Modding + QuickFire balance (dev build v0.202.0)

[DukeofRealms]

Greetings,

We've released a dev build that introduces two things:

• Implemented QuickFire balancing project configs as default.

AND:

• This build has been (mostly) unobfuscated, to reduce the barrier for our community to mod StarMade.

See image below for how to install the dev build.

In the next dev build, we will be fixing issues with beams and possibly changing shield mechanics to a customizable shield system (using rectangular dimensions instead of spheres. A bit like the ancient docking zones). This will enable ships to customize their shields a lot better.

Also, the build GUI will be cleaned up and simplified to reflect the config (a lot lighter since distance/bonus etc can be removed). Overall this will make building , in‌ ‌general, lot simpler.


Modding

In an effort to make modding more accessible, we've decided to take a few steps that don't take us a lot of time to implement, but have a massive impact.

What we've done so far:

• As of dev build v0.202.0, StarMade is unobfuscated. (Apart from the new planets scheduled for release in the universe update.)
  
• From the 8th of August till today, we were distributing unobfuscated builds to modders that requested it (this is no longer needed).
  
• Opened a discord channel for modders to communicate what they need to make their projects easier/possible. We want to make sure there's a strong relationship between Schine and the modding community.
  
• Invited members from our own modding community, as well as those from outside it to give their input on how we should go about supporting modding in StarMade.
  
• Released our game's launcher under the MIT license on GitHub. We saw some of our community were trying to modify it to add mod support, so we thought why not release it. (Schine/StarMade-Launcher)
  
• Granted git repo read access to the current lead (NZSmartie) of a modding toolchain and API for StarMade, DistortSM. Also granted the same permissions to gabizou, a lead developer for Sponge (Sponge - Minecraft: Java Edition Modding API) who has expressed interest in helping StarMade modders.

A modding proposal based on the input we received from modders has been created by Zidane and Gabizou from the Minecraft Sponge Team. You can check that out here.

We plan to follow this document when implementing further modding support over the coming months.

Modpack considerations/proposals have been made by progwml6 and Benevolent27 here: modpack format

The input we've received has been keeping in mind the following:

• We want to eliminate as many barriers as reasonably possible before our next major update (universe).
  
• We want to focus most of our efforts on the universe update. However, suggestions that don't take a lot of time for us, but make modders lives a lot easier are fantastic.
  
• Ideally, we can continue to add/modify things that would aid in mod development during/after the universe update.

If you're a modder and would like to give your input on modding in StarMade, we'd love to hear it over on our Discord #modders-dev channel here: Join the StarMade Discord Server!

Alternatively, you can email DukeofRealms here: [email protected]


Thanks to all the modders who helped us

We received a lot of useful feedback and input from modders, we'd like to thank those that helped us so far here:

The Fabric team (asie, sfPlayer1, Prospector, Grondag and modmuss50) who have given us very useful advice for modding, specifically with regards to mod-loaders. Also for accommodating changes to fabric-loader to help DistortSM, a StarMade fork of some of Fabric's projects. Also, thanks to asie for pointing us in the right direction and giving us solid advice to base our ideas for modding support off.

The Sponge team (Zidane, gabizou, progwml6, jamierocks/jmansfield, Katrix and Snowie). Zidane and gabizou for creating the StarMade modding proposal google doc, putting a lot of their own effort/input and collecting others' input from our Discord channel into the document. progwml6 for putting a lot of thought into the security and specifics for mod syncing and modpacks. Katrix and Snowie for sharing their expertise about mod repos, from their development of the Sponge mod repo (Ore).

Thanks to kashike, DemonWav, madmaxoft and Clienthax for joining our Discord modding channel and giving their input on StarMade modding.

Thanks to Benevolent27, Alendon and TheDerpGamerX, members from our own modding community, who have provided invaluable feedback and are working on some awesome projects.

