Incentives to Expansion (Anti-Turtling)

[Lukwan]

Mining is boring, not sure if XP for trading makes sense, XP for quests is a must.

True, mining can be boring (I find it relaxing) but miners and builders need ways to give their NPCs Exp too. Just trying to be inclusive.
Mining requires good ship-design and has inherent risks: pirates and human raiders. A good mining ship will always be at a disadvantage against a purpose-built fighter that is out to steal their hard-earned cargo. That deserves some respect (and a little XP).

I fondly recall some epic mining expeditions in MC where you start off with new tools, fresh armour, plenty of food & wood & food. Then there is the emergent mechanic of the Monkey-Trap. (To catch a monkey; tie a gourd to a tree and place a chunk of food inside the gourd. The monkey can get their hand inside but will not be able to retrieve the food in their fist because of the narrow opening.)
Well into the expedition, the food has dwindled, the wood has been turned into torches and the inventory swells with treasure. The mobs have nibbled my armor to rags, I am lost because I caught 'gold-fever' and wandered off my marked path and my ladders are now a step-stool. The adventure of dragging myself, half starved, all the way home through hostile mobs is what makes this experience rewarding.

If SM could capture this mechanic and boil down its essence mining would not be such a drag.

 

[Spoolooni]

True, mining can be boring (I find it relaxing) but miners and builders need ways to give their NPCs Exp too. Just trying to be inclusive.
Mining requires good ship-design and has inherent risks: pirates and human raiders. A good mining ship will always be at a disadvantage against a purpose-built fighter that is out to steal their hard-earned cargo. That deserves some respect (and a little XP).

I fondly recall some epic mining expeditions in MC where you start off with new tools, fresh armour, plenty of food & wood & food. Then there is the emergent mechanic of the Monkey-Trap. (To catch a monkey; tie a gourd to a tree and place a chunk of food inside the gourd. The monkey can get their hand inside but will not be able to retrieve the food in their fist because of the narrow opening.)
Well into the expedition, the food has dwindled, the wood has been turned into torches and the inventory swells with treasure. The mobs have nibbled my armor to rags, I am lost because I caught 'gold-fever' and wandered off my marked path and my ladders are now a step-stool. The adventure of dragging myself, half starved, all the way home through hostile mobs is what makes this experience rewarding.

If SM could capture this mechanic and boil down its essence mining would not be such a drag.

The logic behind making an experience appear rewarding by making that experience a pain in the ass seems awfully flawed. Currently, I rather just get mining done with and with success so I can get to the other more interesting parts of the game (we need to make the interesting parts of the game exist in the form of additional content). At least in my opinion, mining is arbitrary rather than adds to the gameplay and I think adding complexities and nuisances to that arbitrary portion of the Starmade experience is absolutely silly. Keeping mining the way it is fine, maybe making mining areas heavily contested by pirates and scavengers should yield you an extra bonus unparalleled by farming in safer sectors. Even being attacked can be a nuisance but it adds a sense of adventure, yet that sense of adventure often happens when the stakes are higher. Implementing nuisances to an already irritating part of the game seems asinine.

 

[Panpiper]

1) No Exp when unloaded.
2) No Exp without a human crew-member on board.
3) Time-delay (after first angry shot) before Exp gets generated. This eliminates Exp bonus for one-shoting noobs.
4) No Experience until ship receives hull-damage. Training missions within an alliance are allowed but have to be 'serious'.
5) No experience for attacking non-factioned players. [Or human-players period?]
6) Max Exp for battles with larger factions. (The bigger the target faction the greater the reward.)
7) Exp for fleeing a battle with massive damage to your ship. Exp for repairing a ship.
8) Exp for mining & trading and performing quests.
9) Exp for selling original BP. More credit-value=more Exp. (exploitable)
10) Exp for exploring planets and systems. Exp for navigating the void between galaxies.
11) Exp for completing the loop of wormholes. Exploration.
12) Exp for dominating strategic points. (Strategic points do not yet exist.) This focuses conflict.

