Timeline for a competative patch?

[Control]

So, even though I quit playing starmade about 3 months ago, I continue to check the forums every single night.

Why?
Because this game is 1 step away from being exactly what I want it to be... I just want some PvP fun with purpose.

I already built a massive base on 4-5 different servers, huge titan ships, and destroyed every pirate base my side of the universe... Now what? I instigated wars against other players out of boredom.. Lost some ships, killed some of theirs, and the next day we were both rebuilt and at it again. Immune faction homebase + respawning asteroids + no limit storage = not so much fun for me.

So I don't post this to complain, as much as ask if there is any foreseeable timeline to add some competition to the universe. I saw the shipyards and now jump inhibitors, awesome steps! However there's still 0 reason to use these features as far as I can tell, aside from RP fun &/or if you get really jacked by NPC pirates.

Anyone know how long I need to hibernate if I am waiting till something to fill this gap before I return?
[DOUBLEPOST=1441852756,1441852416][/DOUBLEPOST]Features I mean of course would be:
Uneven resource distribution
Limited Cargo
Non-Respawning Asteroids
Reduction/Removal/Uneven Prices for NPC Shops (uneven prices = playermade trade routes)

Bonus Features That Would Help
Shops can pull from storage
Ship To Ship cargo transfer (use inhib to lock down jumps, EMP/Damage to disable escape, hold ransomed till cargo is transfered to your ship)


Seems like any of these would add a huge element to PVP, but they seem to slip through the cracks of each update.. Just, wanna know if they'll be around in months.. or years



(should note, some of you might know me from the Logic subforum where I was most active, as that seemed to be the 'deepest' element of the game, and where I spent most my thoughtpower and time before :D)

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

Yeah I've been waiting around aswell waiting for any PvP elements. I am tempted to start up a pvp server. Last I remember I can remove shops but it's been so long I'm not sure of what all of is changeable I'll have to have a look. If you have any ideas of anything I can do now server side I'm all ears.

 

[Control]

Removing shops would be HUGE!
Another "workaround" would be somehow disabling asteroids ability to respawn.. This wouldn't effect much the first week or so, but as the center of the system gets mined out, players would be forced to move outward, requiring more faction points..

We know that the bottleneck of building is Shield Blocks, those roids seem to be the only "rare" one, meaning factions would be constantly trying to get these locations, rather than just camping on a system with 20 shops. Factions devoting themselves to combat would need those, opening room for non-combat factions to spend their resources on mining/processing/scouting for resources, this also opens up trade..

If trade exists.. So to does the opportunity to destroy the trade ship containing the goods... Incoming PIRACY! (especially with inhibitors and boarding!)

Those are effects as I see them just from stopping shops and roid respawn...

What other tools do we have? :D

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

There is quite a lot you can do custom script wise and honestly I didn't know asteroids respawned *didn't back when I played* so that should be easy to remove as well. The only problem I have (same problem I always had) is getting a big enough playerbase for it to be viable. There is just a tiny part of the community that want to go full out war then the rest just want to play building simulator 2000. Regardless I'm willing to give it another shot to see if it's viable. Any more ideas you have for balancing or just fun in general? Super OP pirate ships? Player bounties? Hardcore (losing blocks/credits on death)

 

[Control]

I actually just saw another thread that says roid respawn was a bug that's been squished...
That was part of the game the whole time I was around, so if that's gone, that's HUGE!

No shops, and you've got yourself a pretty damn nice universe for faction warfare :D

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

I'm wondering though what if you build a starter ship go out and die and you have nothing left. With no shops what's your options?

 

[Control]

All items drop on death
Pirates and their bases do not need to exist at all (free way to harvest items if they're there)
Player bounties aren't necessary if faction war actually happens.
Ship Size Limit isn't necessary, if items are harder to get and have to be traded, then building a titan becomes quite difficult, and well earned if crated..
Planets don't really even need to be in the game unless they've been fixed. Granted they're useful as a place to build your first base, if players were started with enough credits, or if the price of creating a space station was reduced to 0, then we wouldn't need planets. Not sure what kind of imbalance 0 cost space stations could bring, but I can't see it causing much harm, as I've had billions of credits and no real reason to make superfluous stations.
Keep home-base invulnerability (non combat players are vulnerable while traveling and mining)
If faction point cost can be adjusted (more cost, less generation) that'd be awesome. A single player faction should not be able to afford more than one sector.

