Starmade V0.158

[1adog1]

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.

I like most of this, but from the size of this thing you should probably create a thread in suggestions.

 

[aceface]

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.

cities are already really rare and why should mining with the had be better than salvage ships when its free and obviously less powerful

 

[Unnamed25]

cities are already really rare and why should mining with the had be better than salvage ships when its free and obviously less powerful

They aren't that rare with the new planets.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

No, they seriously are not. On (almost) every planet is a city, seriously, that really is overpowered. And I'm going to add my previous post in this thread to the suggestions after typing this (long live copy/paste!).

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Since it appears that the bug eeporting site isn't allowing new bug reports, here's one:
On the edge of a planet section with on the other side a tall object, look at that object and walk towards that tall object. Eventually you'll get this weird visibility glitch, in which that object seems to partially disappears. I think it has got to do with the way the planet generates. Talking about generating planets........ Agree with this post when you think that planet loading should drastically be improved!!!!!!! (Seriously, watching the core appear and then then planet being stuck on one chunk at a time is extremely annoying)

 

[Ithirahad]

Since it appears that the bug eeporting site isn't allowing new bug reports, here's one:
On the edge of a planet section with on the other side a tall object, look at that object and walk towards that tall object. Eventually you'll get this weird visibility glitch, in which that object seems to partially disappears. I think it has got to do with the way the planet generates.

Actually, it's a rendering oddity with atmosphere shell layers not scaling properly. The result is that from certain angles, the last atmosphere layer prevents the tops of tall objects from rendering, resulting in them appearing "cut off." Depending on vantage point and planet size, this can be observed on landforms on the same segment as the player as well. This is a known bug, I think, and will be fixed. (Don't take my word on that though, I haven't checked the bugtracker in a little while)

Talking about generating planets........ Agree with this post when you think that planet loading should drastically be improved!!!!!!! (Seriously, watching the core appear and then then planet being stuck on one chunk at a time is extremely annoying)

Agreed. The issue is loading order... It should load first 2D-radially from the top 2 center to the top outside segments, THEN start loading the underground bits.

 

[KiloZulu]

Turrets are becoming unmanageable in my opinion. I've had to make them x times bigger to house shield regeneration blocks, while their overall shield performance has dropped regardless. A pirate Isanth with missiles has little trouble coring a turret at this point, and I feel like I'm turning turrets into capital ships-on-capital ships in order to have a chance. I am hopeful that one of the big shield changes that is coming soon will be to extend the shields of the primary ship to cover docked vessels/turrets...soon.

 

[Dave586]

Turrets are becoming unmanageable in my opinion. I've had to make them x times bigger to house shield regeneration blocks, while their overall shield performance has dropped regardless. A pirate Isanth with missiles has little trouble coring a turret at this point, and I feel like I'm turning turrets into capital ships-on-capital ships in order to have a chance. I am hopeful that one of the big shield changes that is coming soon will be to extend the shields of the primary ship to cover docked vessels/turrets...soon.

That's why they included the xml file for you to EDIT the way you want to play. In my ignorance it took me a while to figure it out - that in my own little dreamy starmade world - I could edit that file and play StarMade the way I wanted to play. I could balance it the way I felt it should be balanced. I think it's awesome they have opened it up and have made yet another configurable item the player base can decide how they want to play the game.

You can go into that file and boost shield cap, and regen and reduce your block count - the catch is your turrets may not work the same in other games - but right now that's something we will all have to adapt too.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

That's why they included the xml file for you to EDIT the way you want to play. In my ignorance it took me a while to figure it out - that in my own little dreamy starmade world - I could edit that file and play StarMade the way I wanted to play. I could balance it the way I felt it should be balanced. I think it's awesome they have opened it up and have made yet another configurable item the player base can decide how they want to play the game.

You can go into that file and boost shield cap, and regen and reduce your block count - the catch is your turrets may not work the same in other games - but right now that's something we will all have to adapt too.

And for a game that's backbone is the ability to build and share ships, take them with you onto servers... having everybody with their own custom config is a bad thing. "Hey look at my awesome ship! Oh but it's only awesome with my custom configs" Customization is nice but the game still needs a proper balance for vanilla which most people and servers are going to want to build for.

 

[Qweesdy]

That's why they included the xml file for you to EDIT the way you want to play. In my ignorance it took me a while to figure it out - that in my own little dreamy starmade world - I could edit that file and play StarMade the way I wanted to play. I could balance it the way I felt it should be balanced. I think it's awesome they have opened it up and have made yet another configurable item the player base can decide how they want to play the game.

You can go into that file and boost shield cap, and regen and reduce your block count - the catch is your turrets may not work the same in other games - but right now that's something we will all have to adapt too.

And then you find that every other player and every server has edited things differently and it's impossible to build a ship on one and shift it to another without completely rebuilding the ship's internals to suit. Then; because you can't (e.g.) build a ship on your computer and then upload it "as is" to your favourite server now (and because it's even more impossible to build something now that will work in 2 weeks time) you decide it's mostly pointless bothering to build a ship at all at the moment.

