Starmade V0.158

[Izikiel]

Hm, this is an interesting update. Looking forward to messing with the new stuff.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

So I read the changelog, and it seems that the old level ores shouldn't generate anymore. Why did I still manage to find some when I reset my world after this update?

 

[FunnyBunny14]

...at the moment, even with this shield update (although really helpful) having a rate of fire of 6 rounds a minute is useless.

Have you even tried using a cannon as support? You can easily get a relatively fast firing weapon which does a lot of damage. Try the damage beam with 50% support of the cannon, or just a cannon with 100% support of the cannon. You are bound to be amazed.

Note: You need quite a large weapon, and make sure that you never do less than 100 damage, otherwise you won't be able to overheat the ship core. If you still don't do enough damage, use the overdrive module. And if that doen't work, build more cannons. Also: a firing rate of 6 rounds per minute is not bad, because to get such a low firing rate you would need a huge weapon, and if that really isn't enough, why don't you just add more weapons with a firing rate of 6 rounds per minute, and if that still isn't enough, you always still have the overdrive modules. And if you're concerned (and rightfully) that that would use to much energy, use the damage beam. That is because at the moment damage beams hardly use any energy.

 

[RedDragonflyxx]

Although you have a point about poor execution. This is still alpha so we are pretty much all testers. We complain about badly balanced stuff and they will take a look and make a better change. + There are always game breaking bugs that can't be found by the small amount of testers we have (not everyone has a mac for example). I personally consider ever player as a tester, most of them have great ideas and pretty much every feature you see is suggested by someone.

Since a lot of new features gets implemented, balancing is often temporary. The new hull system will completely change weapons again so what use is spending weeks on perfect balance when it's going to be change anyway?

Fantastic update btw, now the advanced build mode is even better!

Thank you! If people want the game to be balanced they should edit the config, IMO every update should be public but people should be told that certain updates are very unstable or contains balancing that is being worked on. Maybe there should be a config sharing section here. Now where is the double agree button?

 

[RedDragonflyxx]

Have you even tried using a cannon as support? You can easily get a relatively fast firing weapon which does a lot of damage. Try the damage beam with 50% support of the cannon, or just a cannon with 100% support of the cannon. You are bound to be amazed.

Note: You need quite a large weapon, and make sure that you never do less than 100 damage, otherwise you won't be able to overheat the ship core. If you still don't do enough damage, use the overdrive module. And if that doen't work, build more cannons. Also: a firing rate of 6 rounds per minute is not bad, because to get such a low firing rate you would need a huge weapon, and if that really isn't enough, why don't you just add more weapons with a firing rate of 6 rounds per minute, and if that still isn't enough, you always still have the overdrive modules. And if you're concerned (and rightfully) that that would use to much energy, use the damage beam. That is because at the moment damage beams hardly use any energy.

Really, try that with salvage beams, I took out a station in 17 minutes and 27 seconds. I think that is OP to be honest, I can't move the beams fast enough to keep mining things.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I did. One salvage cannon with one cannon as support, so 1:1,, in a 25x25x2 checker board, 625 salvage cannons with 625 cannons as support. That will take down a station in about 2 minutes, maybe even 1 minute. It doesn't use a lot of energy, and each salvage cannon is about as fast as 9 grouped together, maybe faster. It really isn't hard to build that ship: if you always use cannons as support, you can easily have that ship built after playing 2 hours, or at least that is how long it took me to get all the resources and build it in single player. It's a bit overpowered, but with the new crafting system coming up, it shouldn't be that overpowered anymore, possibly very welcome. Becasue it would appear that there are two different blocks for each crystal: the ore and the capsule ore thingy. You can't sell the ore, so you are going to have to build a factory first. But it is overpowered when you travel to the nearest star system: there you just look for the planets with the trees, find the city and salvage it completely. Or you just salvage a space station, that works too.

