my experience with fleets

[linwe talion]

These are the 16 thoughts I came across while testing fleets stuff.
Here are no carrier-fighters ones, since I haven't tested it yet.


1) an odd pathfinding for fleets. looks like fleets chose one of the coords which they closeup to the given nav point, and only after it being equal to the target, alter the 2nd and
3rd ones, thus providing their movement kinda giant curves instead of a straight line
1.1) fleets need route points, like "1st fly here, then there, then there", patrol cycle points are also very desirable
2) fleets have only one formation, which is a straight line. a straight line in space? really?
3) fleets over 5 ships take too long to make a formation
4) fleets don't have 'attack my target" command
5) fleets don't have "follow me" command
6) shipyards have to have a production queue, like "ok, I wanna 50 of those"
7) shipyards must have an option of auto adding ships to fleets. because making it manually just sucks. also if you don't undock the previous created ship manually away from the dock, ships stack in piles, so:
8) shipyards must have a sentry point for new ships for auto sending them there after construction
9) fleets shall be far more smarter in means of attacking stuff. just flying around it, forming a sphere is not always a best idea
10) if there are long-range ships in a fleet, short range ships should have an option to "see" their targets too and attack them too, since now they attack enemy only if it is in range and don't try to close up with them
11) fleets seem to not being receiving sun damage while unloaded
12) some ships randomly disappear from fleets with no certain reason and no messages
13) fleets need "(un)cloak and (un)jam" command
14) fleets need an "avoid battle\RUN!!!" command
15) fleets need "follow and defend that ship" command
16) repairing severely damaged ships is pain in the arse right now. there should be an auto option for that for fleets

on the whole, right now managing your fleets is tremendously routine-difficult, time-consuming and WEIRD, making them really unplayable

 

[nightrune]

I believe I've heard most of the devs comment they understand, and a lot of this is coming. It just takes time to get right. AI is actually hard in a game with known units. In a game where anything could be arbitrary its even harder. Give it time. Hopefully more devs will comment on this.

 

[ne3zy]

Imagine the epic fights once fleets are finished, the combat system reworked and the game optimized!

 

[linwe talion]

Imagine the epic fights once fleets are finished, the combat system reworked and the game optimized!

I am imaging it for the last 2 years. Now they added mining, in place of making old features work. To my mind it is not the best idea.

 

[GalactusX]

Please... understands, maybe 2 years ago, the Schema team did not have enough experience with programing, but now, after a long journey of learning, finally they are going to provide us a very good game improvement, fleets and its variants ...

The most rewarding of the path traveled by the team Starmade is not only getting to where we are, is to see the incredible work they are doing and say YES ... I have accompanied all this time and I am proud to be part of this community and its game

so please ... be patient ... Everything comes when it has to

 

[Edymnion]

I am imaging it for the last 2 years. Now they added mining, in place of making old features work. To my mind it is not the best idea.

Its likely a question of resource vs. reward.

Some of the things that need fixing may take a thousand hours of dev time to fix, while getting mining to work may have taken 10 hours. One is a quick kill to get something a lot of people were yelling for into the game, one is a long slog that people have learned to do without for the time being.

And giving us something like the mining option keeps us busy and shuts us up for a while. Kind of like giving the baby a new toy so the parents can get 5 minutes of peace to go patch the hole in the wall.

 

[linwe talion]

Its likely a question of resource vs. reward.

Some of the things that need fixing may take a thousand hours of dev time to fix, while getting mining to work may have taken 10 hours. One is a quick kill to get something a lot of people were yelling for into the game, one is a long slog that people have learned to do without for the time being.

And giving us something like the mining option keeps us busy and shuts us up for a while. Kind of like giving the baby a new toy so the parents can get 5 minutes of peace to go patch the hole in the wall.

The thing is...
I guess, this one may become too long and overcomplicated both for the forum and for my knowledge of English, so I'll try to summ it up and write a brief here, just to make my position clear.

