Thruster changes

[therimmer96]

As you are going to be well aware, the new thruster system is a massive nerf. The public chat seems split on the opinion of this new system, and a lot of the people actually ingame I have seen have had huge problems with this change.

This clearly isnt clear data that can be shown to devs to say that things are wrong. Lets fix this

Some people are saying that this can be fixed by server admins. But should it? Surely the idea of the blueprint system being able to go across servers is that you can take the same ships with you. This means that it should behave the same on server A as it does on server B. Changing the config on server A and not B would mean that the game is no longer generic, and the same no matter where you play.

If you think the thrust should be done differently to any previous or current system, explain why below. Feel free to post your opinion. This is something Calbiri has refused to do. Lets utilise these new forums and actually come to a decision as to how the game should be as a community. after all, we play the game, we pay for the game. Shouldnt more people have a say in what happens to the game?

 

[KiloZulu]

The admin for my server hasn't been able to find any new config settings for the thrusters beyond the old one for setting max speed on servers. I also agree with your point that the default server settings should present a standard across all servers. It's fine if an admin wants to tweak a setting or two, but it shouldn't be a necessity.

On the whole, and perhaps I should be putting this in the suggestions forum, they need to do a better job of introducing updates. News of impending changes should be announced well prior to the release, and any mechanics should be clarified so that players can readily adopt to those changes. Right now, I'm digging through the forums and the game menus trying to figure out if there is something I'm supposed to be doing differently for thrusters. A brief description, rather than the cryptic and opaque patch notes we received, would save everyone a lot of headache.

 

[CyberTao]

therimmer96
Calbiri admitted there was a Mistake in the Coding :u a Value was set to 0.1 instead of 1.1

on line 43 of your BlockBehaviorConfig, replace the 0.1 with <UnitCalcMult>1.1</UnitCalcMult> <!-- multiplied with result of UnitCalcStyle -->

should be fixed in the next patch o -o

 

[Calbiri]

http://starmadedock.net/threads/starmade-v0-158.1711/page-2#post-24422

 

[Calbiri]

Thanks for discussing this, rather than just blasting me! Its a bit of a releif to not get hate mail over a config number.

 

[Ithirahad]

Once again, Cal, sorry about all the raging. It just seemed totally ridiculous at the time.

 

[KiloZulu]

Thanks for discussing this, rather than just blasting me! Its a bit of a releif to not get hate mail over a config number.

You wont' get hate from me. The game is in development, and I hope everyone realizes that we have to roll with the changes. I hope any criticisms I present are constructive in nature.

 

[Keptick]

Sorry if me discussing may be harsh Calbiri . I was just getting slightly annoyed with people claiming that people defending the old system were just trying to protect their "lolOpgiantshipz-o-DOOM"

My belief is that people like to go fast. Making it hart to achieve simply isn't fun. As for the "this renders bigger ships harder to use" argument, the biggest ship I've ever seen in a server fight was about 300m long... Mega ships are mostly used for RP but are now crippled due to the diminishing returns system. Forcing players to fill up more interior space with thrusters (which just sucks imho).

Ps: Did you actually get hatemail??? Calbiri

 

[therimmer96]

Calbiri
I just tested the new patch out, and thrust is still terrible. Is there an option I can turn on/off to make the game revert to the linear thrust settings, because my config says linear, but it is default. -_-

This game is supposed to encourage all game styles, yet this update has nerfed anything bigger than a fighter. I know the configs allow for tweaking, but the vanilla config should not be this bad.

 

[Yetimania]

Three thruster changes ago, my 200m, 30,000 mass ship (big, but not a super duper mega titan or anything) had 1000 or so thrusters and achieved gajillions of thrust. This was probably too much. Power was the main limitation, so the real check on large ship speed was how much power you could get, which was hard after the first million.

Then thrusters were changed to increase more linearly, not based off of bounding boxes. I added several thousand thrusters in empty spaces (the ship was still a work in progress then) and got a large amount of thrust. The server cap is 250, and I could hit around 270 with overdrive blocks after lengthy acceleration.

Then thrusters were nerfed into unusability, but this was a bug. However, after the intended fix, and after today's thruster buff (though I haven't actually noticed a difference), I decided to try to add more thrust to get my ship back up to speed. I've filled in all interior spaces, removed all non-critical rooms and hallways, and, in total, increased the mass by +20% with thrusters *alone*. There are 64,520 thrusters on this ship in total now (for scale, there are only 50 thousand shield capacitor blocks and 20 thousand shield generator blocks) and my thrust is a paltry 27,579. My Thrust-to-Weight ratio is a mere 2:3, and I can't get past 80km/h. That's about seventy shops worth of thrusters (fortunately I had a decent recipe).

I really like this ship. It's very pretty. But it's unusable, even after refitting, because of how damn slow it is. Sector size is 5km, and a few versions ago, regular ships could cruise along at a reasonable speed and specialized overdrive ships could zip around. I didn't see anybody complaining about this state of affairs at all.

There are a lot of things that make capital ships very powerful, primarily that, without an economy yet, they are really easy to get. But nobody, to my knowledge, was arguing that the ability to simply get from point A to point B in them was overpowered. I'm okay with slow acceleration. I'm okay with lower shields. I'm okay with diminishing returns for power. But why the heck do they have to crawl around? It's not game balance at that point, it's a test of patience. StarMade isn't my full-time job, I don't have hours to sit around holding down 'w' just to get to where I want to go (and god help me when it comes time to go home after).

People's opinions on numbers probably vary, but I'd be strongly in favour of at least a +50% thruster buff across the board.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Thanks for discussing this, rather than just blasting me! Its a bit of a releif to not get hate mail over a config number.

One thing I have noticed is thrusters no longer get group benefits, is this an intended feature or a bug that should be reported?