 

[Livethan]

Can anyone tell me how does new crafting system works? I place shards or ores or capsules into a factory or refinery, but nothing happens. There is no more recipes for minerals, so i stuck.

 

[aceface]

Can anyone tell me how does new crafting system works? I place shards or ores or capsules into a factory or refinery, but nothing happens. There is no more recipes for minerals, so i stuck.

I don't think it is released, only the items have been released, but not the actual crafting system

 

[Unnamed25]

So they make recipes use shards, but with no way to make them?
Really..

 

[testkil]

Well an nice update like usual, good work schema!

 

[Ithirahad]

So they make recipes use shards, but with no way to make them?
Really..

I agree. If a crafting system still isn't done, why push the unfinished pieces to a release build prematurely? The same could be said of thrusters: You are going to change the masses of blocks, but if it isn't done yet, then why make everyone's ships extremely borked in the meantime?

 

[Vakna]

I agree. If a crafting system still isn't done, why push the unfinished pieces to a release build prematurely? The same could be said of thrusters: You are going to change the masses of blocks, but if it isn't done yet, then why make everyone's ships extremely borked in the meantime?

It's like I said before, we need clean patches that are fleshed out and well built, rather than these messy small ones every few days. We can barely play the game if this is how patching is going to continue.

No one cares if you take a few extra weeks to set up a patch, quality over quantity.

 

[Alpha_Squad]

Found a bug, using ion as defense now randomly grants 100% damage immunity even though it says 1.5% effectiveness in the weapons panel.

 

[NuclearFun]

The Patch is awesome, the new build stuff works great. The only think tainting it is once again the balance side... honestly that does not seem very inspired and i lost a little bit of my faith...

 

[aceface]

guys how do you use effect computers as a defence?

 

[Vakna]

guys how do you use effect computers as a defence?

I think you drag the computer to your hotbar and activate it like cloaking.

 

[1adog1]

Have you even tried using a cannon as support? You can easily get a relatively fast firing weapon which does a lot of damage. Try the damage beam with 50% support of the cannon, or just a cannon with 100% support of the cannon. You are bound to be amazed.

Note: You need quite a large weapon, and make sure that you never do less than 100 damage, otherwise you won't be able to overheat the ship core. If you still don't do enough damage, use the overdrive module. And if that doen't work, build more cannons. Also: a firing rate of 6 rounds per minute is not bad, because to get such a low firing rate you would need a huge weapon, and if that really isn't enough, why don't you just add more weapons with a firing rate of 6 rounds per minute, and if that still isn't enough, you always still have the overdrive modules. And if you're concerned (and rightfully) that that would use to much energy, use the damage beam. That is because at the moment damage beams hardly use any energy.

That firing rate of 6 rpm is off of a damage damage beam of about 9800 blocks and does about 27,000 damage a hit (even though it only fires once every 10 seconds). I've added a punch-through effect of 100%. I also have two 10,000 block damage beams which do about 30,000 damage each with an ion effect of 100% for shield killers. Is this effective? I haven't gotten to test it on a target yet (no thrusters on the ship).

 

[1adog1]

I agree. If a crafting system still isn't done, why push the unfinished pieces to a release build prematurely? The same could be said of thrusters: You are going to change the masses of blocks, but if it isn't done yet, then why make everyone's ships extremely borked in the meantime?

Understandable for the crafting system, but the thrusters system is complete, it just needs balance. For balance you need testing by masses. Therefor, you release a build with the default setup, look for reactions, and adjust accordingly in the next update (Which is pretty often at the moment).

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Question about ion: what must you do to get 100% effectiveness for it as a defense? (1:1 with what block (/blocks? New update released two shield elements)

Also, could anyone please respond to my post about the new ores (and why the old ones still generate in new worlds).

