Build System Revamp, Including Quality Tiers

[Winterhome]

Victory goes to the one who fields the most blocks.

You've never tried to fight a 30k mass ship in a 100k mass ship, have you. Trust me, it goes very badly for the 100k. At least, if the 30k pilot isn't stupid enough to stand completely still in front of the 100k's guns.

 

[Panpiper]

You've never tried to fight a 30k mass ship in a 100k mass ship, have you. Trust me, it goes very badly for the 100k. At least, if the 30k pilot isn't stupid enough to stand completely still in front of the 100k's guns.

Almost all my offensive firepower is in turrets, a roughly even mix of full ratio missile/beam with sufficient additional 1/1 decoys to completely saturate any point defense. The other half is in equal ratio cannon/beam turrets. (I also have what I consider to be exclusively defensive cannon/cannon turrets that hit for 2K damage a hit, those for anti-drone defense.) I give my ships quite decent thrust and they are usually capable of keeping me mid range where an opponent's close range weapons cannot range. If an opponent opens up at close range, I will fly retrograde and let them try to keep up by flying into my fire. The turrets have no problems bringing fire to bear. In two years of playing on multiplayer servers, I've never lost a ship. Mind you I also do not start fights.

My normal flyabout ship is in fact a 100K mass battleminer.

 

[Captain_Boroski]

In two years of playing on multiplayer servers, I've never lost a ship. Mind you I also do not start fights.

So your only multiplayer PvP experience is fighting another solo player in his ship built from whatever meager resources he could scratch together instead of taking part in faction fights where every asset and resource is deployed to the fight. This little experience you have under your belt has convinced yourself that tier-based technology and weapons are a good idea.

Alright.

 

[splatthecat]

I like the idea of tiered system blocks. It is reminiscent of the hull, standard armour and advanced armour and I can see the benefit of it.

Building in a caveat that it takes progressively more blocks is a good idea. Kind of build a shield block in a basic factory, "25" of these plus some catalyst item would make a tier 2 version in a standard factory, "100" plus another catalyst would make a tier 3 version in an advanced factory. I know that is a basic analogy of your OP but I like it a lot!

 

[Captain_Boroski]

Building in a caveat that it takes progressively more blocks is a good idea. Kind of build a shield block in a basic factory, "25" of these plus some catalyst item would make a tier 2 version in a standard factory, "100" plus another catalyst would make a tier 3 version in an advanced factory. I know that is a basic analogy of your OP but I like it a lot!

Yeah and us big factions who are established and have resources to casually throw around can just pump all of it into making the bestest tier stuff and steamroll anyone anywhere and anytime.

Current game mechanisms give everyone pretty much the same chance. Of course the players who've stayed longer have a head-start and advanced-armored ships at their disposal. But anyone with the dedication can still gather the resources to stand up to them.

We've had lot of these threads and this same exact suggestions in the past, I'm fairly convinced at this point that anyone who unironically pushes for this sort of system is just someone who didn't git gud and wants a easy way to dominate any new players on the server.

 

[Panpiper]

So your only multiplayer PvP experience is fighting another solo player in his ship built from whatever meager resources he could scratch together instead of taking part in faction fights where every asset and resource is deployed to the fight. This little experience you have under your belt has convinced yourself that tier-based technology and weapons are a good idea.

Most of the times I have been in a fight, other than versus AI, is when someone who outmassed me two to one or more, in what I would usually call a newbie brick, overconfidently figured I would make for good salvage. Almost invariably these people have relied on massive close range cannon/cannon and/or swarmers. The occasional time they've had some sniper missiles, they had made no provision for saturating PD, of which I have ample. Certainly I do not have the PvP experience of people who build solely to challenge their friends in the Starmade equivalent of cage matches, but I have not gone up against people who have scratched together meager resources. If their resources were so scratchy meager, they wouldn't have started a fight.

Yeah and us big factions who are established and have resources to casually throw around can just pump all of it into making the bestest tier stuff and steamroll anyone anywhere and anytime.

