What I Miss Most from Minecraft

[Edymnion]

Yes, Starmade isn't Minecraft, but it is a voxel game so comparisons are inevitable.

The thing I miss most from Minecraft that Starmade doesn't have is... survival. As in building and maintaining the structures that make it a non-issue for a day to day basis.

Specifically things like building greenhouses to grow crops in, underground bunkers with emergency wheat and potatoes with torches lining the walls, my gardens full of pumpkins and watermelons, my pens full of different animals... even my dark rooms for growing mushrooms in.

I enjoyed not just building all of these varied structures, but the routine maintenance required to keep them productive (breeding the animals, culling them for meat, harvesting/replanting crops, etc).

One of my favorite downloadable maps was the old Skyblock, where you got one tiny floating island with nothing but a bit of dirt, one tree, some grass, and a chest with a bucket of water and a bucket of lava.

You had to very carefully set up a cobblestone generator, pray for some grass seed and tree seedlings, and literally build the entire world around you by yourself. Right down to creating space far enough away from your home to have animals and monsters spawn so that you could farm them for the rare drops to provide you with even more luxuries (like spiders for thread to make wool to make a bed).

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Why? Well for one it was something to do once you had everything you wanted built. For another, it made a nice natural rhythm to the game where you had to have stopping points to go take care of your food sources so that you could eat, which meant you couldn't just marathon build until you were sick of it (which has led to a bit of burnout for me lately).

The devs have been looking for ways to make stations/bases more important, but so far its been mostly done by simply saying you can't process materials or manufacture goods anywhere but a base.

I could really go for planet farming (as in actually building a farm on a planet) and setting up biodomes on my stations for actual constructive uses rather than simply looking pretty.

 

[badmojo]

I agree, hopefully when they get to adding fauna into the game they also do something with hunger so we can start producing food on our stations or planets.

One way I found to prolong the fun of survival mode in this game is to start a new game and ignore the shops, mine and use factories for everything. Also it helps if you build a non-homebase station somewhat close to some pirate stations, that way you randomly get waves of pirates attacking your station.

I would really like them to incorporate some kind of end-game progression like minecraft has with the enchanted weapons & gear. I don't know how exactly it would work in Starmade, maybe every time you kill a pirate you get a special drop that you can use to improve a ship, or a ships system, a tiny bit at a time.

Another change that will go a long way towards making survival fun is when they get different levels of pirate craft into the game, so if you can handle the regular pirates with ease, they will send pirates in more advanced ships at you.

 

[Keptick]

One word: Crew. And also NPC populations in general (on planets, stations, etc...)

 

[Jake_Lancia]

The tedium you described in the OP was the one reason I quit Minecraft. Starmade appealed to me after that because it was (and still is) a lot more casual and doesn't have tedious maintenance just to survive.

That said, if done well I'm sure it would lead to some more interesting survival elements, and finally give a use to my planet bases xD

A side note; the devs said somewhere that if food was to be added, it'd only provide a buff to your player character rather than be a continuous need. Don't ask me where but I'm sure one of the devs can confirm this.

 

[kiraen]

A side note; the devs said somewhere that if food was to be added, it'd only provide a buff to your player character rather than be a continuous need. Don't ask me where but I'm sure one of the devs can confirm this.

I believe it was during the Q&A.

 

[Lecic]

I would really like them to incorporate some kind of end-game progression like minecraft has with the enchanted weapons & gear. I don't know how exactly it would work in Starmade, maybe every time you kill a pirate you get a special drop that you can use to improve a ship, or a ships system, a tiny bit at a time.

That's called "learning how to build bigger ships with better engineering."

That removes a bit of repeatability in SP once you've reached "end game" a few times and have everything mastered, but NPC factions (both the built in ones, and the generated ones) should MORE than make up for that.

 

[badmojo]

That's called "learning how to build bigger ships with better engineering."

That removes a bit of repeatability in SP once you've reached "end game" a few times and have everything mastered, but NPC factions (both the built in ones, and the generated ones) should MORE than make up for that.

Not really, they could add in consumable items that make your ships systems statistically better, it wouldn't really hurt replayability. Minecraft has this in the enchantments you can put onto your gear, you have to play the game in order to get the XP to apply the enchants, so it actually prolongs replayability and gives the player a self created goal.

