vessel into the collision on a small part of it's surface. However, I do agree that in SE this is greatly exaggerated. The best way to work it in my mind is making ship-to-ship collisions as destructive as they are in SE, but correct the part that isn't right, which is the way the collision should effect inertia. Colliding ships should lose speed VERY quickly as their surfaces crumple, limiting the severe damage to around the point of initial impact. This is better as it makes ships effectively tougher while preserving some realism. Crumpling and deforming metal absorb a LOT of energy. Shooting a ship is another thing entirely, and should produce pinholes instead of massive crumples, except in armor that's designed to absorb enemy fire. Also, shooting a ship should effect it's inertia slightly ala Newton.



Edit: There should also be a "No Damage" threshold where things will simply bounce instead of deform for cases of sufficiently low speed collisions. (Iron) Metal is springy, after all.

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