It's frustrating; so you complain that it's not balanced and/or that you have to edit things in the first place, and you check the forums daily while you (patiently or impatiently) wait for a sane solution to the balance nightmare that has dragged on for over 6 months already, knowing that there's no real solution in sight and that the problem could've and should've been avoided from the beginning; until you've depleted your last remaining scrap of hope and finally walk way from the game as a dejected and broken man, crushed by a promising game in a perpetual state of "ruined".

 

[NuclearFun]

If there would be some info about what the intended target of the recent balance changes were (or what the future will bring and how then they will make beautiful sense) i could at least try to understand them, but right now i am really missing the wisdom in those decisions.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I have alreay said this, but somehow the old ores still spawn. I'm guessing that this is a bug, but I don't know if anyone is aware of it yet. It appears that only the level 3 ores still spawn. (Almost certainly a bug, because all of the old ores shouldn't spawn anymore)

 

[Zero280]

is it just me or the now called Cannon computer are broken? refitting my ship and i noticed i cant get them to show up on the weapon tab properly

 

[Ithirahad]

I have alreay said this, but somehow the old ores still spawn. I'm guessing that this is a bug, but I don't know if anyone is aware of it yet. It appears that only the level 3 ores still spawn. (Almost certainly a bug, because all of the old ores shouldn't spawn anymore)

It's not a bug. The new crafting system isn't done, and honestly I have no idea why it and the also-unfinished balance changes were stuffed into the patch.

And then you find that every other player and every server has edited things differently and it's impossible to build a ship on one and shift it to another without completely rebuilding the ship's internals to suit. Then; because you can't (e.g.) build a ship on your computer and then upload it "as is" to your favourite server now (and because it's even more impossible to build something now that will work in 2 weeks time) you decide it's mostly pointless bothering to build a ship at all at the moment.

It's frustrating; so you complain that it's not balanced and/or that you have to edit things in the first place, and you check the forums daily while you (patiently or impatiently) wait for a sane solution to the balance nightmare that has dragged on for over 6 months already, knowing that there's no real solution in sight and that the problem could've and should've been avoided from the beginning; until you've depleted your last remaining scrap of hope and finally walk way from the game as a dejected and broken man, crushed by a promising game in a perpetual state of "ruined".

Thank you and some others for actually realizing that end users changing the config isn't a solution to anything. I find it hard to believe that some people still don't get that.

 

[RedDragonflyxx]

It's not a bug. The new crafting system isn't done, and honestly I have no idea why it and the also-unfinished balance changes were stuffed into the patch.

Decoration?

 

[Ithirahad]

Decoration?

Nah. I don't think anyone wants to use blocks that are visually just the old T1 ores as 'decoration.' The old T1 ores do just as well for the time being. And what's decorative about frustrating people with a currently imbalanced thrust system? :P

 

[NuclearFun]

is it just me or the now called Cannon computer are broken? refitting my ship and i noticed i cant get them to show up on the weapon tab properly

Possible fix -> select your core and then (re-)link the weapon computer

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Another, and this time really, bug. Using the stop effect as a defensive effect does the same as the overdrive module, but for a lot less energy. If I'm not mistaken, stop effect modules should, when used defensively, create an anti gravity field and your ship shouldn't be affected by gravity.

 

[Yetimania]

Thank you and some others for actually realizing that end users changing the config isn't a solution to anything. I find it hard to believe that some people still don't get that.

This. Absolutely this. The server I play on primarily (ElwynEternity) reverted several of the thrust-and-shield changes we've had recently to the more sane (but not necessarily perfect) earlier numbers, a move which I bet is really common (are there any servers out there which haven't changed the new thrust values?), but one which I have mixed feelings for. Though I would probably do the same if I were the server host. Fragmented rules on different servers prevents people from building beautiful ships and uploading them, or others from downloading them, because they simply won't work anymore in the new universe. A ship built in vanilla currently will kill its own power whenever it moves because it has 10x the thrust it needs, but a ship built on a server won't be able to move *at all* on a vanilla platform. We really need a unified set of rules, as the major appeal of this game for a lot of people (maybe most people) is that they can build a ship, put it online, and have people around the world use it, review it/provide constructive criticism, update the ship, repost, etc.

Further, using custom rules means that you run the risk of further diverging from the development of the game. Maybe a huge thrust nerf is part one of a multi-step paradigm shift in StarMade that's released early for some reason? Say we get FTL soon--large ships won't *need,* and maybe won't be supposed to have, good sublight thrust. But most people will be playing a version of the game which can't smoothly transition from where they are to the new StarMade version. Or maybe ship thrust is reduced, and we're going to get a mass reduction to match soon. Or something.

The point is, drastic balance changes are bad, but every server and player changing the rules as they see fit causes as many problems as it solves. It's the only solution from our end, but it's a bad one. Unless a server is explicitly modded, we should really be able to expect to import a ship from one server to another with minimal changes, if any.

 

[NuclearFun]

Every time someone mentions the blockconfig file all i can think of is this:
http://coub.com/view/7xlbv9jj

On an other note:
Missiles+DamagePulse are now lock on...
Is this intended? I could not find anything about that in the Patchnotes or News section.