1. No problem.
2. Not no XP, but significantly reduced XP, lest someone's carrier group be forever green.
3. Like this.
4. I strongly disagree. There should be a baseline trickle of XP for firing weapons in anger plus a bonus for tonnage destroyed. There could perhaps be a multiplier if hull damage occurred and a greater multiplier perhaps if system damage was incurred. Be forwarned, including any variation of XP for damage sustained will result in special purpose built XP training ships 'designed' to sustain maximum damage and still come home. Frankly I would prefer that any such bonus be minimal or non-existent. I do not want to be forced to fly a slugboat of a layered armor tank.
5. Agree.
6. Absolutely.
7. XP for taking damage and XP for essentially loosing is massively exploitable and will result in very weird behavior. Seriously, I will create that armor tank with an outer layer of nonessential, cheap to replace system blocks and popgun weapons, but with a great jump drive deep in a well armored core, fly to a pirate station and poke at it till my ship is swiss cheese, then jump home for repair. Rinse and repeat. Massive XP ensues. This is ridiculous behavior and an absurd ship, and such shenanigans should not be encouraged.
8. Sure, why not, some people want that.
10. Yes.
11. Great idea.

 

[Shaker]

Big changes to the station setups for systems, each system has maybe 1-2 pirate stations, 1-2 derilects. the rest are NPC neutral and shops.

That systems neutral NPCs can be bought out(credits) so you have claiming rights to the system, once you own it they will start auto sending small amount of resources back once a day or something, working with the NPCs of that system doing quests or building up defenses in that area gives greater daily reward.
The NPCs will also defend their own system, the money/resources you spend on them lets them have bigger/greater numbers of ships.

Faction points used for upgrading faction npc skills/ hiring more
[doublepost=1478134784,1478134084][/doublepost]System planets can be colonised by the system npc's, that way players have a choice of mining out the planet or letting the NPCs build up abit more

 

[Jojomo]

Topic seems to be drifting quite a bit...

I'm not above OT discussion myself though:

On Lukwan's experience point #12 (Exp for dominating strategic points. (Strategic points do not yet exist.) This focuses conflict.) I don't agree experence should be the reward.
A "strategic point" should actually be a point that has real strategic value (area with high resources, wormholes, etc), and its strategic value is reward in itself.
A developement goal should be to ensure there actual points of high strategic value, not creating artificial ones.

 

[Lukwan]

A developement goal should be to ensure there actual points of high strategic value, not creating artificial ones.

I agree. Strategic points are not strategic without some intrinsic value. The big idea here is to create a 'battleground' that factions can fight a Tug-o-War over without anyone's bases getting fragged into oblivion right off the bat. ( In many domination-games this means you have to hold a central strategic point, for a time, before you can attack an enemies home base.) Factions will fight over a territory if they get an advantage from holding it.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I agree. Strategic points are not strategic without some intrinsic value. The big idea here is to create a 'battleground' that factions can fight a Tug-o-War over without anyone's bases getting fragged into oblivion right off the bat. Factions will fight over a territory if they get an advantage from holding it.

I like the direction this is going. Factions will prefer to fight over high-value systems. Though your bases in low-value systems aren't necessarily well-protected, there's little point in attacking them so they'll actually be safely left alone most of the time.

 

[Lukwan]

4. I strongly disagree. There should be a baseline trickle of XP for firing weapons in anger plus a bonus for tonnage destroyed. There could perhaps be a multiplier if hull damage occurred and a greater multiplier perhaps if system damage was incurred. Be forwarned, including any variation of XP for damage sustained will result in special purpose built XP training ships 'designed' to sustain maximum damage and still come home. Frankly I would prefer that any such bonus be minimal or non-existent. I do not want to be forced to fly a slugboat of a layered armor tank

Some valid concerns here. I would want hostile-Exp to focus on killing blows more than trickle damage but there is room for both. Tracking your own ship's damage will be very tricky and yes we should minimize possible exploits. Dealing damage should pay off more than receiving damage. Big payout for kills with a token amount for 'scratching paint' should avoid people making XP punching-bag ships. Agreed: no slugboats. Here is another method to discourage training exploits:

Link EXP to a BP design. If a crew-member continues to fly the same ship design they are fine. If the crew changes to a new ship design (like 40% new/different blocks) they will have to build EXP for the new design. Some of their previous training will still be valuable so they could start building up XP at 25% or 50% of their best XP rating on previous ships.

