How to: Home bases WITHOUT lag

[Dire Venom]

So one main issue a lot of players would have faced is massive lag while in the same system as their homebase and multitudes of ships.
Sure, you can store them in different systems (and watch them get torn apart/stolen when you log off) dismantle them and rebuild them with your shipyard (takes an age to build, duplicates can have issues, not an enjoyable process)

OR

We could implement a new feature into Starmade based on the current game mechanics.
Im sure many of you have used the 'Test Design' feature i the shipyard.
It teleports you and your ship into an in-accessible sector separated from the rest of the universe where you can test out your design and send waves of ships at it. You cannot jump out or fly out of it.

I propose that we allow players to create these 'void' systems.
Void systems require immense power to construct, and maintain.

1-2 new blocks would be required: Void Constructor/Void Manipulator
These blocks can only be placed on stations. When activated, the Void Constructor will consume power capping out at (x) per second. When it reaches the required sum (basicaly it sucks power till it has enough) the sector will be created.
The void system will then be assigned to the Constructor/Manipulator where it can be activated, and deactivated.

When activated, the Void System will draw a constant stream of power (maybe relative to the total mass of the entities inside the void system? They all show on nav so should be easy to add up) and potentially drain faction points as well. There would be a cool-down period each time the Void system is activated/deactivated of (x) hours.
If the void system is left de-activated for (x) amount of time the void system closes and is destroyed, alongside everything inside of it. If the void system is not linked to a jump-gate while active for (x) amount of time the void system also closes and is destroyed.
If either condition is being met it will display a warning.
If the constructor block is destroyed the void sector dies alongside it.
If the constructor does not receive the required amount of power/second it will be destroyed after (x) amount of time.
If it also costs faction points to maintain, the same applies as above.

The Void Constructor/Manipulator block can be set as the destination using a marker, and in-putted into a jump-gate. The void system will be empty, however could automatically spawn with a small, default jumpgate back to the system with the Void Systems Constructor. Any warpgates in the void system automatically link to the Constructors Station.

The Void system will spawn just like the test sector does, and cannot be escaped by conventional or jump drive means as in the test sector. The map will continue to show the system where the void constructor is.

These mechanics are already being used in-game

Otherwise, the faction can then store their ships/resources etc inside the void sector.

Downsides?
->Players will only (most likely) build these on their hombases (which is where they are needed anyway) so that other players cant easily destroy them (however reducing their faction points down to 0 for a time could).
->Storing large amounts of mass in-side a void system would require a large amount of power to be generated every second.
->They require a large home-base to support this, and potentially faction points to have active.
->Obviously other factions and your faction needs to go through the linked jump gate to get to the void system.
->Potentially only one per station, or escalating costs for more than one per station? Or no limit?

Now what does this contribute to the game?:
->Players need not come home to a lag fest everytime they want to build/dock something, they can instead store it under the protection of their hombase but without the lag.
->Players within the faction can have their own space to build and design without also creating a lagfest and ruinning other players experience or having it all destroyed every-time they log on.
->Also did I mention no lagfest?


Now people might complain and say "Thats OP, how will I ever take it (grief) all when its locked away??"
Simply put if it was docked to their homebase you would not be-able to take it anyway. The void system is simply an expensive expansion of the Homebase.
There is next to no motivation or reason to build other stations other than a homebase atm and store ships there since it will get demolished by another player. This allows players to store their ships and creations at their homebase without having to constantly suffer crippling lag just to keep everything safe until they next log on.

With this, I would also like to suggest that in the Warp Gate computer the player can select who is allowed to go through, just like on the faction modual e.g All Entities, Neutral + Allied, Only Allied, Rank (x) and above Only, etc.

Thank you for reading ^_^ and I hope you consider it!
Any criticism or comments please do say!

 

[alterintel]

I love the idea of a lag free home base. I also like this idea because of the out of the box thinking. But one of the down sides that you didn't mention is the inability of enemies to perform espionage.

This is a very crucial part of any game of strategy and tactics.

 

[Bladeriker]

Interesting Idea, what happens when the home-base is Attackable (Due to zero Faction points) and the void control destroyed? Do the ships held within just pour out or are they lost to the Voids?

 

[TheWurm]

Would it be feasible to add this functionality to the shipyard? Just have it draw more power for every ship in storage?

