Comr4de and BDLS work on their (not so?) super sekrit server project

[BDLS]

Comr4de and I are working on a server that removes shields from ships, forcing players to use intelligent design and armor to survive combat. This video is a battle between traders and pirates on the server, and shows how battles are different in default starmade.

Also, we're hoping for it to be possible to remove invulnerable homebases and shared starmaps from the configs in the near future. Spreading out your resources and having strategic fleets and inhibitors in key sectors will be thrilling.

 

[Blood Born Angel]

Tell me more...

 

[NeonSturm]

Try flying through a sun :D

Would be fun if projectiles which miss their target are randomly spawned over time to hit targets in a sector >:-}

 

[Winterhome]

I recommend balancing punch and pierce cannons/beams a little bit more so that, perhaps, punch does more armor HP damage and pierce bypasses more armor value, just like with missiles, or something.

 

[Keptick]

I recommend balancing punch and pierce cannons/beams a little bit more so that, perhaps, punch does more armor HP damage and pierce bypasses more armor value, just like with missiles, or something.

BDLS forgot to mention that stations will still be able to have shields, so the other effects will still have their uses.

 

[timethatswasted]

Oh hey you guys are back =D

I've been playing around with some similar concepts if you want to swap notes. I would also be happy to help out.

Nova Ascendance: Faction PvP and Conquest Server [[Coming Soon]]

I thought with all the talk of balance people would be more interested in experimenting with large scale re-balancing. I was terribly mistaken lol. However I would be thrilled to share what I have learned so far with my 2-3 months of playing around with it.

I hope you plan to fully utilize the damage mitigation feature of the Armor system and boost the HP triggers so they actually do something. I can also share some of the issues I have discovered with having an Armor only system

 

[BDLS]

We're trying to not get TOO crazy with config changes since they get overwritten with updates and it's a pain in the ass to change stuff back to custom values when it happens. That or seeing what new stuff was added and copying that into our custom config.

Don't expect balance to be perfect right off the bat, it will slowly be dialed in based on our testing and player input. But as Keppu-chan said, yes stations will still have shields, so something like Ion is still useful for those.

A few random changes to share:
- Swarm missiles are going to completely change their mechanic since Comro and I think they are lame.
- CM & BM now 2x vanilla damage
- Warheads are out of shops. 25k damage, 10 radius

 

[timethatswasted]

We're trying to not get TOO crazy with config changes since they get overwritten with updates and it's a pain in the ass to change stuff back to custom values when it happens. That or seeing what new stuff was added and copying that into our custom config.

Don't expect balance to be perfect right off the bat, it will slowly be dialed in based on our testing and player input. But as Keppu-chan said, yes stations will still have shields, so something like Ion is still useful for those.

A few random changes to share:
- Swarm missiles are going to completely change their mechanic since Comro and I think they are lame.
- CM & BM now 2x vanilla damage
- Warheads are out of shops. 25k damage, 10 radius

Well custom block configs don't get overwritten anymore... If you put them in the config template folder the custom values get carried over with each update and addition of new lines.

25k damage for warheads, cool

 

[SuperWookie]

Gotta love that ping lag in the video

 

[BDLS]

Gotta love that ping lag in the video

Once you get over 100+ mobs or so fighting at the same place, starmade kinda chokes. Normally runs quite nicely.

 

[BDLS]

update:
Things aren't looking so good in terms of configuration.

We had moved shield caps and rechargers to new IDs so people could not spawn in their existing BP ships with these items. We assigned them new IDs and put them as station only. Which should work in theory, but we found out that stations spawned in with ghosted & glitched docked entities when we did this.

So we set to make a filler block for the old shield IDs, respectively 3 and 478.

However, even with them set up like this:

Spoiler

in BlockConfig:

<Block icon="38" name="Insulation Module" textureId="15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15" type="INSULATION">
<Consistence>
<Item count="2">METAL_MESH</Item>
</Consistence>
<CubatomConsistence/>
<Price>50</Price>
<Description>What use to be ship shields. Not on my watch, bitch. -Structural Stats- $ARMOUR% Armor $HP HP</Description>
<BlockResourceType>2</BlockResourceType>
<ProducedInFactory>3</ProducedInFactory>
<BasicResourceFactory>0</BasicResourceFactory>
<FactoryBakeTime>5.0</FactoryBakeTime>
<InventoryGroup>scaffold</InventoryGroup>
<Animated>false</Animated>
<Armour>0.0</Armour>
<ArmorHPContribution>0</ArmorHPContribution>
<StructureHPContribution>5</StructureHPContribution>
<Transparency>false</Transparency>
<InShop>true</InShop>
<Orientation>false</Orientation>
<Slab>0</Slab>
<Enterable>false</Enterable>
<Mass>0.01</Mass>
<Volume>0.01</Volume>
<Hitpoints>50</Hitpoints>
<Placable>true</Placable>
<InRecipe>true</InRecipe>
<CanActivate>false</CanActivate>
<IndividualSides>1</IndividualSides>
<SideTexturesPointToOrientation>false</SideTexturesPointToOrientation>
<HasActivationTexture>false</HasActivationTexture>
<MainCombinationController>false</MainCombinationController>
<SupportCombinationController>false</SupportCombinationController>
<EffectCombinationController>false</EffectCombinationController>
<Physical>true</Physical>
<BlockStyle>0</BlockStyle>
<LightSource>false</LightSource>
<Door>false</Door>
<Deprecated>false</Deprecated>
<CubatomCompound>
<Cubatom>
<mass>medium</mass>
<spinning>anti_spin</spinning>
<thermal>gas</thermal>
<conductivity>insulator</conductivity>
</Cubatom>
<Cubatom>
<mass>light</mass>
<spinning>null_spin</spinning>
<thermal>solid</thermal>
<conductivity>conductive</conductivity>
</Cubatom>
</CubatomCompound>
<ResourceInjection>0</ResourceInjection>
<ExplosionAbsorbtion>0.0</ExplosionAbsorbtion>
<LightSourceColor>1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0</LightSourceColor>
<SlabReference>0</SlabReference>
</Block>

