StarMade v0.199.214 Auxiliary Power, Better Graphics, Better Textures, and Bugfixes

[Maxajax]

For all you fools whining about the new system either shut up or come up with a better one.

Already did, but that was written off as giganticism.

 

[nightrune]

For all you fools whining about the new system either shut up or come up with a better one.


In the mean time if I remember right docked reactors were used to get around the power regen softcap so why not make it so the new block when used like the power reactor in setup it has really high regen and low capacity, while when used in clumps like the power capacitors are they have really high capacity but low regen?

This was something I wanted. I felt like it could make a powerful one or two shot fighter that was basically a big balloon. Will have to get in and play with the configs myself.

 

[Lecic]

A fair amount of said challenge got patched out today,

Nope. A fair amount of challenge got replaced with a DIFFERENT KIND of challenge. The game is not less challenging because a shitty mechanic was finally removed. The challenges are just different. "How do I armor my reactor, internally and externally, to prevent damage and extend lifespan once damaged" and "how should I distribute my reactors" are now the challenges instead of "how do I wrestle with server lag, collision lag, and a wonky power transfer system" and "how do I find a server where the rules accommodate both my ship size and reactor count?"

 

[JinM]

So one thing just popped to my mind: Auxiliary Power should only work if it is connected to a ventilation shaft, wide enough to pass through a fighter called Luke Skywalker.

 

[Maxajax]

I appreciate the introduction of volatile systems. I do want the aux power systems to be a bit more versatile, but I think its a small config change. Also if you find the explosions are too dominant. Please play with the configuration values and see what might be more fun for both sides!

I could live with this. from a roleplay perspective the exploding stuff is pretty metal, but it should never be so prevalent that a single hit causes a game-over. Part of that is in the hands of the engineer, but the base explosive power shouldn't be too punishing to the new guys.

 

[Kingofanime]

Power Auxiliary Systems continue providing regen once their internal storage is empty, just at a reduced rate.

I assume an empty auxillery tank is supposed to generate the "OFF" listed value and not the higher "ON" listed value.

Either way, I made a bug report about it...

 

[Maxajax]

Nope. A fair amount of challenge got replaced with a DIFFERENT KIND of challenge. The game is not less challenging because a shitty mechanic was finally removed. The challenges are just different. "How do I armor my reactor, internally and externally, to prevent damage and extend lifespan once damaged" and "how should I distribute my reactors" are now the challenges instead of "how do I wrestle with server lag, collision lag, and a wonky power transfer system" and "how do I find a server where the rules accommodate both my ship size and reactor count?"

As I said, you don't armour your reactor, because if a little bit of server lag comes up, enemy warhead torpedoes will detonate inside of your ship's system blocks instead of exploding when impacting the exterior hull plating. The logical answer is to keep these things hella far away from anything important, preferably in a sort of nacelle attached to the ship with a stick, like in Star Trek. Even if that's not what Nacelles were for there.

 

[Kingofanime]

edit

 

[Maxajax]

So one thing just popped to my mind: Auxiliary Power should only work if it is connected to a ventilation shaft, wide enough to pass through a fighter called Luke Skywalker.

We might as well. It'd be funny in a sarcastic sort of way.

 

[TheWurm]

Well, I like the new weapons system. I liked the new docking system too. Both of those updates worked better than what was before, and increased the learning curve. My main beef with this update is that it is essentially just slapping chunks into a ship. The concept of these generators is fine, but why create a new block that explodes, when we could have simply used the number of power groups as a mechanic?

Yeah, removing docked reactors was long overdue, but now we've been set back to the same chunk stack mechanic that we had three years ago, except they now explode. A man on Teamspeak just oneshotted a ship with an astronaut pistol. Does that seem balanced to you?

So first off, I definitely agree that the game could stand to have a little more complexity, though I think you're selling the new reactors short on that front.

By providing a clear advantage and a clear disadvantage, and outright telling you how to balance between them, this block provides a different sort of complexity than the usual, research heavy kind. Now I enjoy digging through wikis and strategy guides a lot, and I enjoy the feeling of really mastering a system that comes through that, but a well designed game leaves the most interesting parts for while you are playing it. The weapon system is a decent example of this ( and will be a much better example once it's balanced) since every block of primary, secondary and tertiary modules (theoretically, again waiting on those balances) adds just as much DPS, but situationally each is distinct. The new reactors sits in a conceptually similar design space, though it's implementation may leave something to be desired(I say may, though I suspect it will fit in just fine with the whole Goliath vs. Army of Davids thing the game seems to be working toward.)

And also, if there's anything we've learned from Star Wars, it's that big ships that explode when their weak point is exposed are awesome.