Currently there is no progression in starmade, you can build the "best" ship possible without even undocking from your invulnerable mainbase.

NPCs will certainly help with this, them getting experience from being out on missions or doing their jobs is pretty much the same thing.

 

[Lecic]

Not really, they could add in consumable items that make your ships systems statistically better, it wouldn't really hurt replayability. Minecraft has this in the enchantments you can put onto your gear, you have to play the game in order to get the XP to apply the enchants, so it actually prolongs replayability and gives the player a self created goal.

Enchantments are a horrible mechanic. All they added to Minecraft was a massive amount of power creep. What's the point of having both Sharpness 3 and Protection 3 when they have no downsides (besides needing to grind XP, which is easy) and just cancel eachother out? Every PvP server I've tried has everyone wearing high level enchants that just cancel eachother out. They would do the same to Starmade- anyone NOT running a "booster" is a moron waiting to get destroyed, and people would run boosts that cancel eachother out.

It removes the need for building your ship intelligently. No need for "I know my enemy uses really powerful ion weaponry, so I'll upgrade my ion passives to counter it," just "Time to pop a shield booster consumable."

 

[The Judge]

Minecraft is a poorly coded game with poor mechanics.
The game is literally just tedious upkeep and mindless activities. Simply put, the game is too easy, and that's why it's so popular, even the most meager children can grasp the concept. Bringing the tedious part here, is a terrible idea, but NPC Crew need to be updated so they're useful.

 

[Blaza612]

The thing is, Starmade is going to provide it's own different way of keeping you playing, the NPC factions, both lore factions and randomly generated. IMO, this will provide MUCH more content/reason to play than having to eat.

However, I also wouldn't mind farming/hydroponics. I'd like a thing where you can make drugs using plants, some are illegal in certain areas of space while others aren't. And if one faction find you're importing illegal drugs into their territory, they'll hunt you down and attempt to destroy your drug making. Overall, farming would be cool, but as something that's optional, rather than necessary.
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NOT running a "booster" is a moron

If we were to add drugs/boosters (That name is literally from EVE, I have a right to use it this time :p) then again, we make them like EVE. Make them have side effects that have the opposite effect of their intended thingy, or worse if you get REALLY unlucky. It'd be done with dice rolls, so every time you take a magical drug, you have a chance to fuck yourself over or become addicted. This and not making them too powerful, would make drugs/boosters a very nice addition to the game, especially for the faction shit I mentioned above.

 

[KiloZulu]

It's funny, whenever I play Minecraft I think of how much I miss advanced build mode. Ever since they redid the economy and crafting, I only ever craft the items from the resources I mine. The only use I have for credits anymore is buying a space station.

I have high hopes that when Starmade is released it will be a fully realized sandbox with plenty of opportunities to roleplay, explore, craft, fight and more. My biggest hope is that the game will really motivate players to explore the universe so my friends and I can crew a ship and enjoy some five-year missions. If I can land a shuttle on a planet, fend off some hostile alien creatures, and receive a quest from the indigenous people, I'll be in heaven.

 

[badmojo]

Enchantments are a horrible mechanic. All they added to Minecraft was a massive amount of power creep. What's the point of having both Sharpness 3 and Protection 3 when they have no downsides (besides needing to grind XP, which is easy) and just cancel eachother out? Every PvP server I've tried has everyone wearing high level enchants that just cancel eachother out. They would do the same to Starmade- anyone NOT running a "booster" is a moron waiting to get destroyed, and people would run boosts that cancel eachother out.

It removes the need for building your ship intelligently. No need for "I know my enemy uses really powerful ion weaponry, so I'll upgrade my ion passives to counter it," just "Time to pop a shield booster consumable."

Removes the need to build intelligently? No, not at all. That's like saying people can gear up in leather armor and use stone swords as long as they enchant them first. You still need to use diamonds if you want to compete, you still need to build good ships. In fact it's probably the other way around, if you build a great ship you can defeat enemies with lesser ships that are upgraded a lot.

You might not like "power creep" or progression in minecraft, I do. To each their own.

 

[Jake_Lancia]

You might not like "power creep" or progression in minecraft, I do. To each their own.

So basically you're promoting an unbalanced gameplay style that only the hardcore PvPers can keep up with, and pushes literally everyone else to the sidelines.