Special thanks to all the people below for enduring the endless number of questions and conversations about modding:

• asie - tons of feedback about modding and considerations we should take about our policies.
  
• jamierocks/jmansfield - above and beyond answering our questions and giving feedback, even in an hours long voice call! Went through an unobfuscated build, giving feedback and input.
  
• gabizou - Gave a ton of input in Discord DMs and our Discord channel. Went through an unobfuscated build, giving feedback and input.
  
• Zidane - Gave a ton of input in Discord DMs and our Discord channel. Started the mod proposal google doc, which is very comprehensive.
  
• progwml6 - Gave a ton of input in Discord DMs and our Discord channel. Created the modpack google doc with Benevolent27, which goes into details that we never would've thought of.
  
• jaredlll08 - Gave a ton of input in Discord DMs and our Discord channel.
• darkhax - Gave a ton of input in Discord DMs and our Discord channel.

Finally, NZSmartie for starting the DistortSM project, which aims to provide a working mod loader (which they've achieved) and a community created API. He's worked with us to help bring modding into StarMade, getting involved in many conversations. He's been a massive help to kickstarting a StarMade modding community.

I’ve tried to include everyone if I missed you, I’m very sorry, we’ll rectify it ASAP



QuickFire project

QuickFire is a community-run project to balance a wide range of systems/features in StarMade. This is done through our extensive configuration files.

For more details about the project, check out our news post about QuickFire from last week here: https://starmadedock.net/threads/cs-quickfire-initiative-rebalancing-starmade.31361/

Important details:

• "Quickfire's configs will not work with vanilla ships. Power costs and proportions of systems and weapons are very different from vanilla, and desirable armor configurations in vanilla (i.e. very little, if any) are potentially very different from what may work well in Quickfire. Some chamber setups will need changes as well. Using this config means a full refit of systems on any existing ships & stations." - QF Team
  
• The config is not completed. "Beware that with the current dev build config, small-ship combat is broken. Armor is simply too powerful at those scales against both beams and cannons. We have revamped the values, but until beams switch to the proper formula, we are not releasing the new config version." - QF Team
• Community-run and always seeking feedback, suggestions, testers etc.
  
• We've put their changes in a dev build because we want to bring exposure to the project, so they are able to get feedback and improve their config. So please give them your feedback in either their Discord server (Join the Starmade Quickfire Initiative Discord Server!) or forum thread (https://starmadedock.net/threads/the-quickfire-initiative-rebalancing-starmade.31326/).
  
• QuickFire configs are always changing, as further testing and feedback are done. Values in this dev build will likely be different in a few days after this news post, a month from now it might be very different. To test the latest QF configs, join their server here: QuickfireSM.com:4242
  
• The goal is to eventually implement well-received config changes the community has made, provided they reach a state where both our community and we are happy with them. This does not necessarily have to be the QF config changes; however, this is the most popular (and only) config pack so far. The QF team have put a lot of effort into their config, reaching out to many different members of our community. They've been testing and taking feedback to create balanced gameplay. Ultimately, we understand that not everyone will be able to come to a consensus on what the "best" settings will be. Whether this is adopted into our release branch depends on your feedback, so again, please give some

Check out our news post about QuickFire from last week here: https://starmadedock.net/threads/cs-quickfire-initiative-rebalancing-starmade.31361/

Important links:

• Latest config files (GitHub) - https://github.com/alterintel/Quickfire
  
• Overview of QF changes - Quickfire Initiative - Config v0.1 Changelog/Overview
  
• A more detailed document of changes and their reasons - Quickfire Initiative - Config v0.1 Full Change Overview + reasons.
  
• QF forum thread - https://starmadedock.net/threads/the-quickfire-initiative-rebalancing-starmade.31326/
  
• QF discord - Join the Starmade Quickfire Initiative Discord Server!

Thanks to the QuickFire team and all those who have/will contribute to the project.