Starmade, as a code project, as a software, was intentionally designed to be utterly complicated in terms of features. From the very beginning Schema has taken several approximations, that up to the present date allow him (and us) to create things, which couldn't be created before, because they make certain clue things easier, then the classical approaches.

BUT to my mind here in 2015-2016 we are reaching the limit, where growth of features list meets overwhelming growth of bugs\unfinishesness list, 1st growing in a linear progression, 2nd - in geometrical.

My resolution is following: if Schema doesn't set the certain features limit in the nearest future and continues expanding the game, keeping in mind his dream about creating a space sim "that can do anything just like in real life", the game will be never finished and never out of beta.

More and more often you will see "it will be implemented later", only getting 1\10th of the feature really working.

I want Starmade to get out of the kindergarten and to become a real product, 99% close to polished, finished one. Updates? Hell yeah! We all love new stuff, why not? But it should be an update for a finished product, changing its functionality in some way, not just an add of a feature to a code, that can do like 30% of its intentional things list.

I don't want Starmade to become Minecraft-2, where after 4 years of development they added horses, for whom all those saddles were originally designed 4 years before.

I hope I managed to express my anxiety and deep concern about the future of the game.

 

[Edymnion]

BUT to my mind here in 2015-2016 we are reaching the limit, where growth of features list meets overwhelming growth of bugs\unfinishesness list, 1st growing in a linear progression, 2nd - in geometrical.

I had a whole big post written out about how programmers prioritize things, but then I realized one thing.

Starmade is still an Alpha.

In the development lifecycle, Alpha is where you add new features and get the basic shape of the game beaten out. Beta is where you stop adding features and iron out as many of the bugs and balance issues as you can. Then v1.0 release is what you ship as your initial finished product.

Since Starmade is an Alpha, getting new features put in place while keeping the rest of the game relatively stable is exactly what their priority should be. The "Go squish the bugs" phase is still to come, because you can fix all the bugs you want now, but you'll just get new issues next time you add something else.

Even then, you'll never squish them all. Blizzard was well known for saying they were tracking over one MILLION known bugs during Wrath of the Lich King in World of Warcraft. And thats just the ones they knew about and were actively working on.

 

[Benevolent27]

I've had a very frustrating time with these fleets. I created 2 fleets today to test the mining. I keep having ships randomly disappear.. The first fleet had 5 ships, and 2 disappeared while docked. The second fleet had 10 ships, and 4 disappeared into thin air. This was after relogging back in.

 

[AtraUnam]

I've had a very frustrating time with these fleets. I created 2 fleets today to test the mining. I keep having ships randomly disappear.. The first fleet had 5 ships, and 2 disappeared while docked. The second fleet had 10 ships, and 4 disappeared into thin air. This was after relogging back in.

This was supposedly fixed in the most recent round of bug fixing.

 

[linwe talion]

I had a whole big post written out about how programmers prioritize things, but then I realized one thing.

Starmade is still an Alpha.

In the development lifecycle, Alpha is where you add new features and get the basic shape of the game beaten out. Beta is where you stop adding features and iron out as many of the bugs and balance issues as you can. Then v1.0 release is what you ship as your initial finished product.

Since Starmade is an Alpha, getting new features put in place while keeping the rest of the game relatively stable is exactly what their priority should be. The "Go squish the bugs" phase is still to come, because you can fix all the bugs you want now, but you'll just get new issues next time you add something else.

Even then, you'll never squish them all. Blizzard was well known for saying they were tracking over one MILLION known bugs during Wrath of the Lich King in World of Warcraft. And thats just the ones they knew about and were actively working on.

I deeply agree with your vision of alpha stage, but don't you think that Starmade is staying in alpha for too long?
What is the percentage of successful MMOs, which been in alpha for longer then 3 years and then survived up to release? And what is the percentage of MMOs, that overgrown themselves during alpha and then just vanished, which was caused by any of million causes, like the "burning out" of the core staff (lost interest in product), financial issues, outdated basis, which could not withstand competitors, who grew faster and brought newer vision to the market?
What I want to say is that the longer you develop, the higher are the risks.

