Getting a server to build outside of homebase protection

[Shaker]

Has any server managed to convince players to build any outposts/warpgates that dont have homebase protection?

We currently have a small amount, maybe a gate between 2 systems but no faction has branched out to making outposts/gun platforms or huge warpgate networks.

I understand the risk of making all this as all it takes is 1 player to smash it all up on the 1 night you dont login.
Also the pain of how warpgate link to each other...

The only idea ive had without limiting to much play, it to limit by server rule, not config, the size of a ship that is allowed to fight faction assets.
This would give stations a chance as they would only have to fight anything up to the given amount forcing players to either fleet up or band together to take on stations.

What are your thoughts ideas on how we can get some progression

 

[Mork2]

Its not necessarily ship size. I don't play much on any MP servers. But from what I've heard one of the reasons people don't build non-home base stations is the issue of cloaking griefers with warheads that bypass shields.....

Also now people can get around size limitations somewhat by using fleets as well now.....

 

[DrTarDIS]

if scanners could be logic clocked, it would "fix" the cloaker/jammer nubbins. Otherwise you just have to...

 

[Panpiper]

Every attempt I have ever seen by anyone to build such things outside of homebase invulnerability has ALWAYS lost everything they have built to some random griefer. Every time.

Have fun.

 

[Calhoun]

Reverse Faction Points can be used to force people out of one system.

 

[Groovrider]

The restrictions on the server I play are such that would-be griefers just aren't interested. Hence why my faction has 2 non-homebase bases and other factions do as well.

Personally I wish stations could be made stronger somehow.

 

[Batavium]

Part of the problem is the complete uselessness of the old Derelict and Pirate Stations. You can swap them out for new stations on a new map.

What i would do is:

A Derelict Station as a Warp Gate. So there are Gates everywhere on the map. They then only need to be linked by people.

A Derelict Station as a small Home Base so nobody has to settle a planet.

Jake_Lancia Build the perfect one: Trident Deep-space Outpost just remove any docked ships and use the station.

A Derelict as a Ship Yard.

A Derelict as a Factory

A Derelict as weapons platform. Eta replacement

If not set as Home Base they still get shot but there are always more out there to claim.

Pirate Stations can also be replaced by Stations that are usefull if captured from the AI.

 

[kulbolen]

incentivize expansion. make station spawn cost low. make warpgates have longer range. incentivize expansion. nerf warhead availability or dmg:mass. make station only armor blocks that are exceedingly tough but not invincible. incentivize expansion.

 

[MacThule]

We were building gun stations on Elwyn Infinity due to the strong FP inversion - a faction could not survive long without holding at least 6 systems.

Knowing that non-HB stations can/will be destroyed, my faction's approach was to just claim 30 systems, mostly with 2-block stations that could be easily replaced, but littering our space a few randomly placed claim stations that had defenses enough to require at least some kind of warship to defeat, and two larger Battlestations with fleets and drones nearby.

The strategy was that most trolls don't have the patience to sift through dozens of sectors all in a go.

Expecting losses, we simply budgeted and scaled up defenses and expansion to match our resource pool in a way that would allow us to replace losses with ease, but also netted us great FP income that would make sieging down our HB a weeks-long affair, and not straightforward due to mutual defense pacts with other empires to relieve such sieges if, say, someone cleaned out our claims then just dropped massive drone cubes to camp our HB.

I don't think that it's non-starter that non invulnerable bases aren't invulnerable. Most things in games arent. I think the non-starter is the common building philosophy of going All-in on outlying stations in an impossible attempt to make them semi-invulnerable rather than simply expecting losses, and budgeting for those in terms of not building or deploying what one is not willing to see destroyed at some point.
[doublepost=1482822618,1482821737][/doublepost]Batavium - that is possibly the most simple and brilliant suggestion I've seen on this topic ever. Stop making the autospawned derelicts random, generic stations with NO purpose in the game even if rehabbed, and make them worth rehabbing.

Also still very much a fan of giving stations default buffs to armor, shields, and weapon damage per block and allowing logic-scanning to prevent stealth abuse.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Every attempt I have ever seen by anyone to build such things outside of homebase invulnerability has ALWAYS lost everything they have built to some random griefer. Every time.

Have fun.

I found that it was enough to have "useful" outweigh "want parts" in your "average player able to hurt this thing."
Eg form a warpgate network, just have a warpgate studded with enough firepower to wipe out anyone that goes hostile that's 1/10 it's mass. then when someone can take it out, it's probably more useful functional to them anyways. "Gifting" an entry-only warpgate to another faction entices them to use your network. Once they rely on you for something you're unlikely to face hostilities.