Ithirahad Ivrar'kiim : Lead Tester and Config. Forum thread manager, document writer, and generally unofficial chief keyboard jockey.
Scypio : Lead Tester and Config. Created several tools and utilities to make rapid config changes and publish information to the Discord, and does a lot of testing too.
SchnellBier : Lead promoter, he keeps this discord active and encourages constructive conversation.
Morphix : Founding member. Setup the QuickFire Discord Server.
Benevolent27 : Server and Bot admin and Consultant
Zoolimar : Primary Armor Mechanic and consultant.
ManhattenProject: Primary PVP consultant
IKindaCrashAlot : PVP consultant
Lord_Latterous : PVP consultant
alterintel : QuickFire Sponsor. He pays the bills and provides some technical know-how on the server-side.


Thanks for playing StarMade,

~ The Schine Team

 

[aceface]

Awesome update! Cant wait for it to be in the main release, will hopefully be so much more fun to play with the new configs in survival

 

[StormWing0]

lol right as I'm about to finish the last Trade Station. This should be fun to watch. Kinda want to avoid Building those monsters for Quickfire since it was hard enough getting them up to date. XD

 

[happahappa]

everyone grab your decompiler!! ;-)

 

[Skwidz]

owo more code to stare at

 

[JumpSuit]

everyone grab your decompiler!! ;-)

Someone's still alive...

 

[JakeV]

Very smart decision of the devs to deobfuscate the game

 

[The Quickfire Initiative]

Beware that with the current dev build config, small-ship combat is broken. Armor is simply too powerful at those scales against both beams and cannons.

We have revamped the values, but until beams switch to the proper formula, we are not releasing the new config version.

 

[Scypio]

lol right as I'm about to finish the last Trade Station. This should be fun to watch. Kinda want to avoid Building those monsters for Quickfire since it was hard enough getting them up to date. XD

It alls depends on what is your goal and how you manage it.
If you just look at power consumption the configs should'nt change much regarding that. Reactors/stabs will always produce the same amount and systems that draw power will always take the same amount per blocks.
However, of course we cannot make promises one way or another. Maybe one thing is completely broken without the quickfire community realizing it and needs to see the power consumption changed to be fixed. But i hope this one subject can be set and won't change on the future

 

[Reilly Reese]

Can't wait to see what some people come up with for the game mod wise!

(Wedge consoles, and lights plox?)

 

[Scypio]

https://starmadedock.net/content/sparrow_drone_raider_mb.7719/ had moar RHP with less reaktor and no Stabs!?

RHP doesn't comply to anything. You could get 10 RHP per blocks or 10 000 nothing changes except the number that is displayed on your screen. And i'm pretty sure we didn't changed that.

On the flipside... Mass seems to be back to normal, thats good, but the power consumption just to make a ship move is still... not to mention other systems...

Systems have been skrinked down compared to vanilla. As well as the actual numbers. As such if you want to get as much shields as before or want to have the same amount of blocks you'll have this problem again and again. Theses configs are a whole complete overhaul and if you still want to use the old ways it'll never work.
And of course thrusters have been nerfed because they were completely broken. You just needed like 100 thrusters blocks to move a several k mass ship. Why care about shields or armor if all i need to do is put a few thrusters blocks that take litterally no amount of energy to power and move at the maximum speed.

 

[DukeofRealms]

And of course thrusters have been nerfed because they were completely broken.

Your thruster adjustments from 2 weeks ago are not yet in 202.6.

 

[Scypio]

Your thruster adjustments from 2 weeks ago are not yet in 202.6.

This adjustment is not a real big change that should leave an impact on the game experience in general. But thanks that is noted.

To explain a bit : as mentioned by 12yanogden in our thread the thruster formula was not correct to what it was supposed to be. After a bit of investigation (and a lot of time from my end) i found out that i misunderstood one of the parameters of the formula. So i changed it to be really close to what it was while being a much more friendlier number (was something like 19.54 x nbr^0.79 and i changed it to be now 20 x nbr^0.79). The change is more of a quality of life than anything else.