 

[Lecic]

As I said, you don't armour your reactor, because if a little bit of server lag comes up, enemy warhead torpedoes will detonate inside of your ship's system blocks instead of exploding when impacting the exterior hull plating. The logical answer is to keep these things hella far away from anything important, preferably in a sort of nacelle attached to the ship with a stick, like in Star Trek. Even if that's not what Nacelles were for there.

Um, you definitely armor your reactor. It's how you protect it from weapons in the first place and how you protect it from destroying everything around it when it goes up. Internal armoring increases how long it takes to die as well. Warheads might clip through a couple meters of armor, but they aren't clipping 50 meters from my outer hull to my reactors.

 

[Maxajax]

Um, you definitely armor your reactor. It's how you protect it from weapons in the first place and how you protect it from destroying everything around it when it goes up. Internal armoring increases how long it takes to die as well. Warheads might clip through a couple meters of armor, but they aren't clipping 50 meters from my outer hull to my reactors.

Interesting, since I've killed 4.7 million block ships with 3x 3y 7z torpedoes that somehow managed to explode next to their shipcore in older versions of the game, and that was at the center of mass. It passed through well over 70 blocks to get there.

Regardless, if a warhead torpedo lag-glitch-explodes in said auxiliary power reactor, said reactor is gone, along with a large portion of the ship, and no amount of armour would prevent that. So, let me rephrase it. You can armour it. It just won't do a lot. I understand your opinion, I respect it, and I wish it was like that, but I've seen it go wrong too often not to plan for it.

 

[Criss]

A man on Teamspeak just oneshotted a ship with an astronaut pistol. Does that seem balanced to you?

Unless you have discovered an exploit that just doesn't make sense in any practical way. A capital ship will likely have layers upon layers of material to chew through and would need to be fired upon by something much stronger than an astronaut laser to break shields and most blocks. Assuming of course you do have shields on your ship, why would you be using an astronaut pistol in the first place?

since any equally sized loose entity still would cause the same lag it is not solved.

That's a bit of a stretch though isn't it? Just because we didn't fix the source for all lag does not mean we did not accomplish anything. This is focused at docked reactors inside ships that shouldn't be there. They were unintentional, and are not intuitive.

4 blocks in the game got rendered useless

Unless you use them in support ships. They still operate, just not on themselves. AI will improve over time, and so you have the options of bringing drones or friends to fill that role. This should make combat more interesting, instead of a contest to see who can get more ships onto the field.

a new player stacking a giant chunk of power into a ship because he doesn't know about power axis trees. Except now it explodes.

Good, their ignorance/arrogance is now their downfall. Instead of learning the more complicated power reactor designs, they opt for the easy power auxiliary. But they are not given auxiliary blocks when they start the game. They are not fully utilized until you hit power soft caps. In short, new players shouldn't be dealing with them much until they have made their way onto larger vessels.

Lecic hit the nail on the head with this one. The big concern I see here is that we took a step back, and we now rely on min-maxing the ships we fly. The solution comes in the form of the explosions that occur when the auxiliary is hit. The larger the grouping you make, the more dangerous it will be to fly. You may be flying around in a massive borg cube, but one stray hit and your ship is destroyed inside-out. I think that is a fair trade off. If you design your ship intelligently you can avoid such catastrophes. There's your new challenge. Build ships with auxiliary systems that don't immediately kill you once they get hit. Can you do it? If we come back in a few months and it can't be done, then we can adjust the system.

I'm not sure how we can continue expecting everything to be perfect when we are a small team, with limited testers available. We can only do so much before each update hits. If these are the things you are concerned about, help us contribute to better game. Join us on livestreams for direct feedback. Interact with the council. We just had a meeting with them and covered a bunch of stuff.

I'll be taking a break from the thread. This seems very divided and I would like to see alternative solutions if anyone has them. For now, this is what we've got.

 

[Maxajax]

So first off, I definitely agree that the game could stand to have a little more complexity, though I think you're selling the new reactors short on that front.

By providing a clear advantage and a clear disadvantage, and outright telling you how to balance between them, this block provides a different sort of complexity than the usual, research heavy kind. Now I enjoy digging through wikis and strategy guides a lot, and I enjoy the feeling of really mastering a system that comes through that, but a well designed game leaves the most interesting parts for while you are playing it. The weapon system is a decent example of this ( and will be a much better example once it's balanced) since every block of primary, secondary and tertiary modules (theoretically, again waiting on those balances) adds just as much DPS, but situationally each is distinct. The new reactors sits in a conceptually similar design space, though it's implementation may leave something to be desired(I say may, though I suspect it will fit in just fine with the whole Goliath vs. Army of Davids thing the game seems to be working toward.)

And also, if there's anything we've learned from Star Wars, it's that big ships that explode when their weak point is exposed are awesome.