I'm still thinking about this.. I'll get back to you later tonight when I'm not at work :D
Very happy to hear someone else is on the same page I am!
[DOUBLEPOST=1441860312,1441860275][/DOUBLEPOST]

I'm wondering though what if you build a starter ship go out and die and you have nothing left. With no shops what's your options?

Get taken in by a faction
Or, float toward a roid/planet and start mining by hand.

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

Well if you have teamspeak we could go into more detailed discussion otherwise PM me and we can do the same thing there. I'm completely up for giving a server a shot. If anyone else has any ideas feel free to toss them in the pot.

 

[Control]

Yeah here's hoping it's not just the two of us shooting lasers at eachother
[DOUBLEPOST=1441860835,1441860674][/DOUBLEPOST]PS is there a link to a list of parameters can be changed serverside?

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

Not sure if there is a link but there is a config file and a block properties file. Not sure where they are or if they have been moved/more added ect. Been a while since I played with it.

 

[spunkiethefirst]

Asteroids no longer re-spawn or at least they shouldn't re-spawn since a few versions ago.

 

[Dire Venom]

only problem is that no asteroid spawning is TERRIBLE for new players.... theyll spawn in, and all the sectors around spawn will be devoid of any mining... theyll have to travel 100's of km on foot to get to the asteroid belts... its already started happening on some servers..

 

[Zaphord]

Losing everything on death wouldnt be so bad as long as you can always have access to a starter ship for free, that way you're not starting right from scratch everyone you get nuked.
I think there is a server setting you can change to have players start with a free filled blueprint of a ship when they first spawn or when respawning after death too.

 

[XyNox]

I really like this thread, I can completely relate to this. We have so, so many features in the game already to build big, nice, versatile ships but way too little incentive to actually leave our bases and use them.

IMO the most important things that need to be done in order for Starmade to evolve into a full game instead of a building sandbox:


FACTION PERMISSIONS

The base of it all. Just because of the sheer size of ships, space and all the mechanics in the game currently that allow for building multicrew ships, faction permissions need to get a fine tune. There are permissions required for entering cores but thats about it. For every person you invite to your factions you run the risk of finding your base/ships completely plundered and destroyed the next day you login.

A faction ranksystem is needed that allows you to specify what rank is required to: open certain chests, build blocks, remove blocks, enter ships, open doors, etc.

Without such a system I doubt ever to see big factions on servers unless they are friends in RL. I certainly wont invite random people to my faction because of this. Playing all by yourself though, the game cannot really be enjoyed IMO.


TRADE SYSTEM

Same thing as above, trading currently completely revolves around trust. Nobody is guaranteeing you that the other person keeps his part of the bargain and just runs off with your goods. No trade system that prevents scamming/stealing = little incentive to trade, no large scale trading happening on servers. This is a real pitty since trading is such a fundamental thing to do in most games and especially in Starmade it should be.

A trading system in form of a window where both traders have to hit an agree-button when close together or a trade-terminal-block where astronauts have to press R on to trade with other people would help a great deal to add this fundamental game element.

With the upcoming ( somewhere in the future ) cargo system this would go hand in hand perfectly.


Even without any overhauls of homebase immunity or adding endgame content, these 2 simple changes alone would already be a huge step towards a more playable game.

 

[Control]

only problem is that no asteroid spawning is TERRIBLE for new players.... theyll spawn in, and all the sectors around spawn will be devoid of any mining... theyll have to travel 100's of km on foot to get to the asteroid belts... its already started happening on some servers..