Regardless, I do not support any gameplay elements that create such unbalanced gameplay. If you want to beat someone else's ship, you have to work for the resources and gear to make yours better, not 'pop a pill' to magically make it stronger.

 

[Lecic]

Removes the need to build intelligently? No, not at all. That's like saying people can gear up in leather armor and use stone swords as long as they enchant them first. You still need to use diamonds if you want to compete, you still need to build good ships. In fact it's probably the other way around, if you build a great ship you can defeat enemies with lesser ships that are upgraded a lot. You might not like "power creep" or progression in minecraft, I do. To each their own.

No, it doesn't REMOVE the need to build intelligently. It just encourages more of what we currently have- people brute-forcing their way past their poor engineering by building much bigger, or, in the case of "boosters," just slapping on more boosters.

 

[SchnellBier]

If you hope this will get a survival game like minecraft you will get disappointed. This will be a space game. I´ve never seen a single space game where you have to eat food or plant crops to survive. Maybe there will be a possibility to manufacture certain things with grown ressources but this won´t be a necessity for survival, more for getting some profit out of it.

What i can see in this game to progress is mostly related to profit: trading with npc factions/players, procedual missions of varying difficulty (this will deliver probably the most content/maybe partly instanced), manual mining and auto mining (probably set up on planets/reason to actually capture territory from npc´s and players), random pve/pvp events in the universe (something to fight for or against).

I don´t even know why every voxel game has to be a survival farming simulator. Even building your ships might be optional since there will be ships to buy. I find a space game with multiplayer and custom builds much more appealing than a survival farming simulator in space.

 

[Master_Artificer]

Can agree, the end-game of starmade is ship building with new techniques that you learned/picked up/were taught/discovered.

And there are a LOT of them, like, I hardly know where to start when building a ship anymore.

 

[Sir_Rob_DSM]

Minecraft vanilla for me was build a small castle make 6 furnaces 6 chests and enjoy what id built. Minecrafted modded for me was build a quarry a large castle with many chests/furnaces/electric solar panels and the end goal for me was a nuke reactor and that was the last time I played minecraft and ive never goind back.

Starmade :
Maybe us "Players" in this world are cyborg/robot and have no need for food, and the npc crew can be human / cyborg/robot/alien and need water/food/electric batterys and other things to survive/expand faction owned space/faction points ( these could then be offical missions/quests or just random things the player could help a npc faction with )

 

[badmojo]

No, it doesn't REMOVE the need to build intelligently. It just encourages more of what we currently have- people brute-forcing their way past their poor engineering by building much bigger, or, in the case of "boosters," just slapping on more boosters.

So basically you're promoting an unbalanced gameplay style that only the hardcore PvPers can keep up with, and pushes literally everyone else to the sidelines.

Regardless, I do not support any gameplay elements that create such unbalanced gameplay. If you want to beat someone else's ship, you have to work for the resources and gear to make yours better, not 'pop a pill' to magically make it stronger.

According to the plans for starmade, you guys might be disappointed with the NPC progression, it's pretty much what I have described except for NPCs rather than ships.

 

[Lecic]

According to the plans for starmade, you guys might be disappointed with the NPC progression, it's pretty much what I have described except for NPCs rather than ships.

NPCs require to you build a proper interior to house them to get the bonuses. "Boosters" require... nothing. They're magically applied to the ship when you consume it.

You can also be boarded and have your crew killed. How would you disrupt a booster?

 

[badmojo]

NPCs require to you build a proper interior to house them to get the bonuses. "Boosters" require... nothing. They're magically applied to the ship when you consume it.

You can also be boarded and have your crew killed. How would you disrupt a booster?

This "booster" item doesn't actually exist, so what it requires or doesn't require could be anything or nothing. In minecraft you have to build XP farms, enchantment tables, book cases, and not die, in order to maintain the boost that enchantments give you, you also have to replenish their durability after a while, so it's not exactly the "easy" button you imply it is. It takes a lot of work to establish that end game gear, it should be the same in starmade, you have to build proper ships to gain these boosters, and you have to maintain your ship properly in order to keep them.

To be honest, I posted this idea prior to reading the future plans for starmade, so I didn't know the NPC progression was planned, having the ship progress is kind of redundant if they're already going to have that.