If you have such godly resources to so casually throw around, then you already have the ability to "steamroll anyone anywhere and anytime". Having a tiered quality system would not make you 'more' powerful. It would reduce the firepower of those 100 titans you are somehow able to muster to that of a single such titan with only 4 times the power of a solitary titan. This does NOT somehow give you even greater power!

And if your faction IS able to muster such insane resources to so utterly dominate any and all, I dare say there is a deeper problem with the game mechanics which needs to be addressed, quite irrespective of anything to do with tiered quality components.

 

[Lecic]

This does NOT somehow give you even greater power!

No, actually, this will definitely just increase the power of high end players. You only have so many pilots available, and you can only make ships so big before they break the game. So now you can make even stronger ships, which makes it even easier for older players to dominate newer players.

 

[nightrune]

Most of the times I have been in a fight, other than versus AI, is when someone who outmassed me two to one or more, in what I would usually call a newbie brick, overconfidently figured I would make for good salvage. Almost invariably these people have relied on massive close range cannon/cannon and/or swarmers. The occasional time they've had some sniper missiles, they had made no provision for saturating PD, of which I have ample. Certainly I do not have the PvP experience of people who build solely to challenge their friends in the Starmade equivalent of cage matches, but I have not gone up against people who have scratched together meager resources. If their resources were so scratchy meager, they wouldn't have started a fight.


If you have such godly resources to so casually throw around, then you already have the ability to "steamroll anyone anywhere and anytime". Having a tiered quality system would not make you 'more' powerful. It would reduce the firepower of those 100 titans you are somehow able to muster to that of a single such titan with only 4 times the power of a solitary titan. This does NOT somehow give you even greater power!

And if your faction IS able to muster such insane resources to so utterly dominate any and all, I dare say there is a deeper problem with the game mechanics which needs to be addressed, quite irrespective of anything to do with tiered quality components.

The best example I've seen in of a tier system in a long term, survival game (which is starmade multiplayer) has been ark. It doesn't work and it isn't really fun. Usually once someone has ascended to the level of above someone else others no longer have a chance. This type of end-all-be-all system does not work. It sounds beautiful on paper, but does not work in the long run.

The reason tiers can work in other games tends to be when they aren't competitive or those tiers are ultimately catered to and permeate the entire game, and while that seems to be what you would want in a game. Its not what I want for sure. I think the ideal for a starmade server is to have a very bubbling activity with factions rapidly growing and expanding then dying off. To have a large sustained faction should be a testament, and profound in the game, but ultimately fragile. Its not that you'll lose everything eventually, its that the pace of every level of gameplay waxes and wanes. Every level meaning, astronaut, ship, fleet, sector, system, and galaxy.

 

[Captain_Boroski]

Well I had the hint of a feeling that I wouldn't get anywhere entering this argument, but what the hell, I've already made the attempt, might as well finish it off properly.

Most of the times I have been in a fight, other than versus AI, is when someone who outmassed me two to one or more, in what I would usually call a newbie brick.

Yeah, this is what I am talking about, this right here.
New players who have little to no experience on how to build a good ship, who have yet to find out their fighting style are going to only learn through browsing these forums and online experience. When you scrape off the cream, the details, all it comes down is personal skill and how fast you can learn.

They lose a fight, learn from it and/or browse starmade forum for how to build a better ship. They try again and hopefully this time they come out as the winner.

Introduce your tier-system and no matter what the new player does, they will without a doubt get their shit kicked in a fight with a ship of equal mass or less and unless their opponent is a utter buffoon, they have snowball's chance in hell of winning. This problem just quadruples in scale when factions of players are thrown into the equation. First and most active factions get established and then stay established by attacking any faction that grows past a certain treshold a la Shores of Hazeron-experience.

If you have such godly resources to so casually throw around, then you already have the ability to "steamroll anyone anywhere and anytime".

Except that everyone has access to the same systems and materials and it all comes down to skill, ship design and doctrine. It doesn't matter if it's new or old faction on the server; if they know what they are doing they can stand up a fight against anyone.