<Block icon="39" name="Radiator Module" textureId="284, 284, 284, 284, 284, 284" type="RADIATOR">
<Consistence>
<Item count="2">METAL_MESH</Item>
</Consistence>
<CubatomConsistence/>
<Price>50</Price>
<Description>What use to be ship shield rechargers. Not on my watch, fucker. -Structural Stats- $ARMOUR% Armor $HP HP</Description>
<BlockResourceType>2</BlockResourceType>
<ProducedInFactory>3</ProducedInFactory>
<BasicResourceFactory>0</BasicResourceFactory>
<FactoryBakeTime>5.0</FactoryBakeTime>
<InventoryGroup>scaffold</InventoryGroup>
<Animated>false</Animated>
<Armour>0.0</Armour>
<ArmorHPContribution>0</ArmorHPContribution>
<StructureHPContribution>5</StructureHPContribution>
<Transparency>false</Transparency>
<InShop>true</InShop>
<Orientation>false</Orientation>
<Slab>0</Slab>
<Enterable>false</Enterable>
<Mass>0.01</Mass>
<Volume>0.01</Volume>
<Hitpoints>50</Hitpoints>
<Placable>true</Placable>
<InRecipe>true</InRecipe>
<CanActivate>false</CanActivate>
<IndividualSides>1</IndividualSides>
<SideTexturesPointToOrientation>false</SideTexturesPointToOrientation>
<HasActivationTexture>false</HasActivationTexture>
<MainCombinationController>false</MainCombinationController>
<SupportCombinationController>false</SupportCombinationController>
<EffectCombinationController>false</EffectCombinationController>
<Physical>true</Physical>
<BlockStyle>0</BlockStyle>
<LightSource>false</LightSource>
<Door>false</Door>
<Deprecated>false</Deprecated>
<CubatomCompound>
<Cubatom>
<mass>medium</mass>
<spinning>anti_spin</spinning>
<thermal>gas</thermal>
<conductivity>insulator</conductivity>
</Cubatom>
<Cubatom>
<mass>light</mass>
<spinning>null_spin</spinning>
<thermal>solid</thermal>
<conductivity>conductive</conductivity>
</Cubatom>
</CubatomCompound>
<ResourceInjection>0</ResourceInjection>
<ExplosionAbsorbtion>0.0</ExplosionAbsorbtion>
<LightSourceColor>1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0</LightSourceColor>
<SlabReference>0</SlabReference>
</Block>


in BlockTypes:

#
#Fri Dec 18 13:49:01 GMT 2015
CORE_ID=1
POWER_ID=2
INSULATION=3
RADIATOR=478

Buying these new items from the shop gives the new assigned textures, but they act as the original shield type blocks, even going as far as to provide shield capacity and recharge, never mind my descriptions being overruled. I'm thinking that anything that uses blockid #3 is hardwired into the code to act as a shield cap, and 478 as a shield rechargarino. Maybe the config is simply not that flexible? This ain't C&C Red Alert with rules.ini, kek.

Here you can see the custom blocks in the shop totally ignoring the custom config.

Maybe I'm just retarded, it was a long day at work, but NOSHIELDZ server isn't looking too hot as far releasing soon.

EDIT: It seems our custom shield IDs don't work as shields, I suppose we should have realized this especially after the fillers worked as them. So yeah, those IDs MUST be hard coded for whatever you put in there.

So, any ideas?

 

[Jerry_Brinefield]

This looks awesome! Personally, I'd prefer a mod that made shields more realistic to most sci series (can take a couple shots then fail, so extremely weak), but I think this is probably the most feasible solution. It looks like it dramatically changes the way combat is waged and the way that ships are built, super cool, what a great idea and implementation guys.

 

[Keptick]

You could just go the ragnarok route and disable BP upload, but having it so that people can submit ships to be reviewed by admins, and having it added to the BP list for the person to use.

Or, alternatively, just ban people that have shields on their ships :p (or delete the ship).

 

[timethatswasted]

Suggestion 1: Set the base value of shields(the amount of shields your ship starts off with, not the amount you get per block) to 500k. Then put a steep diminishing curve on both shield capacity and recharge. Greatly increase the power cost of shield recharge. They'll be almost impractical to use on ships.

Suggestion 2: remove them from shops and factories. Set blueprints to buy with credits. Set the price of shields to 2billion.

 

[Rixxan]

So you're saying that armored carriers and sy-fy ships that don't have shields would finally stand a chance as cannon as they are?

 

[BDLS]

Kep: I want to have minimal admin work. But we are discussing no BP upload, which will turn off everyone else

TIME: lolno, both of those ideas are very far from what we are trying to do

Rixxan: yep. We are hoping no longer will people just fly their most valuable ships with impunity.

 

[Rixxan]

Oh sweet, but it'd be nice if people could upload ships for approval (such as canon ships that they built in singleplayer but can't use because they didn't load shields on it.

 

[Winterhome]

set shield cap mass to 100,000? :P

 

[BDLS]

Pretty good idea.

On the downside. People would probably just jump in with one module jump drives and a ton of shields on top of bases and not care about no mobility. Still worth considering.

 

[Ragged Design]

Cool video, love the music! Who is the composer?