Game Balance Suggestions

[BillBoBAGGINSIS]

As much as I like everyone's suggestions I think that most of the suggestions thus far can be addressed by server admins the only problem I have is the issue with cargo and the upcoming bleed effect and how its going to impact station storages not ship storages. I almost feel that stations should not be impacted by normal cargo rules since they don't move and have no thrust. I also want to point out that with stations being expensive as heck now but adding to that expense by having a million blocks to increase the storage capacity of a block that honestly should not have any limit on its storage capacity as well as all the manufactioning facilities. It would I think make things much more difficult on smaller factions that wont have the resources to create massive storages to keep the resources the mine or acquire from pirates.

 

[Valiant70]

Suggestion (first on-topic post I've seen in a while!):
Increase max rail speed greatly (10x or more if possible), but leave default speed the same. This way rail contraptions should stay the same unless people plug in a rail speed controller and max it out.

EDIT: Please follow the rules of the thread. You're making a lot of work for Lancake. Post discussion here instead.

 

[Jaaskinal]

Reduce the base power storage of entities from 50,000 to 5,000.

 

[alterintel]

Probably going to be a very unpopular suggestion, but do me a favor and think about it for a couple of hours before you decided you don't like it?

Suggestion: Increase Power Capacitor Capacity by ALLOT by like a 100%

• GroupPower = 1000 * NumBlocks1.05 --> GroupPower = 100000 * NumBlocks1.05

Argument: Would totally change the dynamic of the game from a "Bigger is Better" paradigm to a "Rock Paper Scissors" paradigm.
IE. Thrust vs Shield capacity vs Alpha damage

• Ship size would no longer be limited to how much power they can produce, but instead by how much energy it takes to power the thrusters.
• Wait times would be a must for Alpha weapons to "charge"
• Power drain and EMP weapons would be ALLOT more effective
  
• May even remove the need for a fuel system?
• Reduced reliance on "Super Efficient" power generator dimension setups. (Much easier for noobs)

 

[JC1223]

Be able to set groups of thrusters that get configured together, so you can have different thruster groups with different setups

 

[Valiant70]

Remove box dimensions from the turning calculation for ships and base it mostly or entirely off of mass. I don't know how much of this can be changed in configs, but I think some of it can. The box dimension calculation drives me to minimize the box dimensions of practical ships, which I do NOT like. I want to put decorative loopy things that stick out from the hull here and there.

 

[Ithirahad]

Make enemy stations established in faction territory (including pirate bases) drain a configurable amount of faction points every turn.

If you can't/don't want to do this because of future faction mechanics changes, then here's one:

Give Scanners as UI, even if it's just one button, so that stations can scan too. (If this moved the scanner logs to be per-entity rather than in the nav panel that would be good but not really a balance suggestion)

And if that doesn't count as a balance suggestion, here's yet another one:

Buff thrusters a little, even if it means making the diminishing returns worse. Right now even small and medium-small ships (~75-150m) handle like space probes, not fighters and corvettes. I'm not asking for the return of old thrust where 400m ships can have a 2.5-1 thrust/mass ratio, but when things like AlterIntel's Defiant-class become sluggish without the docked thruster exploit, IMO there's a problem.

Oh, and if you aren't going to change that either:

Give turrets a max turn speed based on their mass. When fleet control is implemented, if turret turnrate is balanced with size, turrets will finally be balanced. Otherwise having massive turrets is like flying a fleet of giant ships that share shields and can magically turn on a dime.

 

[<SCRIPTKITTY>]

Make thrusters cost infinitely more power, so you can't have large fast ships, that way small ships will be quick and zippy and useful in numbers and capital ships will be slow and powerful, instead of capital ships being zippy and small ships being useless
[DOUBLEPOST=1453217882,1453217296][/DOUBLEPOST]Logic accessible shipyard controls

Think about it

Automated factories for producing fighters for carriers

 

[Zackey_TNT]

Turrets need to be re balanced, they are basically useless for anything other then getting shot off.

I suggest a further reduction of the shield sharing % to 10%

Turrets are smaller and easier to shoot off a ship, shield sharing doesn't change this.

 

[Lancake]

The council is up and running again! Our backlog is big but we should be able to manage all of it for the next release.
From now on any suggestion that is not related to game balance will be deleted, even if it is a good one. Those belong in a stand-alone thread for the council to look at.

