Everything Is Broken

[Useful_idiot1]

Omg so many things in this game are broken and its making my ships cry :'( . The game is coming to a point where the dev and team have great ideas but each new idea creates a problem (engines!! weapons!!! SHIELDS!!!!!!!!!!!!) this is all understandable of course but its annoying. I feel like Schema needs to start a kick starter get some money and hire some bug testers so he can focus on making the game better, and have them do all of the manual labor. By doing this we could get this game out of alpha alot faster, (space engineers is catching up) thats just my 2 cents. Anyone agree?

From Austin Gray
To Star Captains
Hail Hydra

 

[ToyotaSupra]

Dude, we ARE the bug testers. All of us are meant to be testing it for bugs, and volunteer to fix them if we can program.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

To you there, yelling at this game, I propose exploiting overpowered things. Go test with some combinations of effects, weapons, shields and thrusters, and maybe you'll find something useful.

 

[Ithirahad]

The broken-ish (functional, but shitty) thrusters and shields are a purposeful, but awful, attempt at "balancing" things. Weapons aren't broken, there's just a new system in place. Your default weapons have really low cooldown now, so you have to add a secondary Cannon slave system that improves fire rate to a decent speed. (Which I dislike, but it works... I guess? When I heard about the new combo system, I was excited because I figured that there would be things you could add to augment your weapons' base functionality for a price of extra power, which is cool. However, I wasn't expecting default weapons' fire rates to be nerfed to hell. Otherwise I wouldn't have been quite so excited for it.)

tl;dr - Nothing's bugged, things have just been re-'balanced' in a somewhat screwy way.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

The shields are rediculous right now, for two reasons.

1.) Weapons haven't been 'balanced' yet, so now it is even easier to take down small ships. But this doesn't even matter, because:

2.) Ion grants 100% protection when it is 100% efficient, and because there now is a shield in the beginning, and because the ion effect applies to that shield too, and because you only need 1 ion effect module per ten mass, and because no additional shields are needed for the ion effect to work, well, to sum it up:

1 ion effect computer + 1 ion effect module per 10 mass = invincible ship. And yes, you read correct, invincible ship. Enjoy it while it lasts, but it does suck the fun out of starmade, just saying.

 

[Unnamed25]

The shields are rediculous right now, for two reasons.

1.) Weapons haven't been 'balanced' yet, so now it is even easier to take down small ships. But this doesn't even matter, because:

2.) Ion grants 100% protection when it is 100% efficient, and because there now is a shield in the beginning, and because the ion effect applies to that shield too, and because you only need 1 ion effect module per ten mass, and because no additional shields are needed for the ion effect to work, well, to sum it up:

1 ion effect computer + 1 ion effect module per 10 mass = invincible ship. And yes, you read correct, invincible ship. Enjoy it while it lasts, but it does suck the fun out of starmade, just saying.

Good job on telling everyone how to ruin PvP in the current version..
I know it will get fixed, but we haven't gotten an update in "some" time.

 

[Planr]

I agree with OP that a lot of in-game mechanics are not working as well as they could be for optimum gameplay balance. However, "broken"? I think that's going too far and not true. Shields actually work pretty okay now, which is a big plus for me, and weapons in general aren't that bad either. I like engines the way they are now too, though I do think smaller ships need to be given a greater buff in thrust performance returns.

I completely agree that schema needs to hire more people to speed up development of the game. The only other indie game i've ever played where we've had even slower development was Blockland. It took us 7 years of development in that game to finally get shadows and shaders, and in turn we had to actually make a big sacrifice by getting rid of our engine code for terrain and interior maps, so the only place you could play on was flat slate ground. To make things worse there, the guy developing it (Badspot) is not very nice either, and the community is unfortunately rather rampant with condescending assholes and actual cyber-criminals. Servers get DDoS'd regularly. It's very sad.

Anyways i'm getting off-topic there. What we need to see now are more people helping schema fix these bugs and tweak gameplay mechanics so they work better and are more fun to use in both battle and building. And, with the new thrust changes, we need FTL mechanics now more than ever.

I can understand that you're frustrated and feel like the game is falling apart, but I must say it isn't anywhere near as bad as you make it out to be, though I know what you mean and I partially agree with you, especially that we have too small a dev team.

Btw, space engineers is already way ahead of us in terms of development. Their game is much more optimized and is already in beta (iirc). They have a large team of hired professionals working on it and they are making tons of money. They have multiple game-changing new features every week.

Meanwhile on Starmade, Schema and Calbiri are the only ones really developing the game more, with help from awesome texture makers like Kupu. Nobody is getting paid except for schema; the dev team is small and working for free and on their own accord. We are still in alpha after nearly a year and a half. Space Engineers meanwhile appears to have only been around for less than a year. So I do feel your concern has some valid grounds on that part.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

I agree with OP that a lot of in-game mechanics are not working as well as they could be for optimum gameplay balance. However, "broken"? I think that's going too far and not true. Shields actually work pretty okay now, which is a big plus for me, and weapons in general aren't that bad either. I like engines the way they are now too, though I do think smaller ships need to be given a greater buff in thrust performance returns.

I completely agree that schema needs to hire more people to speed up development of the game. The only other indie game i've ever played where we've had even slower development was Blockland. It took us 7 years of development in that game to finally get shadows and shaders, and in turn we had to actually make a big sacrifice by getting rid of our engine code for terrain and interior maps, so the only place you could play on was flat slate ground. To make things worse there, the guy developing it (Badspot) is not very nice either, and the community is unfortunately rather rampant with condescending assholes and actual cyber-criminals. Servers get DDoS'd regularly. It's very sad.

Anyways i'm getting off-topic there. What we need to see now are more people helping schema fix these bugs and tweak gameplay mechanics so they work better and are more fun to use in both battle and building. And, with the new thrust changes, we need FTL mechanics now more than ever.