 

[Tydeth]

Bladeriker
From what I've read, it sounds like any time the Void dimension sector is destroyed, everything inside it gets deleted as well. Thus, you would want to ensure you have the FP to maintain that thing, or at least maintain homebase protection if the portal itself does not cost FP (since that seems like an optional thing).

 

[jstenholt]

I'm going to give this one a definitive "no."

Hiding your total strength docked at your homebase would be an enormous advantage, currently if you want to hide your total strength you need to put in the effort required to dismantle your ships when not in use or store your ships in vulnerable areas; that's what we call "balance". Plus, what would the lag be like if every faction was using their void at the same time on a massive server with 50 people online?

A cool and unique solution that in reality would suck.

 

[Bladeriker]

Lost to the Voids they are , oh well that is one way to keep your opponents from benefiting from your work.

 

[Madman198237]

Jsten, the lag would be the same as if those 50 people were in realspace, since the void sector is just a locked version of a normal sector, right?

The ability to hide ships would be a unique and useful advantage of this system---for truly extreme costs of resources, and I mean this needs to be really, really extreme, you can hide and protect lots of ships. Interesting idea, might indeed help lag.

 

[jstenholt]

The ability to hide ships would be a unique and useful advantage of this system---for truly extreme costs of resources, and I mean this needs to be really, really extreme, you can hide and protect lots of ships. Interesting idea, might indeed help lag.

Yes, I understand it would be an advantage to a faction; what I was saying is that that advantage would actually be a detrimental feature, as it gives larger factions able to sustain such a system an even greater advantage than they have already.

 

[PLIX]

Yes, I understand it would be an advantage to a faction; what I was saying is that that advantage would actually be a detrimental feature, as it gives larger factions able to sustain such a system an even greater advantage than they have already.

good point

 

[Az14el]

If this were implimented, I would 100% just continue hiding my stuff in the endless infinite void, without spending my faction points or power.
Never once have I lost hidden ships in an empty random sector away from the galactic core, even on a very highly populated server with lots of "griefers", the chances are simply too astronomically low that they're going to run across them.

Starmade space is actually REEAAAAALLLLLYYYYY freakin big. I can definitely understand being paranoid about leaving your stuff away from homebase, absolutely. But for real, there's no threat as long as it's not in an owned system or surrounded by owned systems. There are more instances of homebases/faction dynamics being exploited to steal protected ships, than hidden ships discovered.

As far as reducing homebase lag goes, i think this is a very important point, because they're often the largest most heavily railed entities in the game, and are almost always loaded. Big problem, absolutely.
And limiting the amount of stuff you have docked to it is probably the best step. I say just have a hidden sector for such things that you/your faction have a bookmarked waypoint for, or even better, fleet the ships and send them to somewhere secure nearby when needed.

Some other good steps are not going insane on cargo space (mostly helps client side), covering up animated blocks with hull or something else opaque and non-animated (animated blocks take 4x the memory of the same shape without animation, roughly), and considering the "bounding box" of your station, meaning keeping things compact on at least one axis to limit the huge fps drop & server lag caused by docking/undocking large ships on an already heavily docked station.

 

[Lecic]

Or, Schema could just fix the insane lag that comes from lots of things docked to the same object.

If anything, all you're going to do is trade docked ships for docked reactors to keep these void sectors running.

 

[Madman198237]

The problem with that, Lecic, is that you can't just "fix" lag. There has to be something specific you can do to reduce the work the CPU/GPU/whatever is doing. There comes a point where you can't make something less laggy because there's no more simplification to do.

 

[Lecic]

The problem with that, Lecic, is that you can't just "fix" lag. There has to be something specific you can do to reduce the work the CPU/GPU/whatever is doing. There comes a point where you can't make something less laggy because there's no more simplification to do.

This is true, but I have massive doubts we're anywhere near that point.

 

[Winterhome]

This is true, but I have massive doubts we're anywhere near that point.

particularly considering that the game was less laggy before certain rail/turret optimizations

 

[Madman198237]

Perhaps, Lecic. It really depends on how exactly the game handles multiple stationary and indestructible entities in a confined area.
Maybe the most complete simplification is to stop tracking collisions between docked vessels (That have no other rail to move to) and the station/other docked components), shields/armor HP/ship HP, minimizing everything that could possibly help.

The problem comes when you realize that you must still track collisions between ships and docked ships and the station, and all of that fun stuff. Then, of course, you realize that all of this is completely unusable on any station other than the HB, because all other stations can be damaged (And therefore HPs must constantly be monitored, and collisions must be as well).