 

[Ithirahad]

What if we went and reduced the cloak power requirements per block by, say, 10%? That way cloakships could still not be very strong, but at least they might be able to look a little more like ships and less like blobs of power and motherboard.

 

[Guthris]

Since my former post was moved due to not being completely appropriate to game balance I will post a new bi-weekly suggestion.

-- Please include the ability to save 3 preset thruster ratio profiles for on the fly switching.

I can deduce the choice to go for a three dimensional slider was a design aesthetic. It proves hard to be able to switch thrust settings when in a pinch.
For those of us with a mouse that doesn't have a DPI that can be lowered it is really hard to drag the thruster slider triangle into the position we need it in due to the mouse cursor not being precise enough. Being able to save upwards of an X amount of profiles would help us greatly. (3 is a solid number but more would be nice)

 

[darkracer125]

make it so every entity that is docked to eachother gets a number starting at 1 and counting up.
and then make the Arrow keys just cycle from 1 till whatever the highest number is and then loop back to 1.

it is so annoying to get stuck on a turret and it's base when trying to get to your shuttle.
the way switching between entity's is now, is like a horror movie.
ps: Screenshot that is not true. i have not posted anything here for atleast 2 or 3 updates.
Screenshot i think this info is out of date

 

[Ghent96]

Delete the thruster patch. It has hurt small ships too much, and not balanced huge ships enough. There should be a softcap / plateau on thrust, instead, with thrust levels going back to pre-patch.

Directional thrust should be accomplished by the orientation that we lay down thruster modules in. Take away the "R" key on thruster blocks. Take away the thruster menu. Always make a game less complicated when you can, and do things that make sense. Just let thrust be 'static' per ship design, per blueprint, based on block orienation.

Inside of this is also top speed. This should never be determined by thrust. It should be static, and set by the server config. Thrust should give acceleration, which determines how fast you reach your top speed. Doesn't matter if you have 3 blocks or 3 million - your top speed should be the same.

 

[JC1223]

Be able to set groups of thrusters that get configured together, so you can have different thruster groups with different setups

Something I forgot to put when i made this: this would allow directional thrusters in a sort for those who want them, and add a torque option maybe so thrusters can improve turning speed at the cost of directional thrust.

 

[Borr]

Make Tekt a basic sun protection that will dissipate over time when exposed to sun damage. Maybe in the future we could make special hulls from it or effect system, because you know, we still waiting for something that will end this sun troll.

 

[Jarraff]

Currently the effect system favors weapons that have 100% slave modules. If i want to make a wepon with no slave with full effect it will take twice as many effect modules because the effect calculations only take into account the main weapon.

I propose that the calculation should include the the number of slave modules say (main+slave)/2=Effect for 100%

This has probably been suggested but i have not seen it so I am putting out there.
[DOUBLEPOST=1459697865,1459694948][/DOUBLEPOST]Ignore this suggestion I did not know effects moduales added to the weapons dps

You play a game for more hours than you care to admit and you think you know how it works but some days you still feel like a noob

 

[Kingofanime]

In "Advanced Build Mode" make "Mirror Cubes" turned on by default. It's always unchecked when I start up starmade. I never use symmetry planes without wanting it turned on, and if I'm not using symmetry planes, then it's not affecting me anyways.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

In "Advanced Build Mode" make "Mirror Cubes" turned on by default. It's always unchecked when I start up starmade. I never use symmetry planes without wanting it turned on, and if I'm not using symmetry planes, then it's not affecting me anyways.

I was informed today that this is already in the Dev build so look forward to it in the next release.

 

[Lucidess]

A LOT of suggestions here are things that can be changed in the config already. I will suggest things that are NOT in the game. (If you want an idea of true balance on the level of adjusted numbers, check out my server.)

-Power Module Efficiency Mode. Add a green/red lighting to Power Modules to show which power modules are efficient or not.

-Completely re-work Damage Pulse. No radius based damage, just a flat amount of damage in a radius. Also add a DOT effect if possible.

-Fix the Block and Mass Limit in the config so it ADDS Mass w/rail. It's still possible for players to make infinitely big ships by docking a ship off of the main ship. (I really hope this gets fixed so I don't have to constantly enforce a size limit on an entity.)