 

[FunnyBunny14]

On a note to the developers:

You shouldn't be able to buy everything from shops, nor should you be able to sell everything to them. Basically: make crafting/factorisation a necessity, because it is way to easy to just salvage a spacestation and completely empty the money resources of a couple of shops (default is 10 million credits in a shop, do the math and conclude: it is overpowered). After you sold everything, you just travel to a couple of shops, buy rediculous amounts of weapons and build a ship that can't be destroyed by pirates. With default sector sizes and shop spawning, this should take about 2 hours. And that is even in the new update, where ores no longer can be sold (not that they were may main source of income in, well, forever).

My ideas:
1. Make blocks for ships more expensive to buy and lose money when selling them again. (Example: you would pay 10.000 to buy an overdrive module, and only get a little more than the minimum price of resources needed to create that block in a factory when you sell it). Also make the weapons rarer to find in shops.
2. Make it so that you are unable to sell common blocks in objects (like hulls, glass and lights), but not sand and other really cheap blocks, since you don't make that much by selling them.
3. Don't use ice crystals in the cities on planets, it is to easy to sell those and get a huge profit.
4. For a stronger effect than the second point: make it so that you are unable to salvage space stations, because it still is to easy to get a lot of resources from them. Instead make them less likely to spawn and put a chest (or chests) with a few basic materials, like ores, hulls, glass and lights (my preference goes to this option).
5. Make cities less likely to spawn.
6. Make it easier and more profitable to mine/salvage by hand, and add certain advantages, because planets don't stand a chance against huge salvaging ships (by huge I mean 625 salvage beams in a 25x25 checkerboard, and that isn't even the biggest you could make). This could be done by adding a block which has to be mined by hand with a specific, hard to get tool. This block would be spawned naturally on planets in a certain layer, and underneath would be some special ores or other blocks. Also add some tools for mining and cave systems.
7. Reduce the max amount of a certain block in shops, also add a cap for the total amount of blocks (calculated using mass, and items, like capsules, would take up less storage space than regular blocks).
8. Drastically cap the stacking limit, it currently is a whopping 999.999!!!! Weapons other other blocks that don't have to be used en masse in ship should have a lower stacking limit than blocks like hulls and energy related blocks, and items like capsules should also have higher stacking limits than actual blocks like hulls. This idea should also be based on the mass, since the mass for non-ship blocks will be less in the next update.
9. In case these ideas will outbalance the current system for recipes, but even if it doesn't, the recipe system should be rebalanced to create a progressive system.
10. Make the default sector size at least twice as big, traveling is way to easy (so: 'Yay, a space station!' and then a minute later 'Yay, a space station!'.
11. Make shops spawn less often by default.
12. Make cities spawn less often. Right now just about every 'green' planet has one. (Haven't checked spawning with desert temples yet, maybe someone could have a look?)
13. To make this system work, the ability to link salvage computers to plex storages should be implemented (and I know this has already been mentioned a couple of times on this forum, but I had to list it here, because otherwise mynidea would have a serious flaw).
14. Probably the most import point (although it isn't really a point) to all the people on this forum:
a) Don't get mad and/or upset when these some or all of these ideas have already been mentioned. Please kindly tell me, and I will edit this post accordingly. It was late and I was tired when I typed this, so I didn't do any research on previous posts.
b) I believe this is an important point that has to be looked at, and if you don't agree, please kindly tell me and if a valid reason why this wouldn't work, and not a reason in which you basically state that you want this game to be easy and that salvaging space stations and cities to get extremely rich extremely fast is your one and only mission in life.



I honestly believe that this is a serious issue and should really be looked at and revised even more than it already was in the 0.158 update and the new update to come. Starmade shouldn't be about blindly salvaging objects, there should be tactics and economies that have to be built from scratch. This will make single player less repetitive and harder (so you won't be done in just over 2 hours, which is how long it takes me to build a huge salvaging ship that is capable of salvaging an entire space station in just under 3 minutes), and in multiplayer it work more like in real life, with factories everywhere and a constant struggle to control the manufacturing of items and blocks.