Like in real life, when you're born, and all the land is already taken.. all the oil and gold has been drilled... And you have to get a job doing something you don't like.. like being a dentist... or yeah, wander off into the wilderness quite far.
I don't see a problem with this. If you're new, join a faction, or point your ship "that way" and get flying. If you can't afford to claim a sector with roids on your first night, boo hoo. Stick with it 2-3 nights and you'll be fine. With default server settings, it takes less than an hour to fly to near the edge of the galaxy, im sure finding roids will never be that hard

I really like this thread, I can completely relate to this. We have so, so many features in the game already to build big, nice, versatile ships but way too little incentive to actually leave our bases and use them.

IMO the most important things that need to be done in order for Starmade to evolve into a full game instead of a building sandbox:


FACTION PERMISSIONS

TRADE SYSTEM

Even without any overhauls of homebase immunity or adding endgame content, these 2 simple changes alone would already be a huge step towards a more playable game.

My "team" and I got around this by using the shop. You can adjust your personal shop to accept currency other than credits. We allowed trading in shield blocks, so if you came to our system you could trade for just about any block you wanted, but had to pay in shield blocks. The items "poof" out of your inventory, and go into the shop, and the items poof from the shop to your inventory. No trust issues what so ever.

However you'd still have to transport those items there.... Meaning someone clever could figure out your route, and be waiting with warp inhib :D
[DOUBLEPOST=1442063351,1442063212][/DOUBLEPOST]I feel like there seem to be "work arounds" for every issue we're all having with desiring combat, yet... im still not excited.

What is it? What is missing!?

 

[StormWing0]

Well a lot of these could be simple config file additions so it'd be interesting to say the least. The Devs could bring the asteroid respawn bug back as a controllable feature where we could set the time sectors would have to be unloaded in hours for them to respawn, add that to the configs as well so setting it to -1 or 0 turns it off. As for turning off shops.......not the spawn shop at least but the others yes.

 

[Dire Venom]

The problem is that a lot of players who join servers im on have very little idea what theyre doing, and require a lot of help.
If they knew what theyre doing itd be ok, but most of them dont a quickly lose interest and leave.
I think removing all asteroid spawning was a bad idea, it should be in the config settings so each server can chose, thus everyone is happy.

The new players dont know that they dont resapwn... and I spoke to one who said he spent over an hour trying to find an asteriod to mine so he could buy a jumpdrive.... then gave up and left the server.
Dont expect new players to always be logical

 

[SkylordLuke]

Losing everything on death wouldnt be so bad as long as you can always have access to a starter ship for free, that way you're not starting right from scratch everyone you get nuked.
I think there is a server setting you can change to have players start with a free filled blueprint of a ship when they first spawn or when respawning after death too.

you lose everything in your inventory on ShatteredSkies server,it works pretty well,99% of players are ok with that

 

[StormWing0]

The problem is that a lot of players who join servers im on have very little idea what theyre doing, and require a lot of help.
If they knew what theyre doing itd be ok, but most of them dont a quickly lose interest and leave.
I think removing all asteroid spawning was a bad idea, it should be in the config settings so each server can chose, thus everyone is happy.

The new players dont know that they dont resapwn... and I spoke to one who said he spent over an hour trying to find an asteriod to mine so he could buy a jumpdrive.... then gave up and left the server.
Dont expect new players to always be logical

So much this. Adding in Respawning of asteroids and planets by some kind of natural phenomena would help and also give the devs a way to explain away the reason for things appearing out of the ether. Could do the same thing for loot drops, in the case of the loot coming from the core ejecting an NPC pilot that can be killed to gain loot from it's inventory would help there, ships, turrets, and stations with storages would also have a good chance for loot to spawn in those inventories as well. Thus giving the devs several ways out and also explaining away several things behind items appearing from the void.

 

[spunkiethefirst]

Last i heard asteroid respawns are not permanently removed and that faction points might be used to restock them in the future, but that is all hearsay from a friend's cousin's barber's dog's nephew's owner's friend named bob.

Also if you want you could pm me what servers this is occurring on and I'll tow some asteroids to spawn if necessary.