Resources ReSourced 0.9.7 - Bussard

🛈 This version was built on StarMade version v0.203.106 and later. As of the time of release, that is a development build. It is unknown if this version will work on previous release builds.

Good(?) news everyone: The Trading Guild just got greedier. yaaaaay...

Resources ReSourced v0.5 introduces new pricing mechanics. The prices of each item will vary throughout the universe based on resource availability.

• Shops in the "Galactic Barrens" - that is, outside of any resource zone - will have higher sale prices to players, and lower sell prices to the shop. There is comparatively little demand in these celestial backwaters, and moving inventory out there is a great expense to the Guild. Therefore that cost must be passed on to clients, or so they claim.
• Shops in the Galactic Core will charge a moderate premium, and give somewhat lower offers than 'fair market value' for player-sold goods - not nearly as bad as in the barrens, though.
• Shops in other resource zones will have discounted prices based on how much of the native special resource is included in the manufacture of that block. They also have the lowest overall markup on sale prices. However, they will charge a premium per capsule of "foreign" resource required. Consequently, you will find that you can sell items which require large amounts of foreign rare resources at shops in resource zones for a considerable profit.

TL;DR: All blocks and items are more expensive in the galactic barrens. They are somewhat less expensive in the core region. They are especially cheap in resource zones that contain the stuff used to manufacture them.

Also, the trading guild are greedy bastards and set massive 50% markups over the standard value on their sale price out in the barrens. It's not as bad in resource zones, though. (10% plus import fees, minus local discount)

The new shop pricing should make freighters and cargo-hauling gameplay more viable, as any manufactured resources you want to sell will likely be most profitable in specific parts of the galaxy. You also have the option of simply buying in one region and selling in another (or in the galactic core) to turn a profit without running your own manufacturing base.

...Just watch out for those pesky player pirates!

🛈 Unfortunately, these changes are only guaranteed to work with stick shops. NPCs, the Trade Network system, and random Trading Guild stations' pricing will likely be unaffected. I will work on this for subsequent patches.

The v0.5 release also includes an internal rework of extractor functionality. Rather than independent virtual objects representing each extractor station or planet plate, passive resource sources now simply keep a list of extractor records that can be updated over time and then matched back up to physical entities on load. This system should not be as liable to random unloaded extractor disconnections, and should also be easier to maintain and diagnose should more problems and bugs arise.

You will need to load all of your extractor stations/planets/etc. in order to subscribe them to the new system and let them start collecting resources again (provided the new version didn't accidentally turn them into some other block), but otherwise the gameplay functionality should be unchanged.

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The location-based shop pricing system was the final major core feature for Resources ReSourced.

Consequently, I will likely be adding proper block icons and the personal weapons factory in minor patches to come, and then slowing development on the mod. Any further updates before v1.0 will be focused primarily on bug fixing, balance, stability, and polishing the existing feature set. The other major goal for RRS moving forward is to create a proper wiki for the mod that explains all of its features in detail.

This is primarily because I have now checked all of the major boxes I had set internally for basic RRS features. All of the non-completed major features that remain, such as advanced fog-of-war and exploration mechanics, per-system generation variation within zones, AI faction resource management revamps, and better VFX for gas giants and extractors, are relatively low-value for long term gameplay and also push the boundaries of StarMade as a game far more than what I have already implemented in the mod as of today.
While I plan to work on all of those features as time goes on, it will be lower-priority as I also have another StarMade project of far greater gameplay value on the horizon...

In the meantime, thanks once again for testing Resources ReSourced. Developing this thing has been, and continues to be, a journey and a learning experience for me as a player and as a programmer. I hope you all enjoy the mod and what it brings to StarMade.

-Ithirahad Ivrar'kiim

Minor Fixes/Changes:

• (Hopefully) Prevented extractors from overflowing. Make sure that your Vapor Siphons and Magmatic Extractors have enough cargo attached to THEM (not linked storages; RRS can't detect those) in order to not lose the resources they gained when unloaded.
• Disabled factories on asteroids due to StarMade error (will reenable in the future if fixed)
• Disabled extractors on ships (fundamental technical problems; may create active extractor rays later)
• Fixed capsules being placed into the 'Decorative non-cubic' category as opposed to manufacturing
• Fixed extractor placeholder items having negative volumes (normally unobtainable, but still can create problems)
• Fixed an internal function bug that may have been causing numerous universe issues, including inconsistent galaxy generation and server universe desync under certain circumstances

Coloured rocks and their carved counterparts should now be fully compatible with RRS factories. Also a bit of internal cleanup on extractor logic, but unless that by chance fixes the mysterious issues with extractor persistence, it shouldn't have any actual effect ingame.

Capsules will no longer be craftable in the Block Assembler from basic resources. Also reverted gas-planet placement fix that didn't actually fix gas planet placement (in some cases creating worse issues). Will explore this further at a later date.

There is also some debug information for a mysterious bug that was plaguing the SoE server. If either of those debug messages shows up, please notify me (Ithirahad) of the occurrence and the context/situation which triggered it.