 

[StarWars1981]

I like the idea of strategic points. And if you make wormholes worth SIGNIFICANTLY more, and planets and stations incredibly valuable and rare, then you've got some actual strategic points, not some idiotic "capzone" for random points, but a location where you can do something that affects your campaign in a real manner, other than points.
Incentives to expand are mainly value outside your base and home system. Rare resources will work; better shops that have different prices across the galaxy (according to what is found native in their systems); NPC missions (i.e. save a besieged fleet/army on a planet from massive and powerful attackers, or (small-fry police work) save kidnapped NPCs from, Idk, pirates or whatnot, future human traffickers); NPC crews (you've gotta FIND them, haven't you?); inverted FP and a MEANING to it, such as it being necessary for, Idk, use of shipyards or something like that - perhaps using it for operation of large vessels and fleets, or large bases. You know, stuff like that. If resources are incredibly rare, then you HAVE to travel outside your little system; maybe even your little 20-system sliver of the galaxy for something really rare and powerful. And people can predict where it's going to sit.
Also, rarefy shops significantly. One per system IF THAT. Other modifications suggested here are good for them - more credits, faster regen rate. Galactic economy rather than none. The goal is to make choke-points for those who would expand into the galaxy to conquer it. There needs to be such a number that you cannot choke the galaxy yourself, but you can be thwarted at several of them before finding, say, a planet with NPCs you can recruit because they're not hostile to your faction. And you need these NPCs to run your fleets.
I love the idea of dynamic events in the place, caused by NPCs. I.E. massive fleet battles, lost-in-space scenarios, rescue missions (that you can initiate or tag along on, i.e. saving survivors on a damaged station, etc.). The only trick is coding them to NOT be utterly and painfully repetitive, and rewarding yet not overly so.
Going with that idea, finding "loot" such as good ship designs can be augmented by just decent-size stores of rarer materials, given that those materials become pretty dang rare. Also to be found are things like NPC generals who are better at combat or can command fleets w/out a player piloting the flagship - stuff like that. Or better soldiers - NPC Sergeants or such. And of course, randomized and pre-coded, and insanely numerous, NPC stories. They have X number of "Talk" options, telling you a bit about themselves and where they've come from. For instance, taking a randomly-generated system name and throwing into some lines about how awful a battle happened there (prereq: fleet battle must have happened there, involving them, or it must have been a major enough event to be a commonly-known one); or telling how where they grew up is awesome, or is in the middle of nowhere, etc. Ask players for contributions for random NPC lines. As you go along in their dialogues, you can get more out of them. Perhaps somehow some can have their dialogues attached to a dynamic event. One of the things I like about open-world games and actually all games is discovering characters. Randomly-generated characters are significantly shallower, but perhaps a set number (large number, of course) of deep characters, possibly even dynamic characters, can be included in every galaxy. Perhaps, out of 200 possible ones, 50 immortal (so everybody can discover them) or respawning "deep" characters are spawned in every game.

So, there's my text wall for the week. Enjoy!
TL;DR: Too bad, I'm lazy too, you know.

 

[Malacodor]

I like the idea of strategic points. And if you make wormholes worth SIGNIFICANTLY more, and planets and stations incredibly valuable and rare, then you've got some actual strategic points, not some idiotic "capzone" for random points, but a location where you can do something that affects your campaign in a real manner, other than points.

Didn't read further, but Schine already announced that they plan to make "points of interest".

 

[Valck]

Read it all, and agree with most of it, despite knowing Schine already announced that they plan to make "points of interest".

Until we know more specific details, all we can do is speculate and suggest.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

It's awesome how Schine takes these suggestions onboard.

 

[kurosawa]

I am sure there are some good ideas here and there in this thread, but remember a part of the community just plays to build.
If you swing the stick to hard and often or force them to do NPC hamster wheel stuff they will leave.

The power in starmade should be freedom, not some arbitrate need to force people in 1 direction, add frame works to help the player get extra stuff but do not limit or force.
[doublepost=1478242202,1478242015][/doublepost]

I suggested the ability to gather more easily crew by doing so. As i see it, crew are going to be the frame for fleets and space empires, so if you stay at your homebase you just cannot rule the entire galaxy. Is that too much fences ?

You want the galaxy, why do you assume i want that ?

 

[Jojomo]

I like the idea of strategic points. And if you make wormholes worth SIGNIFICANTLY more, and planets and stations incredibly valuable and rare, then you've got some actual strategic points, not some idiotic "capzone" for random points, but a location where you can do something that affects your campaign in a real manner, other than points.

Yes, my point exactly. A location shouldn't be considered strategic because someone says it is, it should only be considered strategic and valuable because it actually is.