 

[Ithirahad]

After some thinking about it, I like the first 'new' change. The further nerfs just made things harder on everyone for no good reason, but the boxdim thrusters were a bit OP.

EDIT: After discussing things with Tn44 (of all people!) on SM chat, I've began to agree that the only real issue is damping. The thrust scaling is a little harsh, but acceleration and top speed with linear damping are completely screwed up. What we need, as I said a few times before, is some way to toggle linear damping. Then all of this bitching and whining will stop, and thrust and whatnot will make many times more sense.

 

[Yetimania]

After some thinking about it, I like the first 'new' change. The further nerfs just made things harder on everyone for no good reason, but the boxdim thrusters were a bit OP.

EDIT: After discussing things with Tn44 (of all people!) on SM chat, I've began to agree that the only real issue is damping. The thrust scaling is a little harsh, but acceleration and top speed with linear damping are completely screwed up. What we need, as I said a few times before, is some way to toggle linear damping. Then all of this bitching and whining will stop, and thrust and whatnot will make many times more sense.

By linear damping, do you mean space friction? If so, I absolutely agree. If not, I might agree. It depends on what you mean by linear damping.

 

[thakyZ]

Well I think it is better because bigger ships with not that many thrusters on it (or not enough) will not go as fast but there could be still an issue of how much thrust you have compared to your mass... Because I had a ship of 5,000 mass and there were a lot of thrusters on it but it couldn't fly past 70.x km/h

 

[0ldSkull]

One thing I have noticed is thrusters no longer get group benefits, is this an intended feature or a bug that should be reported?

Actually it looks like there is a penalty, or severely diminishing returns.

28 blocks: 56.2 thrust
108 blocks: 165.6 thrust
4065 blocks: 3016.7 thrust​

For a bit of perspective, the smallest one above is a salvage pod (fully hulled) which is 8% thrusters. It has twice as many thrusters as shields. The only choice here would be to give up more salvagers (already did some to add thrusters in the refit). The idea was to have some light shielding for the first shot or two, and good maneuverability to get in/get out/run away. It now has not enough of either. In another post I suggested that having some insight on design intentions would be helpful, because what seems reasonable to me (i.e. was reasonable) is not really viable any more.

Things might improve some with the coming block-mass changes, but can't tell right now. I'm not sure what the purpose would be in applying one side of a balance change (thrust) without/before the other side (mass) which would balance it out. If I have to redesign, it will help to know what kind of ratios they are shooting for.

 

[Yetimania]

Things might improve some with the coming block-mass changes, but can't tell right now. I'm not sure what the purpose would be in applying one side of a balance change (thrust) without/before the other side (mass) which would balance it out. If I have to redesign, it will help to know what kind of ratios they are shooting for.

I fully agree. Are our ships "supposed" to be 1/10 thruster? 1/5? 1/2? I like building, but I want to know where to shoot for when I do. Once I know what they're aiming for, I can design ships for that, and just wait for the balancing to work itself out so that that ship is effective. But my guess of what is 'reasonable' is, so far, quite different from the devs--I sort of thought 1/5 thruster was on the fast side(between exterior hull, interior hull, decorative lava and ice and stuff, shield capacitors, shield generators, hangars, weapons, weapon supports, weapon effects, defensive effects, power generators, and power storage, there's a lot of things demanding blocks) with 1/10 thruster or so being reasonable. But I've got ships that are 1/5 thrust now that don't have enough shields to protect themselves from enemy attacks, don't have enough power to power their shields, and can hardly move.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Actually it looks like there is a penalty, or severely diminishing returns.

28 blocks: 56.2 thrust
108 blocks: 165.6 thrust
4065 blocks: 3016.7 thrust​

For a bit of perspective, the smallest one above is a salvage pod (fully hulled) which is 8% thrusters. It has twice as many thrusters as shields. The only choice here would be to give up more salvagers (already did some to add thrusters in the refit). The idea was to have some light shielding for the first shot or two, and good maneuverability to get in/get out/run away. It now has not enough of either. In another post I suggested that having some insight on design intentions would be helpful, because what seems reasonable to me (i.e. was reasonable) is not really viable any more.

Things might improve some with the coming block-mass changes, but can't tell right now. I'm not sure what the purpose would be in applying one side of a balance change (thrust) without/before the other side (mass) which would balance it out. If I have to redesign, it will help to know what kind of ratios they are shooting for.

No what I mean if you have two thrusters next to each other you get the same thrust as two thrusters not touching. There is currently no benefit for building your thruster in any specific pattern at all. Each thruster gives you the same push regardless where you position it. Of all the options we could have, I really don't support this one. Groups of thrusters forming to make a big thruster should have a benefit over if you just spammed a similar number of modules among your ship.

 

[Cornedo]

Well the ship I've been working on lost about 3/4ths of its thrust after this update, so no, I'm not happy.

 

[Ithirahad]

By linear damping, do you mean space friction? If so, I absolutely agree. If not, I might agree. It depends on what you mean by linear damping.

I do mean Linear Damping. "Space friction" is just an easier way to say it that more people will understand.

 

[Tydeth]

Ithirahad , Yetimania
How to Disable Linear Damping/Space Friction:

Step 1: Go into your server.cfg
Step 2: Locate PHYSICS_LINEAR_DAMPING. It will by default be in this line:

PHYSICS_LINEAR_DAMPING = 0.09 //how much object slow down naturally (must be between 0 and 1): 0 is no slowdown

Step 3: Change 0.09 to whatever you desire, even 0 to toggle it completely off.

Note that if you set it to 0, you must make sure that whatever ship you're flying is completely stopped before you get out, and that it won't get bumped around by undocked ships. Otherwise it will float on forever, as in real space (unless it hits something).