I somehow managed to confuse an inventory icon ID with a block ID. Nice job, me. :|

In order to attempt to alleviate issues with persistence/matching failures on unloaded harvesting, passive resource harvesters (Magmatic Extractors and Vapor Siphons) now function on a per-entity basis. Hopefully this update marks the end of the persistence issues that have plagued the mod since the beginning, but... I don't have much hope at this point, to be honest. If it's not... well, I will keep on with trying to fix it in the next builds.

Per these new changes, adding more Magmatic Extractors or Vapor Siphons to a single entity does not boost output, it simply splits the output per extractor by dividing by the number of extractors of the same type on the entity (including disabled ones). This is not advised. For the foreseeable future I will be designing the mod with the expectation of only one extractor block per station or planet plate, and later versions of RRS may directly purge excess extractor blocks from entities completely, leaving only one. For these reasons, I'd advise only using one to begin with.

Other features and fixes:

• RRS extractors should now be automatically removed from ships upon placement or loading.
  -While I understand the appeal of extractors on ships, the internal mechanics of passive extractors simply did not accommodate moving entities properly and would've created orphaned 'phantom' extractor records that couldn't be easily removed or prevented. In later update, there may be alternative, active harvesting options for ships to draw resources from passive sources.
• The faction Mining Bonus mechanics now apply to passive resource harvesting.
  - This bonus is applied the same as in vanilla mining, on a per-extractor basis. It does not affect the base output of resource sources themselves, only the amount of items generated by extractor blocks.
• Capsule Refineries now refine passively-obtained resources Anbaric, Thermyn, and Parsyne at lower efficiency (to compensate)
  -May be changed in the future.
• Passive resource sources now generate significantly less resources. (This is also to compensate for the dramatic increase offered by mining bonus)
• RRS blocks should have basic shop prices now.
  -I added these by seemingly the same method before, but reverted it as there was no apparent effect... not sure why this didn't work previously.
• RRS resource capsules and resources should no longer look super janky when placed.
  -They now copy the properties of vanilla capsules, and look identical to them. Textures may change eventually...
• Fixed gas giants spawning in the same sector as terrestrial planets (may inadvertently relocate some or all gas giants in a few systems)
  EDIT: Did not actually fix. Had to revert change.
• Fixed RRS factories not being accessible in build mode

• "Fix" for unspawnable blueprint issue. I now suspect that this is StarLoader related and not something I can practically fix, but at the very least there is a semi-fix provided in RRS now. If you encounter a blueprint that is completely full but the "spawn" button is still disabled, simply exit and rejoin the game, and you should at least be able to attempt a blueprint spawn and get most of your items back.
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• Added a bit of code to migrate unloaded extractors in case a resource source (gas giant, star, planet, etc.) gets its internal data changed by some RRS generation update. Should reduce the need to reload/unload extractors under odd circumstances to get them to generate materials again.

No new content/features with this patch. Just another attempt to fix desynch bugs by removing global state variables (i.e. recorded information that may accidentally get "stuck" and pass between galaxies or other procedural constructs depending on load order) from the mod's galaxy generation tech and replacing them with per-galaxy/per-system/per-zone information. Hopefully scanners and multiplayer generation inconsistency should be fixed, but unfortunately there are likely more issues to sort out.

Also, clients that were getting ArrayOutOfBoundsExceptions on join may no longer encounter those issues. Other problems will probably appear though, as StarLoader does not appear to properly maintain block configuration consistency. I'll have to look into this more as well.

As always, report any new bugs.

WARNING: Your galaxies' zone names will be changed, and RRS features (zones, gas giants, etc.) may be rearranged. I attempted to avoid this and I apologize if it does happen, but I can't guarantee that it won't.

This version introduces a new map system. Rather than a spiderweb of lines, Resource Zones are displayed as rings around their principal star. Mousing over the star or focusing on any contained system on the map will display an indicator around all star systems in the Zone. Clicking on a zone ring will "pin" the zone. Clicking elsewhere will unpin it.

This map system is made possible by IR0NSIGHT's MapMarkerUtils library. Thanks a lot!

BUG: NPC territory boxes will prevent gas giant icons within them from being visible. This seems to be an issue inherent to StarLoader map drawer systems. To see gas giants in NPC territory, simply disable faction territory display in the map GUI panel.

OTHER CHANGES:

• Added a few more zone adjectives/name possibilities
• Potentially fixed some generation determinism issues
• Fixed a persistence bug wherein any resource sources in use would be reset upon loading/generation (sources will now only reset if resource types at that sector change)
• Fixed issue with overtaxed passive resource sources never assigning resources to extractor profiles

After this (and any associated hotfixes) I hope to finally begin work on getting shop prices and inventory in line with RRS's zones. The plan is for things made with local resources to be cheaper and more plentiful, while things made with foreign resources are more expensive and uncommon.

Spoiler: No promises, but...

In the farther future, the positioning of shops (and other non-player stations) may be changed as well, as part of another planned mechanic wherein each star system gains a 'subtype', such as "local trade hub", "mining center", "industrial center", "undeveloped", and more.

Old factories and manufacturing materials (Paints, hardeners) will now appear properly in shops and the Creative Mode inventory. Costs may need balancing, but that's a story for another day...

Reverted most of previous build's changes, except for the mod recipe and circuitry recipe fix. Unknown and nigh-untraceable map error on the Skies of Eden server forced this temporary revert in order to maintain a functional gameplay experience.