A post about these changes.
Firstly, it's very important to point out one core thing about the starmade forums to the schine dev team:
Elite players (Most Effective Tactic Available Players) often do not spend their time on the forums, nor do they actively suggest things or discuss balance changes.
There is one big reason behind this: In order to prove a point to a non meta player, you have to expose key areas of the game to other players, which is basically giving up your advantage. Meta players don't share their secrets.
I am going to post about this because of the importance of this one thread. To me, this thread represents the future of starmade, it represents who will win in the battle between depth and learning curve, whichever side wins, will forever change starmade. it's very important that I contribute a certain viewpoint for schine to consider.
So, let's look at the problems
Forced design choices, True
Lack of complexity, True
Too many blocks involved (number, not types), False
Focused on regen, False
Let's start with point 1
it's true that you can only ever use AUX blocks over the 2M soft cap, it's also true that you must use them in a certain way, placement of AUX blocks is VERY important to meta, and if you don't get it right, you'll end up looking like this:
Notice how this user has sprinkled their aux blocks throughout the ship, refusing to place them in protected areas. He's also not grouped them properly, (block count per group) and has instead failed to gain the maximum power per block curve from AUX. The result is twofold, his AUX blocks groupings actually did more damage to him then the enemy, and his regen per block was much lower than he could have achieved.
Moving on to point 2:
Lack of complexity. 100% true. When Aux blocks came out, many of my comrades where disappointed that schine replaced a complex mechanic with a ez one, docked reactors required math, spreadsheets, time, and a basic understanding of geometry in order to get the most per block out of them. There were many things to consider, such as the curve of reactors, how much cap you could get away with,
(you needed to cover a regen outage in the event of a server side slowdown so depending on how long you planned to lag, you'd have more cap i.e. for 500MS of no regen, we need about 1M cap on a 2M generator to cover HALF the regen per second)
what kind of axis tree where you going to use? (There where three main types in the docked generator days: Swivel, Axis, and Dynamic Axis)
what was the best supply beam, the best dimensions, the best format (we went with 9x9x175 in the end), and how would one protect them (back in the days of no docked shields, you had to protect your reactors with Armour around their compartments)
All of this resulted in one core driving fact about docked generators that made them so fun: If you got a generator that did the same thing as someone else but with 2 less blocks, you'd be more effective than them, but at the same time, you couldn't just walk in and outdo the best of the best, you had to study hard, you had to work for it, and when you got it done, it was amazing.
Here's one core point, schine, you're never going to make it so that a lesser experienced player can compete with a more advanced player, no matter what changes you do, the basic rules will always apply: Better player = better ship = better combat = winner. Instead, your focus should be to reveal the meta to new players, your focus should be to get them over the learning curve, and your focus should be to encourage, wherever possible, active thought about the most optimal placement of blocks for it is this constant drive to improve that not only keeps many of our players around after 3 years, but drives innovation in starmade.
Before we move on, we should discuss how to fix point 1 and 2. There is no fix for both 1 and 2, as in every other game, you will never reach perfect balance, there will always be something different about a certain type of ship/block/player/server/client/design philosophy. If you try to reach perfect balance, you'll end up with fixed position stats and unbelievably boring design.
There will be no curve, and thus there will be no innovation to make the most out of these curves and thus there will be no design and thus there is no game.