 

[StarWars1981]

I am sure there are some good ideas here and there in this thread, but remember a part of the community just plays to build.
If you swing the stick to hard and often or force them to do NPC hamster wheel stuff they will leave.

The power in starmade should be freedom, not some arbitrate need to force people in 1 direction, add frame works to help the player get extra stuff but do not limit or force.
[doublepost=1478242202,1478242015][/doublepost]

You want the galaxy, why do you assume i want that ?

Well, you don't HAVE to want the galaxy, and that's just it.

If you don't want to rule the galaxy, or go for some form of "victory" on a server designed for that, you do not have to. Given most (maybe not all) of the suggested changes, you can still turtle; but there'd be a reason not to. You could just build up a homebase and stay put. A single player faction should be able to be supported by one claimed system, to hold a HB and all. Mining is still problematic, but right now, it's pretty boring and safe. If you have to go farther, then there's some excitement to it. You CAN'T just pop straight to your dock, you have to fly a bit. If you don't like that, take the hit from waiting for the resources to spawn in your system, or go to the TG a couple times with the stuff that DOES spawn in your area.

Strategic points will be a big boost for a conquering faction; they shouldn't be absolutely insane galaxy-ruling superweapons, but something like mining stations (1 per 8 systems or fewer might work), high-output NPC-run (convoys, traders on-site, etc.) trading stations that come equipped with, Idk, shipyards and a defense fleet you might take advantage of.

Maybe just standard NPC space stations, with larger populations than planetside ones (which are then more common, although the relative ratios depends on population and power of the NPC faction) that can be recruited for your navy of conquering doom.

NPC navies that can be recruited; ship graveyards that could be looted for either mostly-complete vessels or assorted blocks (must pay something not ridiculous to un-decay the blocks, i.e. refit it to be serviceable) for use elsewhere; derelict/non-derelict but abandoned stations to be found and claimed (far rarer and more useful than today; smaller, less laggy, more useful designs would be good, also with lower reclaim prices, they get absurd on standard settings); the odd rogue ship, military-grade or not, just flying through space causing issues for local peaceful NPCs, etc... the list can go on.

These locations can be single-time or permanent (chokepoint in the wormhole system, or some kind of travel-locked region with one passage i.e. Oort Cloud sort of thing), but they have to have real use. They aren't necessary for anybody, but they're helpful for anybody, and can be rare and yet still have enough to go around in the galaxy.

There's my forty cents or so; don't take it at face value, but do try to read it. There, it's even spaced out nicely.

 

[Lukwan]

One of the things I like about open-world games and actually all games is discovering characters. Randomly-generated characters are significantly shallower, but perhaps a set number (large number, of course) of deep characters, possibly even dynamic characters, can be included in every galaxy. Perhaps, out of 200 possible ones, 50 immortal (so everybody can discover them) or respawning "deep" characters are spawned in every game.

Great ideas. (I'm still gonna poke you about your formatting tho ) Poke rescinded

Here is my thought on 'random' encounters. Having a one-off dialog with a character just to advance the mission can feel really hollow. What makes a universe seem inhabited is residents...recurring residents. One chance meeting has no impact. I want to have a series (of meaningless?)
encounters with that same character. That way they become residents of my universe and I am free to project any kind of back story onto them I choose...or none at all. The NPCs can have their own plot arc which can be butt-simple so I don't feel like the last person alive in the galaxy.

Didn't read further, but Schine already announced that they plan to make "points of interest".

That is not a very inspiring name. I guess you have to live in North America to find a 'point of interest' on the highway. I tell ya, if I come across an off-ramp in the middle of space with porta-potties, some cheesy scenery...and a plaque...I am going to scream.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

The power in starmade should be freedom, not some arbitrate need to force people in 1 direction, add frame works to help the player get extra stuff but do not limit or force.

I agree! I love the freedom to do whatever you want. Sure, there are those who only want to build, then there are those who like to battle and myself I like to exlpore.

I'm often slow to get started and build up what I need. Mainly because I have a family. And my wife and 4 year old daughter is more important than a game.

Well, you don't HAVE to want the galaxy, and that's just it.

If you don't want to rule the galaxy, or go for some form of "victory" on a server designed for that, you do not have to. Given most (maybe not all) of the suggested changes, you can still turtle; but there'd be a reason not to. You could just build up a homebase and stay put. A single player faction should be able to be supported by one claimed system, to hold a HB and all. Mining is still problematic, but right now, it's pretty boring and safe. If you have to go farther, then there's some excitement to it. You CAN'T just pop straight to your dock, you have to fly a bit. If you don't like that, take the hit from waiting for the resources to spawn in your system, or go to the TG a couple times with the stuff that DOES spawn in your area.