I find that once you have an Infrastructure of easily-acquired blocks it's like MacThule said, expect some losses and budget around them. The infrastructure can be a problem;
-if shop prices are fixed you can't "game the system" of the trading guild.
-if resources don't respawn they have to be sought-out

but it can also be found easily if you go out of your way to do it.
-homebase 4 sectors away from a pirate base, spawn and kite fleets to kill for battle-salvage and/ordrops
-manually moving choice resawning asteroids through warpgates and setting up rich easily mined sectors
-going up against "big ships" in an NPC fleet in a boarding action, grappler and torch to burn out the FM and get control of the core.

it's all about how the server is configured and how you play the game.

 

[Jojomo]

if scanners could be logic clocked, it would "fix" the cloaker/jammer nubbins. Otherwise you just have to...

Sounds good. Getting around station shields, instead of taking them down, would then be pretty infeasible.
[doublepost=1482838560,1482838466][/doublepost]

Personally I wish stations could be made stronger somehow.

Have a super-heavy armour block that is so heavy it's utterly impractical on a ship, but offers very high protection.

 

[Batavium]

Have a super-heavy armour block that is so heavy it's utterly impractical on a ship, but offers very high protection.

That is smart thinking! Easy to code and add. An admin can do it right now in the BlockConfig.xml

 

[terra mining corp.]

We have learned first hand that pinhead griefers will destroy warpgate stations when u are offline as well your assets docked there,but it isn't going to slow down my building of a trade network and shipyard for hire!

 

[MacThule]

I love that plan. Local gate networks can offer a lot. I used a HB for a hub once over a brief period, and just made all the outlying gates extremely cheap and easily replaceable, knowing from previous disasters that they would be harrassed.

 

[kurosawa]

Deploying tiny/cheap stations does not resolve the problem of losing your stuff, it's just a way to bypass or ignore it.

A super heavy armor block might help, but it has to resolve the problem which in my eyes is "time used" vs "fun gained".
Basically if you spend 24 hours building something and only gain 5 min fun, that was 24 hours wasted. it might sound simple but
that is what i boils down to in the end, what you gain should be equal or greater then what you put in.

 

[MacThule]

Basically if you spend 24 hours building something and only gain 5 min fun, that was 24 hours wasted. it might sound simple but that is what i boils down to in the end, what you gain should be equal or greater then what you put in.

I agree with that, but feel the need to express disagreement with what I suspect might be an unspoken assumption that the onus for balancing your equation falls on the game makers or servads. I believe responsibility for balancing the grind>=<fun equation falls entirely on the player.

Otherwise we are demanding the game be completely idiot-proofed, like Frogger. The Civilization game series is a lot of fun, but nothing stops players from spending 60 hours of game time laboring to build an empire based on something absurd like aesthetics of the road network rather than its function, then watching it all burn due to their own folly. Should the developers in that scenario have cushioned the game in nerf and made it impossible for any player to fail regardless of how poor their planning?

Likewise in Starmade, nothing stops players from spending 24 hours building a complete boondoggle of a station based on too much TV and a lack of understanding of warfare (in a game with several dozen weapon combinations, 4 kinds of armor, a 2-step shielding system, jump inhibitors designed SOLELY with the intent of absolutely ruining people's day, etc), then having it stolen from them or destroyed within minutes of deploying or that night while offline. If they put all their eggs in one basket, then put that basket out on the porch, who can save them from themselves??

I believe that how foolishly or wisely players invest their time is their own business, and a dev team with billions in funding couldn't with their best efforts preventing some indivuduals from screwing up the fun>=<grind equation and having a crappy experience.

If building - not tiny - economically feasible stations, rather than lavish monuments to wasted time, bypasses the trouble caused by vandals and terrorists, then I believe that by definition it does resolve the issue for players who choose to do so. Not for every player, surely, but nothing can do that.

War is part of the core of Starmade, and war sucks. It is not fair, and failure is unpleasant and embarrassing at best. We can't make everything safe from "losing our stuff." Not without completely removing weapons from the game or rendering them purely decorative by making every entity invulnerable - which should totally be a custom modded public MP server. There would be a lot of Starmadians who would love it... but probably nowhere near a majority.

So, it's war. We WILL lose stuff. Next move?

 

[DrTarDIS]

I agree with that, but feel the need to express disagreement with what I suspect might be an unspoken assumption that the onus for balancing your equation falls on the game makers or servads. I believe responsibility for balancing the grind>=<fun equation falls entirely on the player.