This mean that for 10 000 thrusters modules you have a deviation of 665 thrusts or close to 2.3% more thrust than before.

 

[Scypio]

An overall loss of reactorHP per m³.

And... ? What's the point ? Your ship lost RHP and what's the problem here ? If you lost RHP everyone else did too. You're not giving any point besides crying at the fact that you lost RHP.

The ship just lost 30³ to stabilizers (deadspace).

Welp. Before you abused the fact that you could still have 100% power efficiency with only 25% stabilization. Now you can't. That's just why. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As there is no more stabilization distance there is no needs to add even more hidden ways to have less and less stabs.

Forget adding more chambers, there is no room left in the ship...

Why is that QF's configs fault ? Your ship is too small for the systems you did put inside or you managed poorly the internal space available it's all. You have to work with the rules you have. You don't change the game's rules because you can't do what you want. Imagine changing the blackjack rules because in your hand because you have a total of 22... ?

ohya: yes BossHoss still a speed demon compared to before...

I never said going fast was no more possible. However going fast is an investment. Plus the curve is much harsher so for really big ships you feel the difference. They still can go at max speed but they'll just be a shell with power and reactors. Something that wasn't the case before. Just for you i got numbers :
In vanilla it's 4 power per thrusters in use.
In QF it's 25 power per thrusters in use.

(currently overheating a ship @ 40% and in less than a minute it disappears = no loot yay!).

Too bad you didn't pasted here the full config line or was it intentional ... ? I prefer to think you just misunderstood the configs.

<OverheatTimerMin>60</OverheatTimerMin> <!-- in seconds -->
<OverheatTimerMax>600</OverheatTimerMax>
<OverheatTimerAddedSecondsPerBlock>0.001</OverheatTimerAddedSecondsPerBlock>

As written quite explicitely, it's 60 seconds for the smallest entities. And the more block there is in the entity the more time it'll take to de-spawn. Not to mention that thoses are QF's number as well as vanilla numbers. Plus it is not really Qf's responsibility to change this config but more server owner's responsibility. As increasing this number will surely result in more entities on the server overall.

I liked power 1.0 and power 2.0, and also understand why many disliked power 2.0.
I find it sad that the work Schema put into power 2.0 is being burned, I thought it was very good.

The fact that you liked something does not mean it was good nor healthy for the game or a potential community. Nor that schema using time to develop something means it's a bad thing to throw it away. We can all make mistakes. The important thing to do is to go forward with what you have. And as we received quite some positive feedback on our thread but also on the discord, i believe we are right in certain of our decisions.
Creativity and users friendliness has always been one of my priority. As proven by all of the easy to catch numbers for the power consumption or so.

 

[Zoolimar]

I think I understand, your goal is to make StarMade the best most realistic space sim possible, and I will have to agree, raising these values will make it more "realistic".

As far as I know no one on QF even once gave a damn about anything realistic.

The main problem is that there is no longer any system HP. As such reactors/stabilisers is the only measure of how "healthy" your ship is. Which means that if you make them small and "realistic" you will have wild swings in how the combat works - as you would not take any reactor damage for the most of the fight and then one or two hits would blow up your whole reactor. Technically good armour and proper reactor placement can deal with that but it is still unpleasant. It also means in most cases there is no way you can retreat - as a couple unlucky hits can core you.

Ability to build multiple reactors with diminishing returns on energy generation as their number grows may have been better but QF works with existent config files.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Is Starmade 2020 closer to completion?

 

[aceface]

Is Starmade 2020 closer to completion?

 

[Lone_Puppy]

View attachment 56433

Thanks man! I forget we can ask Duke.

 

[Agame3]

Whatever you want to do to this game, faster is better. I think there will never be a better time to officially launch a game than this and the next month...

 

[Hugoba]

I'm checking news frequently to see if the universe update is already on :D