Dev Blog : February 13th 2016

    Bench

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    We're back with another Dev Blog. It's been a little while since we had one but it's now the right time to have one.

    Firstly the big question, no there's no new build release for this weekend. Why? We're entering into more complex features being added, brand new ones that require a lot more programming to implement and therefore a lot more testing to resolve bugs. In this case fleets is something completely brand new and it's taking time to implement.

    Since we've just had the start of 2016, you may have been away for holidays, or you may be brand new to the game. Either way there's a couple things that you should probably be aware of and/or check out.

    Firstly if you're new you'll want to take a look at our Development Direction, that describes a lot of our plans for the game, not in great detail, but just a taste. Along with that is what our focus is mostly on during this particular season. It's worth checking out if you haven't already.

    Secondly you may have seen it, or not, but our long awaited new launcher has come into open beta. You can finally get your hands on with it, test it out, experience some of the features it has and more. There'll be bugs no doubt so make sure you let us know by reporting them here.

    As developers we have to do a lot of stuff behind closed doors, but not everything. Our in-game assets team is constantly working on new ships and stations for you to encounter in-game. Criss streams a lot of the builds, as does Saber, so make sure to check them out on Twitch or on Twitter.

    Finally you may have noticed that we now have a new council. Our player council is a group of seven community-elected players who help be a community voice to the developers, and also assist the developers in interacting with the community. They do this through a number of means. They read through all the suggestions that come through, discussing themselves the merits or answering to ones that are repeats of ones that have been previously suggested, and pass them on with summaries to the dev team to review. They also discuss balancing issues with our dev team, vote on badges to give to community members to acknowledge their hard work or creativity, organise Q&As and discussions and other ways to connect community with Schine. You need only jump into our suggestions forum to see how many threads they've read.

    The council, specifically SkylordLuke, has setup one mega-thread where you can see a summary of all the suggestions that Schine has received and responded to over the years. This is a great resource for new and old players alike to help paint a picture of some of what may or may not make it into the game.

    Fleets is the next update coming out, and it's taking a bit longer to implement as mentioned above. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't hear a couple details about it. StarMade is primarily a space game, with ships, and so it naturally falls that fleets be the progression from that. With the ease of being able to make ships, it should be fairly easily to make fleets. Creating a fleet is as easy as a click or two, and adding members to that fleet equally as so. Each fleet has what's called a flagship, this is the primary ship that the other ships in the fleet position around and follow. That's all for now, just a taste of what's to come. Needless to say it's exciting times.

    Fleets is the first example that some features are going to take a bit longer to implement than just two-weeks, and that's a good thing, as it means that they're not only implemented more robustly but also that it's such a new experience and feature to the game that we all know and love that it makes exploring the new feature so much more intriguing.

    Be patient, and know what we have in store is good. We look forward to being able to share it with you and all our plans as they come to fruition.


    - Bench & The Schine Team
     

    StormWing0

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    FIRST!!! :) :) :)
    ----------------------
    When is the dev build coming up anyways so we can break it early? :p
     

    Crimson-Artist

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    great! i still have time to work on my super amazing chair joke!
     

    alterintel

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    Thanks Bench,
    Looking forward to all the awesome changes in the works. :)
     

    Blaza612

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    Bloody hell, I just cannot contain my excitement. I'm currently debating inside myself whether Star Citizen will be able to top the final product of this game. Seriously, the possibilities of what this will turn out to be is just beautiful. :u
     

    StormWing0

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    Anything on this list you can say yes/no to for the first patch with Fleets?

    • AI Docking? (As in we tell the AI what Rail Groups it can dock with somehow like an AI version of the Permission Modules but it can link to things by C&V)
    • AI Mining? (Yes We're Lazy and we know it. :P )
    • In Territory Patrols?
    • AI Using Warpgates?
    • AI Using Jump Drives?
    • Fleet Sizes Min/Max?
     
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    Fleet Sizes Min/Max?
    no limit I hope,I mean I dont see a reason.
    Its not like they will need human level AI in them to do such simple stuff as stay close to mothership or fly around hahahah
    (I hope so :/ )
     

    StormWing0

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    no limit I hope,I mean I dont see a reason.
    Its not like they will need human level AI in them to do such simple stuff as stay close to mothership or fly around hahahah
    (I hope so :/ )
    If they do put a limit in they should make it configurable.

    In the case of limits I'd say each Command Ship should be able to have X number of ships in its local fleet while the Command Ship can be part of another ship's Fleet and not affect that ship's fleet limit. :) So say it was set to something like 25 ships a command ship and we have a single main command ship commanding 25 ships that are commanding their own 25. :)
     
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    Reilly Reese

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    Bench
    Why not release heat shielding now rather than with the fleet update?

    Give these test fanatics something to poke.
     
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    Criss

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    • AI Docking? (As in we tell the AI what Rail Groups it can dock with somehow like an AI version of the Permission Modules but it can link to things by C&V)
    • AI Mining? (Yes We're Lazy and we know it. :p )
    • In Territory Patrols?
    • AI Using Warpgates?
    • AI Using Jump Drives?
    • Fleet Sizes Min/Max?
    1 - No idea. Probably something we will have to deal with down the line.

    2 - AI factions will need to mine. It's probably not the first reason we want to incorporate fleets but I imagine you can designate some of them to mine while you are away sometime down the line.

    3 - You will be able to protect territory with fleets, that is one of their purposes.

    4 - There is no reason to think they shouldn't be able to use warpgates or other systems. We might not be seeing this physically at first. Depends on which end of fleets Schema wants to tackle first.

    5 - See #4

    6 - If the only requirement is a flagship, then the minimum is 1. I do not believe there will be a maximum to fleet size. None that we have discussed or that I know of. There may be a quasi cap on size based on the number of ships loaded in an area. If ships are lost in a fleet maybe more from that fleet can arrive as backup? We can't have an entire fleet of 100s of ships in the same place is all I'm saying.
     

    Crimson-Artist

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    in terms of time needed would you say that another two week cycle is in order or are we in a "As soon as its ready" release schedule? I'm just as hyped for the possible filming capabilities that AI fleets can have as well as the gameplay implications
     
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    Blakpik

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    Your hard work is showing, Bench. You must be really tired, this blog is a grammatical trainwreck at times, get some sleep when you can, okay?
     

    Bench

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    Your hard work is showing, Bench. You must be really tired, this blog is a grammatical trainwreck at times, get some sleep when you can, okay?
    I was probably tired from just waking up.
     

    Master_Artificer

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    Your hard work is showing, Bench. You must be really tired, this blog is a grammatical trainwreck at times, get some sleep when you can, okay?
    Live from the traffic-copter, we bring you an exciting news bulletin!
    A run-on sentence is currently mid chase around the county 5 interstate with police in hot pursit. People have been urged to be careful texting while driving in that area. This was the traffic-copter, back to you station!
     

    Blakpik

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    Live from the traffic-copter, we bring you an exciting news bulletin!
    A run-on sentence is currently mid chase around the county 5 interstate with police in hot pursit. People have been urged to be careful texting while driving in that area. This was the traffic-copter, back to you station!
    Someone noticed and thus, I have been spotted, if I am to hide, I must ensure that I do not continue to write any sentenced that might arise suspicion, such actions could be disastrous, wait, I see now how the previous person has actually spelt 'pursuit' wrong, thus continuing the battle of our own failures in communication with regards to the rules of the English language.
     

    therimmer96

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    So is this in replacement of the update due today?