StarMade 0.155 (Fixes and Optimization)

[JellyBean]

Engines were switched in StarMade/data/config/blockBehaviorConfig to behave under linear scaling instead of box_dim_mult. Anyone who prefers the 0.14 style engine scaling can edit the relevant line in that file to make the engines powerful.

ahh cheers mate

 

[Majorfatboy]

This is some good, goooooooooood shit right here.

- added change to beam weapons: ability to create burst weapons that are hit scan type weapons with immediate damage on target

.... Someone has been reading My rants. You just made beam weapons awesome and viable!
I see they have partial-convergence now, too. They seem to converge at the horizontal level, in line with the crosshair, but do not align on the vertical plane. I sort of like this, to tell the truth. Some weird issues occur when firing one or more weapons from point A, to converge at point B, while receiving their convergence data from a camera mounted way up on point C, While firing in a three-dimensional world, as perceived by a person viewing from a two-dimensional screen.
Like this, though, I still have the benefits of My beams converging at a single point, I just need to take into account vertical camera-to-weapon distance. Good enough.

BUGS/CLARIFICATION REQUESTS:

-Beams barely use any power:
Even large beam systems seem to just sip power. Is this intentional, or a bug? I set up a test block that I charged with some power gen blocks, then removed said blocks, and found that I could continuously fire a constant 300 damage beam, and the power meter barely budged.
If this is intentional, I sort of like it. AMC's throw bolts of energy like solid projectiles, that do about three times the damage, at the cost of high energy use and the need (in certain situations) to lead ones shots. Beams on the other hand, Are instant-on, instant-hit, energy-efficient systems at the cost of far less (but still viable) damage. This could work.
Unless it's a bug.

-Damage beam system with AMC slave computer requires NO AMC blocks; gives full benefits.
I was going to record a video for this report, but then I remembered MSI Afterburner and 64-bit Java don't play nice together.
On My test block ship, I set up a 60-block Damage beam weapon, with an AMC computer slaved to it. I started out with 60 AMC blocks attached to that, but in the course of My testing, found that I could remove all the amc blocks, and get the best of both worlds: A continuous beam firing full damage! I call it the pornobeam, because just thinking about it gives Me this warm, fuzzy feeling deep down in My..... You know what? Forget it.
As a control, I fitted one of My fighters with two 50-block damage beam systems with just an amc computer, no amc cannon blocks. Same thing. I now had a fighter with two continuous 250-damage beam systems.
..........There's that warm fuzzy feeling, again.....................

-THRUST SYSTEM MULTIPLIER

I see that the thrust system has reverted to post-new hull patch system of thrust rating based on how bulky Your thruster is, instead of the thrust rating based on how far You expand Your thruster along the X, Y, Z planes.
Now, I prefer the bulky/mass system over the xyz system personally, but that's not the issue. What My problem is, is changing the system back and forth like this, and the amount of refit every one of us has to do to get our ships flying again.

You see this ship? It was built on the old (current) thrust system. The engine nacelles were full of thruster blocks. The ship's power/shield system was in the ship's belly.
Then the patch with the xyz thrust system came out. i went from twenty thousand units of thrust, to ninty bajillion. In order to use this ship in any way, I had to refit it. The nacelles were hollowed-out, then occupied with a thin line of thrusters in each co-ord. To make use of all the empty space, I had to move the power/shield system into the nacelles, and turned the now-empty belly into a cargo bay. This took considerable time and effort. Now the system's been reverted. It now has about 350 units of thrust..... On a 4000-mass ship. Am I expected to re-refit this ship again?

We need to know, right now, before any of us go modifying our ships, weather this is working as intended, or a bug.

Here, look upon this poor thing:

It was built on post hull-patch, around the xyz thrust system. From the ground up. It was conceived and built with thruster, power, and shield systems in the nacelles. The hanger was moved up (From the old version) one deck, so the belly could hold a second hanger, built with cosmetics and functionality in mind. It was no small effort. I lost sleep working on this thing. It's hull and engine design drove Me to sore fingers.
If I go through the trouble of refitting it to the 0.155 mass thrust system, losing the second hanger and a small dose of My sanity, only for You guys to switch the thrust system again, You guys are going to see a fat man cry. Cry like a little baby.

Please, for the sweet love of anything You hold dear, confirm what the thrust system currently is, what You want it to be, what Your plans are for it, and weather or not We should be refitting or not.


...Otherwise, good work with the updates and all. I'm just scared shitless to touch My ship's engines, is all.

 

[Calbiri]

Now that the thrust setting is an option in the config, we will leave it as linear from now on. This will help with balancing of the push/pull/stop/overdrive effects as well as the planned thrust controller setup (setting the %'s of directional thrust your ship uses as well as rotational speeds.)

However, the power of the thrust per block may be buffed. I understand this can cause frustration, but I am also asking schema for a player controlled setting to "downscale" the power of a built in ship system, allowing reduction of its use, without forcing you to remove the blocks.

 

[Unnamed25]

So huge ships make less lag now?
Am i right?

 

[Sen OTS Tier]

I'm liking the new beams so far. I'm doing some more testing with them now, but they should make really cool anti-ship lasers. But can you guys make the beam look wider visually, maybe a meter in diameter? I think it would look a lot more impressive then.

Also, you were talking about being able to being able to downscale ship systems like the thrusters. Will this also be implemented for shields? I think it would add another good layer of customization being able to tweak the shield recharge rate, shield capacity, and power consumption of ships. For example, a hit-and-run ship may not need a whole lot of shields since it won't remain within weapon range for very long, but having a good recharge rate would be essential.