I can understand that you're frustrated and feel like the game is falling apart, but I must say it isn't anywhere near as bad as you make it out to be, though I know what you mean and I partially agree with you, especially that we have too small a dev team.

Btw, space engineers is already way ahead of us in terms of development. Their game is much more optimized and is already in beta (iirc). They have a large team of hired professionals working on it and they are making tons of money. They have multiple game-changing new features every week.

Meanwhile on Starmade, Schema and Calbiri are the only ones really developing the game more, with help from awesome texture makers like Kupu. Nobody is getting paid except for schema; the dev team is small and working for free and on their own accord. We are still in alpha after nearly a year and a half. Space Engineers meanwhile appears to have only been around for less than a year. So I do feel your concern has some valid grounds on that part.

Here's the thing as well: as far as I know Starmade is older than SE. So, essentially SE took the idea (I'm not saying they stole it directly) of a voxel game in space, added a gimmick to it (crash physics) and added lots of oft-requested features (They now have passenger seats, something I've wanted in Starmade for quite a while) so of course it feels just wrong to have us lagging behind.

I'm worried that this game might become vapourware, that the devs will just go: 'f-k it! SE will just up us anyway!' and leave the game. Although it's highly unlikely to happen with our devs, like you say it's happened before. I do hope this game doesn't go, I rather like the community here and even though the game is buggy I still love what each update brings. I also love that they subvert the current trend of 'pay £20 for alpha access!' (Seriously that is how much the 7 Days To Die alpha costs, another block game)

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Space engineers doesn't have all the features starmade does. It is more realistic, yes, but when it comes to exploring, all you have to look out for are asteroid, more asteroids and even more asteroids. Also, in starmade there is a roleplay element, and ofcourse there are also planets and pirates.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

And we will also have crash 'physics' soon. (Read: blocks taking damage. Yeah for ramships!)

 

[kupu]

This was mentioned in the Q&A's and i think directly responded to on the old site, but the progress of SE is not something we are using as a yardstick. We're not trying to achieve what they have, so there is no "beating us to it". They're different games with different ultimate directions with probably quite a large overlap of player bases. The "Us and Them" mentality doesn't hold much (if any) weight in a post about the state of Starmade.

Our list of official testers is relatively small, if you feel really strongly about the state of the game, use that passion to hunt the bugs for schema to squash! Get in contact with AndyP or see his threads in the Game Support section.

I'm worried that this game might become vapourware, that the devs will just go: 'f-k it! SE will just up us anyway!' and leave the game.

This made me laugh. No, this will not happen.
This forum has a funny way of believing things if they're typed enough regardless of it's veracity. Please don't let that be one of them! :D

 

[AndyP]

Blocks physics and 'breakoff' is in the game since quite a while, as far as I remember it was possible to turn that on in mid 2013 already.

Some of the mentioned points here may be valid, yes.
But as far as I see, and that's the reason I'll stick with star-made until schema himself will quit developing it, there are some unique pros for star-made that I didn't see in other games possible yet:

• customize your ships (free building, dimensions, decorative, functionals)
• customize your stations (free building, dimensions, decorative, functionals)
• customize your planets (free building, decorative, functionals)
• all 'functionals' are part of building, you can leave some out to save mass, but also lack the functionality then
• turrets and AI-Ships
• super detailed weapon configurations (IIRC: ~6.000.000 combinations when only seeing it in 1% support steps)
• procedural generated universe (endless!)
• NPCs - scriptable (already possible on a low level)
• crew
• Lua-Support currently limited to conversation, but may cover procedural generated objects/ships/stations or even custom AI ships (Someone may remember/know the X³ scripting system, its LUA and made the whole universe come alive in a way you may not have seen in other games THAT dynamical as in X³-reunion to terran conflict)
• full multiplayer support (unlimited players)
• factions, alliances, roleplaying
• logic systems - I really miss RedPower2... okay, their computers may be a bit too advanced... to become part of the game, but hey, I would say yes if possible :P
• crafting system - (extremely detailed coming up)
• nice physics at 'medium' CPU cost - exit a core at high rotational speed while it slowly moves towards a wall - the effect is really cool and feels incredibly exact
• custom textures that let you play 2 different looking games on the same server
• planned heavy modding api - this made minecraft so successful IMHO
• nearly unlimited scaling on everything you start to build - there is no hardlimit that may stop you someday
• you can try the full game before having to pay
• there are no planned features that make you pay monthly and steady to use it - one time buy for lifetime access - not limited to some auth server to play - in case the project may die someday

Sure 3-5 points can be done better by other games,
but for me those requirements for a really good game and even a few more were never met in one game together before.

We are few testers, and even fewer developers, yes.
But there is also no limitation to get into testing and contact with the developers.
Feel free to drop me a message when you are willing to help,
and not only out to argue about things not being 'right'. =)

So, indeed,
SE may have beaten us in some points, but at a really high CPU/GPU cost. (Personal opinion!)
It looks great, yes, physics in ships and asteroids are great. (Crashing and stuff)
But, the most points in the list of features I really like will never be in SE, for sure.

- Andy

 

[Ithirahad]

It is more realistic, yes, but when it comes to exploring, all you have to look out for are asteroid, more asteroids and even more asteroids.

Starmade in comparison:
It is slightly more diverse, yes, but when it comes to exploring, all you have to look out for are ugly blob asteroids, identical stations, and awkward planets...

Also, in starmade there is a roleplay element, and ofcourse there are also planets and pirates.

There's something of a roleplay element in any game, if you want there to be, so that's not really a point. The planets are okay, but they take way too long to load, and are monotonous. 'Pirates' are also fairly uninteresting... They're just robot ships that shoot at you until you get rid of them.