I'm glad you agree that a bit of complexity is good. I too loved the new weapon system. Back in the day, you just had 100 by 100 by 100 AMC turrets that killed things 72 sectors away before the person getting hit could respond. It's just that I know what the average AI fleet of Davids is capable off, and I'm worried about Goliath.

 

[nightrune]

Interesting, since I've killed 4.7 million block ships with 3x 3y 7z torpedoes that somehow managed to explode next to their shipcore in older versions of the game, and that was at the center of mass. It passed through well over 70 blocks to get there.

Regardless, if a warhead torpedo lag-glitch-explodes in said auxiliary power reactor, said reactor is gone, along with a large portion of the ship, and no amount of armour would prevent that. So, let me rephrase it. You can armour it. It just won't do a lot. I understand your opinion, I respect it, and I wish it was like that, but I've seen it go wrong too often not to plan for it.

That kinda of clipping was reduced massively in the one of the recent updates. You should double check you can still even do this. I'd honestly be more worried about high punch cannon fire.

 

[Maxajax]

Unless you have discovered an exploit that just doesn't make sense in any practical way. A capital ship will likely have layers upon layers of material to chew through and would need to be fired upon by something much stronger than an astronaut laser to break shields and most blocks. Assuming of course you do have shields on your ship, why would you be using an astronaut pistol in the first place?

Good, their ignorance/arrogance is now their downfall. Instead of learning the more complicated power reactor designs, they opt for the easy power auxiliary. But they are not given auxiliary blocks when they start the game. They are not fully utilized until you hit power soft caps. In short, new players shouldn't be dealing with them much until they have made their way onto larger vessels.

Lecic hit the nail on the head with this one. The big concern I see here is that we took a step back, and we now rely on min-maxing the ships we fly. The solution comes in the form of the explosions that occur when the auxiliary is hit. The larger the grouping you make, the more dangerous it will be to fly. You may be flying around in a massive borg cube, but one stray hit and your ship is destroyed inside-out. I think that is a fair trade off. If you design your ship intelligently you can avoid such catastrophes. There's your new challenge. Build ships with auxiliary systems that don't immediately kill you once they get hit. Can you do it? If we come back in a few months and it can't be done, then we can adjust the system.

I'm not sure how we can continue expecting everything to be perfect when we are a small team, with limited testers available. We can only do so much before each update hits. If these are the things you are concerned about, help us contribute to better game. Join us on livestreams for direct feedback. Interact with the council. We just had a meeting with them and covered a bunch of stuff.

I'll be taking a break from the thread. This seems very divided and I would like to see alternative solutions if anyone has them. For now, this is what we've got.

- 1: For the pistol thing, you'd have to ask Blob, who pulled it off.

- 2: Fair enough.

- 3: Wasn't the entire challenge of the game to min-max a ship whilst still making it look slick, followed by having it curbstomp ships that are ten times bigger than itself? And what you say is true. The better players will find ways to use them that are not suicidal. My question is why we ought to give newbies a way to blow themselves up.

- 4: Because I just had to sit through Zoro, the leader of the Vaegir faction, telling me about how they pushed the vote in this direction by voting certain people into the council with alts, and I want nothing to do with it.
I have done my share. Every time I found a bug, I took it to the people on my server's teamspeak who were testers, or knew testers, and they passed it on, tested it, and made work out of it.

- 5: I too will be taking a break. It's 02:34 and I want to enjoy watching some of my deep-penetration turrets ripping through people's haphazardly made boom-boxes.

 

[StormWing0]

Speaking of the AI and support weapons when are we going to have custom or free-form fleet formations in combination with them able to use support weapons? Maybe make the fleet of support firing ships hang out on the side of the ship weapons fire from enemies isn't hitting? Basically they use the ship they are helping as a shield trying to keep it between them and the main mass of enemies.

 

[Maxajax]

That kinda of clipping was reduced massively in the one of the recent updates. You should double check you can still even do this. I'd honestly be more worried about high punch cannon fire.

You should see what a beam-beam-overdrive system does. I've got really tiny ones that'll still pen 82 system blocks deep once the armour goes out.

 

[kulbolen]

not all complexities are created equal. its a VERY simple matter to protect your ship from the explosive effect of the new reactors, while also mitigating lag clipping warheads in and wrecking the entire ship. it was not a VERY simple matter to engineer efficient and survivable docked power supplies; evidenced by the fact that none of the "top faction" ships ive ever seen had *good* supplies. just good enough to compete with people who were not as skilled or experienced. yes lecic, that includes your factions junk.

to the people who think this is a complaint about the new system... its not. not directly. i think it was a good idea to remove the old system for the sake of the games stability. but to claim that a level of complexity or reward for engineering was NOT reduced (lecic) is beyond ignorant.

 

[Comr4de]

Bug found; if you try to issue orders to or delete a fleet thats loaded into memory it'll a client disconnect from the server