Otherwise we are demanding the game be completely idiot-proofed, like Frogger. The Civilization game series is a lot of fun, but nothing stops players from spending 60 hours of game time laboring to build an empire based on something absurd like aesthetics of the road network rather than its function, then watching it all burn due to their own folly. Should the developers in that scenario have cushioned the game in nerf and made it impossible for any player to fail regardless of how poor their planning?

Likewise in Starmade, nothing stops players from spending 24 hours building a complete boondoggle of a station based on too much TV and a lack of understanding of warfare (in a game with several dozen weapon combinations, 4 kinds of armor, a 2-step shielding system, jump inhibitors designed SOLELY with the intent of absolutely ruining people's day, etc), then having it stolen from them or destroyed within minutes of deploying or that night while offline. If they put all their eggs in one basket, then put that basket out on the porch, who can save them from themselves??

I believe that how foolishly or wisely players invest their time is their own business, and a dev team with billions in funding couldn't with their best efforts preventing some indivuduals from screwing up the fun>=<grind equation and having a crappy experience.

If building - not tiny - economically feasible stations, rather than lavish monuments to wasted time, bypasses the trouble caused by vandals and terrorists, then I believe that by definition it does resolve the issue for players who choose to do so. Not for every player, surely, but nothing can do that.

War is part of the core of Starmade, and war sucks. It is not fair, and failure is unpleasant and embarrassing at best. We can't make everything safe from "losing our stuff." Not without completely removing weapons from the game or rendering them purely decorative by making every entity invulnerable - which should totally be a custom modded public MP server. There would be a lot of Starmadians who would love it... but probably nowhere near a majority.

So, it's war. We WILL lose stuff. Next move?

I agree with you for the most part, but there are SOME things that need dev interaction. EG Jammer/cloaker vs scanner. It is unarguably a design-flaw that scanners can't be logic-activated(like jump/inhibitors), and AFAIK no amount of blockconfig editing will let you fix that (unlike the beam computers not allowing players to press R, which you CAN fix in the config.) No amount of player-planning can "fix" that, short of coding a Bot to "press 1 and click every X seconds" and leaving it connected. Being able to happily destroy things while "invisible" is a greifer goldmine, and with how much effort they put into "fixing" cloaking exploits in the past few patches I'm rather saddened they didn't take the high road and just let us automate scanning.

 

[Edymnion]

I used to build warp gate networks through servers.

The bottom line of why I stopped was because I got sick of replacing them every couple of days.

At a million credits a pop, not counting the blocks, it was just more trouble than it was worth to upkeep a gate network when every griefer and asshole on the internet decided to just log in and blow them up.

I remember the incident when I finally gave up on it. I had built one of the gates at spawn so that I could help out the newbies easier. It was blown up. I built a new one with some shields, it was blown up that night. I put more shields and defensive weapons on it, it too was blown up that night. I eventually had invested in a gate station with over a million shields (this was in the days when Rammet was the scarcest damned thing in the universe) and had enough firepower to take down a cruiser. It was destroyed overnight and I had over a DOZEN individual enemies on my list.

So somewhere out there some troll forum had made it their personal mission to come to our server every damned night and blow up my gates like it was a game to them. Nope, fark that.

 

[Shaker]

Automated scanners - much needed for outposts, cant really be exploited as its a power cost to keep it always charging

warheads need to be changed to do damage when a shield is down to stop exploiting, maybe to balance it out warheads add a 1min cooldown to shield regen charge

Superheavy armor- just double/triple layer advanced as the station doesnt have to worry about thrust.

 

[Jojomo]

So somewhere out there some troll forum had made it their personal mission to come to our server every damned night and blow up my gates like it was a game to them. Nope, fark that.

I sympathise.

This made me wonder (nothing to do with you in particular Edyminion, and certainly not any kind of criticism at all) why we can't/don't build stations with shields that make titan weapons look like pop-guns that don't even tickle the station.

Weight isn't an issue, size isn't either really, and no power has to be allocated for thrust, so couldn't shields be made to a monstrous scale that dwarfs ships and their weapons? Use multiple reactors or aux power.

Of course warheads from cloaked ships would still be an issue that needs a solution.

For station defence I was also thinking of cloaked, jamming mines that use damage pulse. As cheap and disposable as possible. Spread them around maximum missile range from the station, and they'll attach themselves to the hull of any ship that comes near and damage pulse it for as long as they're able.
I think a swarm of these would be quite nasty.