What you should do to improve these areas is to strike a balance between learning curves and playing to starmade strengths. One of the core things about starmade as I've already said is its insane complexity and depth, something not many space games have to offer. In other space games, you usually have fixed position non curving stat modules that you can add to your ship (I.E space engineers’ reactors, single block placement, set and fixed regen) this set and forget type of gameplay gives clear objectives and has a very small learning curve, but it doesn't offer much to long term players, which is why space engineers has a high turnover rate (i.e most people do not play it continually for 3 years)
Players of this game usually get in and get out, about a month later, they do it again, rinse and repeat. I often switch games from starmade to other things but I find myself coming back for more years later because starmade has a lot to offer in the end game area (like WoW and EVE) Focusing on this type of high learning curve has brought many games success as they've managed to keep the players attention long enough to teach them important things, but haven't given them the full story to explore yet. It's this feed give system that keeps major titles going for extremely long times. It's why fallout is so brilliant, it has lots and lots of depth but manages to have a straight forward direction to follow with lots of bits attached to that, so you'll have the option of getting lost in the lore or following a set path (admittedly not a very good path... IMO)
Let's move onto point 3:
No, for every block count point there is good and then there is bad. Having too many blocks in a certain system is not a game problem, it is a design problem. When designing a ship there is many things to consider, but one of the core ones is system balance. Changing how many blocks AUX need to reach 2M is not going to change how effective a poor design is. For example, reducing the amount of blocks required to reach 2M with AUX will only decrease the curve, which will improve all ships equally. (as we saw with the increase of regen for reactors, which improved all ships from 100K to 2M blocks equally the only difference was that all ships now had 2M e/s)
One of the core problems when it comes to perspective is on size, ships in starmade are dynamic, changing one area of the game to favor a certain block count is both impossible, and illogical. Example: To improve the combat ability of a 1K block ship, you must increase the effectiveness of each block, which scales all the way up to the maximum block count (2M note cap for genxnova, where I play) Separating these into other ship types (as defined by shipcores) will still result in the same scaling issues, in which bigger ships often have larger stats.
If you force a capital ship to only be able to counter another capital ship (i.e because turret rotation is so bad) then no one will field capital ships, they will instead flock to the most balanced ship class in the game. Balance is important in combat. Being able to deal with multiple types of threats in one ship or with one lineup of ships is very important, equally so, being able to scale with the enemy is important, you do not respond to a small fighter in your territory by sending a titan unless you are A: not a very good player or B: extremely intoxicated.
If you make a fighter be able to 1v1 a capital ship, no one will field a capital ship in the first place, they'll just use the most effective tactic available. The best way to scale therefore is to give each class a certain role which is what many space games have done to deal with the problem.
Let’s now move into our final point 4:
No, no no. Again it is all about design. Missile barges only have to regen enough power to fire every 45 seconds, therefore a greater focus is put on capacity, not regen, to be able to use larger and larger missiles. A shredder ship (a ship designed to sever key systems like axis trees and aux groupings) requires higher regen to power their cannon cannon array. In titans (the largest ships we field) over 30% is just cap alone, not regen. 20% of that is regen and the rest is a mix of defensive and offensive systems. It's all about striking a balance for the particular ship type you are going for. A cannon cannon cruiser does not require any cap, instead, it must focus on regen. A missile barge designed to deal massive system damage requires more cap than anything else.
Some notes about the proposed heat system:
Like in Elite Dangerous bigger ships carry more firepower, can handle more heat, have larger power cores, and dish out more punishment. The only difference between these ships is their class and what they are intended for. Changing out to a heat system is fine, and I’m perfectly happy to switch my design to it if schine believes it's the way forward but be warned now, schine, this will not fix any of the balance problems.
As I've said multiple times in this post, whoever is a better player will always be more effective. A subpar 2M block ship is not going to match or even hope to stand up against a superior 2M block design.
A good way to manage the proposed heat system is to simply start making scaffolding ships, in which reactors are placed in a line equally distant from each other, and then have all other systems in other locations. Larger ships will also have an advantage here, their internal volume allows for greater distance, thus more heat cap, and thus more effective systems (META)
Furthermore, a fatal error is simply assuming we want to use smaller weapons or have an interior, many of us are happy with a small interior and as long any system in starmade benefits from MOAR blocks you'll never be able to push interiors, as long as weapons do more damage the larger they get, the size will not change, as long as more blocks is better all I've said above is true, and thus nothing can be done to prevent this. Ship classes are the only way forward (IMO)
Some notes about the view schine has:
Schine, you must understand that a vast majority of players do not post on the forums. You must also understand that because this is your only feedback area, you are being influenced by a smaller group then the rest of the game would suggest.
There is very little you can do to fix this problem, you'll never be able to consider the effects that your changes have on the entire playerbase, but know this, we stand behind you, and your product. We believe starmade is a beautiful and deep game, and we feel that your changes thus far have been justified. We believe you truly do have the best intentions for your game, and we believe that in any event, OAS, and the rest of GenXnova will continue to support and participate in this game, the only home we've ever known.
In conclusion:
This change would be one step forward, and one step back. Overall, it simply causes a refit, and I don't believe we will see any remarkable change to the current meta, to design, to the imbalance between good players and bad, or to the fact that we love starmade.