And what I said all above is about my opinion, that I consider the risks for starmade to be too high atm and this should be prevented by shortening the dev stage.
What is your opinion about it?

 

[Vader_is_Bored]

I deeply agree with your vision of alpha stage, but don't you think that Starmade is staying in alpha for too long?
What is the percentage of successful MMOs, which been in alpha for longer then 3 years and then survived up to release? And what is the percentage of MMOs, that overgrown themselves during alpha and then just vanished, which was caused by any of million causes, like the "burning out" of the core staff (lost interest in product), financial issues, outdated basis, which could not withstand competitors, who grew faster and brought newer vision to the market?
What I want to say is that the longer you develop, the higher are the risks.

And what I said all above is about my opinion, that I consider the risks for starmade to be too high atm and this should be prevented by shortening the dev stage.
What is your opinion about it?

I can't disagree, I just have some speculation to add (because I'm bored and pretending y'all value my opinion).
So, the design team for Starmade is basically like one guy and maybe a few of his friends, right? Its entirely possible that he's enjoying making the game as much or more than we are enjoying playing it. And is therefore perhaps not in any hurry to "finish it." Perhaps making the joy of working on the game is more important than the potential money from selling a finished product.
I know that I enjoy working on ships in this game a lot more than I do actually finishing them. In fact, I'm usually a little disappointed when I finish a ship build, because now there's nothing more for me to do. Why wouldn't the Dev feel the same way about the game itself?
*Insert "Its not about the destination, its about the journey" type cliches here*

 

[Edymnion]

I deeply agree with your vision of alpha stage, but don't you think that Starmade is staying in alpha for too long?
What is the percentage of successful MMOs, which been in alpha for longer then 3 years and then survived up to release?

And for 2 of those years there was all of one guy coding the entire thing, and only within the last year has the development team ballooned to... three guys.

Compared to MMO teams that have dozens of people on the teams.

Remember, until very recently, Starmade was basically being made by some guy in garage during his spare time.

 

[MacThule]

These are the 16 thoughts I came across while testing fleets stuff.
Here are no carrier-fighters ones, since I haven't tested it yet.


1) an odd pathfinding for fleets. looks like fleets chose one of the coords which they closeup to the given nav point, and only after it being equal to the target, alter the 2nd and
3rd ones, thus providing their movement kinda giant curves instead of a straight line
1.1) fleets need route points, like "1st fly here, then there, then there", patrol cycle points are also very desirable
2) fleets have only one formation, which is a straight line. a straight line in space? really?
3) fleets over 5 ships take too long to make a formation
4) fleets don't have 'attack my target" command
5) fleets don't have "follow me" command
6) shipyards have to have a production queue, like "ok, I wanna 50 of those"
7) shipyards must have an option of auto adding ships to fleets. because making it manually just sucks. also if you don't undock the previous created ship manually away from the dock, ships stack in piles, so:
8) shipyards must have a sentry point for new ships for auto sending them there after construction
9) fleets shall be far more smarter in means of attacking stuff. just flying around it, forming a sphere is not always a best idea
10) if there are long-range ships in a fleet, short range ships should have an option to "see" their targets too and attack them too, since now they attack enemy only if it is in range and don't try to close up with them
11) fleets seem to not being receiving sun damage while unloaded
12) some ships randomly disappear from fleets with no certain reason and no messages
13) fleets need "(un)cloak and (un)jam" command
14) fleets need an "avoid battle\RUN!!!" command
15) fleets need "follow and defend that ship" command
16) repairing severely damaged ships is pain in the arse right now. there should be an auto option for that for fleets

on the whole, right now managing your fleets is tremendously routine-difficult, time-consuming and WEIRD, making them really unplayable

Moreover, those commands all need to able to be dragged into the 10-page hotbar we have the sits mostly empty....

 

[terra mining corp.]