I mine, and I don't have a problem travelling to dangerous regions if it's not in my claimed system. So, I don't consider myself a turtle. I also explore to other parts of the Galaxies. Naturally, you take common sense precautions not to get killed. You would be foolish otherwise.

If people like to turtle, I see no problem with it, but I would like some kind of missions available.
As for points systems. If you don't have some kind of leader board I see no point in it.

 

[StarWars1981]

-snip- It's two posts up, read it there.

Here's an idea: Preprogrammed personalities for AI. Basically, a selection of chat options that go together, and can be appended to ANY AI anywhere. Meeting them under different circumstances (i.e., after a battle in their sector, after they fight a battle, in a trade station, in a station of a neutral power (to them), in the station of an allied power, in their faction's station, in their ship, in somebody else's, etc.) gives different options, but all of them share the same sort of personality - intelligent, dumb, cynical, funny, perpetually amused at everything, pessimist, optimist, friendly, hostile, kind, cruel, greedy, humble, proud, arrogant, etc. Multiple "traits" as you might call that list would go into them. Come up with a couple dozen, with a lot of different lines for each circumstance for each, and it will take some time to get bored of the randomized sets of lines. Perhaps different meetings could be set to yield different lines every time, to guarantee no repeats.
This is for randomized characters, btw, deeper characters with hundreds of lines of dialogue and dozens of changes - physical, personality, psychological, anything - to go through given different sets of external "stimuli" applied. For example, shooting one of them makes them either terrified of you or hostile on sight to you next time you meet, and can make them, for other players, bitter and angry, or scared and pitiful, or whatever else. Because of course, to avoid depriving anyone of their company, they just respawn, even if they're on the bridge at the dead center of that nuke you fired, you heartless beast. Even catching a Titan-killing cannon round won't stop them; you grazed them, or missed completely, or they're just half-robot now and you won't know it cause it all looks the same as it did before. Perhaps scars could be added? In appropriate areas? I.E. killing shots to the arm leave generic scars on the arm. Killing shots to the torso leave occasionally visible scars (i.e. above collar, burned shirt cause they're out for blood, etc.); killing shots to the feet result in mechanical feet? Lol. oh, the possibilities.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Here's an idea: Preprogrammed personalities for AI. Basically, a selection of chat options that go together, and can be appended to ANY AI anywhere. Meeting them under different circumstances (i.e., after a battle in their sector, after they fight a battle, in a trade station, in a station of a neutral power (to them), in the station of an allied power, in their faction's station, in their ship, in somebody else's, etc.) gives different options, but all of them share the same sort of personality - intelligent, dumb, cynical, funny, perpetually amused at everything, pessimist, optimist, friendly, hostile, kind, cruel, greedy, humble, proud, arrogant, etc. Multiple "traits" as you might call that list would go into them. Come up with a couple dozen, with a lot of different lines for each circumstance for each, and it will take some time to get bored of the randomized sets of lines. Perhaps different meetings could be set to yield different lines every time, to guarantee no repeats.
This is for randomized characters, btw, deeper characters with hundreds of lines of dialogue and dozens of changes - physical, personality, psychological, anything - to go through given different sets of external "stimuli" applied. For example, shooting one of them makes them either terrified of you or hostile on sight to you next time you meet, and can make them, for other players, bitter and angry, or scared and pitiful, or whatever else. Because of course, to avoid depriving anyone of their company, they just respawn, even if they're on the bridge at the dead center of that nuke you fired, you heartless beast. Even catching a Titan-killing cannon round won't stop them; you grazed them, or missed completely, or they're just half-robot now and you won't know it cause it all looks the same as it did before. Perhaps scars could be added? In appropriate areas? I.E. killing shots to the arm leave generic scars on the arm. Killing shots to the torso leave occasionally visible scars (i.e. above collar, burned shirt cause they're out for blood, etc.); killing shots to the feet result in mechanical feet? Lol. oh, the possibilities.

Sims?

 

[StarWars1981]

Sims?

I am an uncultured heathen and do not have any specific knowledge on that to which you are referring.

Heck if I know, I've heard of the games but never played one .