 

[Majorfatboy]

Now that the thrust setting is an option in the config, we will leave it as linear from now on. This will help with balancing of the push/pull/stop/overdrive effects as well as the planned thrust controller setup (setting the %'s of directional thrust your ship uses as well as rotational speeds.)

However, the power of the thrust per block may be buffed. I understand this can cause frustration, but I am also asking schema for a player controlled setting to "downscale" the power of a built in ship system, allowing reduction of its use, without forcing you to remove the blocks.

Thanks, I appreciate the response.
Although I prefer this linear system more (big engine = big speed!), for the time being I'm going to stay on box_dim_multi. Everything I've got is running on that, and the weapon system is still in a heavy state of flux, so why rock the boat any more then needed.

Now, I'm off to have all sorts of fun-OH! I mean "testing" with those newly-tweaked damage beams.......................

 

[Ithirahad]

However, the power of the thrust per block may be buffed. I understand this can cause frustration, but I am also asking schema for a player controlled setting to "downscale" the power of a built in ship system, allowing reduction of its use, without forcing you to remove the blocks.

Great news. So: 1: My cruiser won't fly like a turd in a toilet any more, and 2: I can use varying levels of an onboard system... which will be great for RP and other things.

 

[Lecic]

Can we get some words from a dev on whether the extreme amount of damage the beam/pulse system can output (like 2500 damage/e) is a bug or not?

 

[Calbiri]

Can we get some words from a dev on whether the extreme amount of damage the beam/pulse system can output (like 2500 damage/e) is a bug or not?

Its not intended for the default balance of any weapon block to exceed 5dps per block (with a few tertiary effects excepted) the balance of the new beam mechanics may take a few days to get fine tuned.

 

[Izikiel]

Good job guys, bug fixes are always a welcome sight.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

MY GOD! THANK YOU SCHEMA!

Beams are finally like i had imagined. the Pulse is perfect.

Now all thats left is for Beams to scale in size with their damage so i can finally have my DEATH BEAMS!

 

[BDLS]

Are shotgun beams dead now, or just a bug?

Also, will we be able to use the effects of effects computers as a standalone buff when they are also slaved to a primary weapons system?

 

[Unnamed25]

Ok, FINALLY!
Big ship lag was HUGELY decreased!
Just bought the ender on NASS.
Not to mention the 700mil shields..

 

[Commodore]

What does "optimized loading speed of chunks" mean? is it serverside (getting them sent to player faster?) is it compression of sent data? client loading speed?

 

[Unnamed25]

What does "optimized loading speed of chunks" mean? is it serverside (getting them sent to player faster?) is it compression of sent data? client loading speed?

I think its that ships load faster for the client(and reduces loading lag too)

 

[RedDragonflyxx]

I found a bug like the reported "Damage beam system with AMC slave computer requires NO AMC blocks; gives full benefits."-@Majorfatboy (see top of page for original) where I place down a stop computer and one module on a light test bed (core, power gen, thrust, and test object(s)) when I removed everything but the core the message saying that the stop effect was active was still on, also each block removed added to the efficiency value. Unfortunately at the time I had obligations (had to look that word up:p) so I didn't test it further, but I have a screenshot... (This was v0.154) I'll get back once I finish testing

 

[NoK0mm3nt]

Loving the direction of the updates.

Not sure if it has been reported yet or not, but at least for me Salvage cannons are now broken. It appears that all the beams now converge on 1 block and never salvage. Related to the Beam focus changes? At least from what I can see, it almost seems like each beam is competing to 'update' the block, which overrides whatever timing progress the most current beam has made.

 

[RedDragonflyxx]

Loving the direction of the updates.

Not sure if it has been reported yet or not, but at least for me Salvage cannons are now broken. It appears that all the beams now converge on 1 block and never salvage. Related to the Beam focus changes? At least from what I can see, it almost seems like each beam is competing to 'update' the block, which overrides whatever timing progress the most current beam has made.

Yes, I was just about to mention that... Regardless try making Salvage cannons with AMCs as a support, that makes the tick shorter.
IMO there should be an in-game (not config if possible) toggle between converging and not converging because they both have merit for all beams/projectiles.

 

[Rhyssia]

Can we get some words from a dev on whether the extreme amount of damage the beam/pulse system can output (like 2500 damage/e) is a bug or not?

Its not intended for the default balance of any weapon block to exceed 5dps per block (with a few tertiary effects excepted) the balance of the new beam mechanics may take a few days to get fine tuned.

Calbiri
I think Lecic means Damage in comparison to the amount of energy used by the weapon. (Which I think is related to a bug, currently)




Also I believe my 3500 Beam 3500 Pulse Slave 3500 OverDrive flying gun is doing something like 40 DPS (About 10 Mil on a 34-36 second recharge) right now, down from "LOL" in 1.5.4 So, I'm liking the change there.

Spoiler

2,187,500 is the number I see pop up a couple times. so im guessing it's that x 5 on about 35 second recharge so...
2,18...x5 = 10937500 /10500(total block count) = 1041.67 /35 = 29ish damager per block

 

[Energywelder]

You know what? I don't care about whatever anyone else has to say in this thread unless they're agreeing with me. I have a very special craptop, with a 2.6Ghz processor, but it's dual core, which when I first bought the thing, I thought was good. But too few programs that I really like are hyperthreaded, so I could only bring 1.3Ghz to bear on most programs, which made playing this game originally very painful. But sir, your optimizations have not only gotten me out of the sub 5 fps zone, you have skyrocketed me into the very 30fps zone only religious people believe in!!!! I just played 2 hours of V.155, I have refallen in love with this game, my only complaint is I'd like a button that would allow to reset my personal server, as some of the updates have made my last one obsolete, but that is my only complain, in my opinion you can basically stop now, but other people don't want you to, so please go on.