[Suggestion] Self-Destruction at will on dogfighting (kamikaze drones/missiles)

[Flaubert]

Hello, I'm working on a new feature to allow players to self-destruct its craft at will, when in dogfighting.
At the moment there are some features on OXCE+ to allow self-destruction when your craft is defenseless and you don't have any chance to disengage due to velocity - self-destruct which deals no-damage to enemy crafts; it's just to avoid endless dogfighting-; but I'd like to add a second button which allowed to activate self-destruct at will. This is not really directed to "current "crafts -interceptors and carriers-, but I think this could be interesting to add things as "unmanned kamikaze drones" or even "missiles". Of course that would be optional to ensure proper compatibility with current dogfight behavior -the only difference for current behavior would be a second deactivated button at the interface-

I'm looking for some advice/opinions about how to program the behaviour of this feature:

1. About WHEN this self-destruct would take effect -providing it has been activated-:
  a. Only when crafts are at the/a "minimal" range. This could give target craft a chance to destroy drone/missile while it's approaching to be in range.
   b. At any moment when dogfighting screen appears...but the more distance between crafts, the less damage self-destruct would do.

2. About HOW MUCH damage would kamikaze-craft inflict to target craft.
   c. At first I proposed giving a fixed damage equal to the max-damage supported by the kamikaze craft, or twice that damage.
   d. Also we could use a RNG number between 50%-200% of that damage, to add some uncertainty to self-destruct feature.
   e. Modders could add another value to "crafts" definition to set self-destruct damage. If not added, this value would be 0 -no self-destruction damage to enemy craft-, or one of the values at 2c.

3. If we only want to add new kamikaze crafts/missiles, pushing a self-destruct button sounds useless, so I could add another flag to craft ruleset -self-destruct?- so, when entering dogfighting self-destruct is automatically activated.

4. If 1b option is not implemented....should we give the chance to cancel self-destruction? -for regular crafts, not drones/missiles-

What are your thoughts about this? Could this be an interesting feature?

[Meridian]

What are your thoughts about this? Could this be an interesting feature?

As a DEV, I don't see a problem with this feature.
It's isolated, compatible and optional.
If it gets enough attention from modders, it can be merged into OXCE.

As a player, I find it mildly intriguing.
The (manned) kamikaze use case sounds valid, probably even desirable in some mods.
The base-launched guided missiles use case however less so (IMO). Shooting ICBMs at UFOs sounds rather... strange Aren't ICBMs also more expensive than an average fighter jet with a bunch of air-to-air missiles? (don't know, I never bought one)

I'm looking for some advice/opinions about how to program the behaviour of this feature:

I'll leave that to the modders to discuss.
(It's them who'll be implementing it in their mods after all. My opinion is irrelevant here.)

[Flaubert]

As a DEV, I don't see a problem with this feature.
It's isolated, compatible and optional.
If it gets enough attention from modders, it can be merged into OXCE.

As a player, I find it mildly intriguing.
The (manned) kamikaze use case sounds valid, probably even desirable in some mods.
The base-launched guided missiles use case however less so (IMO). Shooting ICBMs at UFOs sounds rather... strange Aren't ICBMs also more expensive than an average fighter jet with a bunch of air-to-air missiles? (don't know, I never bought one)

I'll leave that to the modders to discuss.
(It's them who'll be implementing it in their mods after all. My opinion is irrelevant here.)

If I had to use ICBMs in a mod they should be very expensive/difficult to produce, and perhaps need an special facility (silo?) and a very expensive maintenance. And as a player I wouldn't use them against a scout, but the bigger & more powerful UFOs, as my last resource. Just as nuclear weapons in all those sci-fi films -in which, at the end, missiles don't are very useful against UFOs  -

On the other hand, unmanned drones shouldn't do a lot of damage, leaning on number & maneuverability and having the handicap of being  -normally- destroyed when hit. they would be a help to weaken UFOs till big crafts come; or to shot down weaker/smaller UFOs.

But, as you said, modders are the ones who should decide how to use this -and help to define what they need-

[efrenespartano]

This sounds really cool, ngl. Some years ago I thought about something like it, tied to the much anticipated "hangar types" feature.

I'd love to have the option to sacrifice my craft in a glorious kamikaze attack.

Or perhaps, a missile base (a small base with just a hangar) could work to farm an alien base. Which... Is already possible! But shooting it with missiles sounds fun!