I think the fleet update is one of the best game play additions since I started playing and the mining fleet mechanics is great. I built a small fleet of small mining ships and commanded to mine sector and they worked flawlessly(little derpy at first but the ai seemed to get better as they mined)

 

[Nickizzy]

I am imaging it for the last 2 years. Now they added mining, in place of making old features work. To my mind it is not the best idea.

Actually,mbesides other arguments, mining is a combat meta. Now you can more easially profit from fleets, and can do less personal mining, decreasing the const of ships, making it more of an option for people to pvp.

BUT to my mind here in 2015-2016 we are reaching the limit, where growth of features list meets overwhelming growth of bugs\unfinishesness list, 1st growing in a linear progression, 2nd - in geometrical.

My resolution is following: if Schema doesn't set the certain features limit in the nearest future and continues expanding the game, keeping in mind his dream about creating a space sim "that can do anything just like in real life", the game will be never finished and never out of beta.

More and more often you will see "it will be implemented later", only getting 1\10th of the feature really working.

I want Starmade to get out of the kindergarten and to become a real product, 99% close to polished, finished one. Updates? Hell yeah! We all love new stuff, why not? But it should be an update for a finished product, changing its functionality in some way, not just an add of a feature to a code, that can do like 30% of its intentional things list.

I don't want Starmade to become Minecraft-2, where after 4 years of development they added horses, for whom all those saddles were originally designed 4 years before.

I hope I managed to express my anxiety and deep concern about the future of the game.

1. Bugtracker is working on it.

2. Actually, it's more of a really complicated thing that keeps getting added onto by superfrenzied forums that get a ton of great ideas*cough*suggestions*cough*

3. "Implemented later" means they will get the core features out(and sometimes more) the full thing will come out later.

4. Hey, if we are in kindergarden, and if it took 4 years for minecraft's entire Mojan team to get out of alpha, the total equivalant of 3 guys for 2 years probably shouldn't move as fast(but they still do pretty good:p). Stay eith the game, influence it through the forums to get thos features you want, buy some stock (ooh! Has anyone thought about that!?)and laugh as the game goes from as little as 12 dollars to 25 or 30, players flood in and the gameplay expand outward.

5. We don't have any alien horsies yet, we might at somepoint. Jk They've been pretty good with that so far actually.

 

[linwe talion]

Actually,mbesides other arguments, mining is a combat meta. Now you can more easially profit from fleets, and can do less personal mining, decreasing the const of ships, making it more of an option for people to pvp.

1. Bugtracker is working on it.

2. Actually, it's more of a really complicated thing that keeps getting added onto by superfrenzied forums that get a ton of great ideas*cough*suggestions*cough*

3. "Implemented later" means they will get the core features out(and sometimes more) the full thing will come out later.

4. Hey, if we are in kindergarden, and if it took 4 years for minecraft's entire Mojan team to get out of alpha, the total equivalant of 3 guys for 2 years probably shouldn't move as fast(but they still do pretty good:p). Stay eith the game, influence it through the forums to get thos features you want, buy some stock (ooh! Has anyone thought about that!?)and laugh as the game goes from as little as 12 dollars to 25 or 30, players flood in and the gameplay expand outward.

5. We don't have any alien horsies yet, we might at somepoint. Jk They've been pretty good with that so far actually.

Come back after playing 2 more years in Starmade, I'll take a look at your anxious appreciation then. No offence.

 

[Kilim]

1) Agree
1.1) Agree
2) Agree
3) Agree
4) Agree
5) Agree
6) Agree
7) Agree
8) Agree
9) Agree
10) Agree
11) Agree
12) Agrees
13) Agree
14) Here you can just tell them to move to a distant sector
15) Agree
16) Agree

 

[Ithirahad]

Given the team size and stage of development, the only thing that annoys me about fleets atm is the inability to have them jump. This severely limits their range. (Also the fact that they return to idle when you log off, but if fleets could just keep doing stuff while you're offline people would do stupid things with the system)

 

[terra mining corp.]

aarrgggg! don't use move to system command! lost 2 ships to the sun and damaged 3 others in my mining fleet,had to break the fleet to regain control.