StarMade Devblog - Endgame Document Pt. 3

[Edymnion]

If you can find a good way to do it, I'd like to see some rare "treasure" resources that can only be dug out very carefully by hand to prevent destroying them. These shouldn't be staple manufacturing items, but perhaps they could be used for personal equipment or ammunition-like expendable enhancements to ship systems or personal equipment.

I'd be fine if it gave some purely decorative and/or lucrative items.

Like hand mining crystals might let you get a really interesting looking crystal formation that you can use for decorating or sell off at a higher than normal price. So basically gemstones.

 

[Valiant70]

I'd be fine if it gave some purely decorative and/or lucrative items.

Like hand mining crystals might let you get a really interesting looking crystal formation that you can use for decorating or sell off at a higher than normal price. So basically gemstones.

Gold-pressed latinun, anyone? But yes, that's one possible approach. I like the idea of finding components for rare personal equipment and buffs as well though.

 

[JinM]

I'd be fine if it gave some purely decorative and/or lucrative items.

Like hand mining crystals might let you get a really interesting looking crystal formation that you can use for decorating or sell off at a higher than normal price. So basically gemstones.

I'd love to have some treasure room with gold bars and gemstones, that are placable as blocks and not stored into containers. =)

 

[TCOne]

Additionally, they will also be able to wage war, but a player cannot send attack fleets to fight battles in unloaded sectors.

This is somewhat concerning. Do you mean that simulated fleet fights aren't planned for player fleets and even in released game I'll have to follow my fleet into battle to make it actually fight?

 

[Neon_42]

News about what bugs you're working on is fine. If the bugs are particularly annoying, we would be very happy to know you're working to fix them. Otherwise it's just nice to hear that work's being done, even if it's just "We're cleaning up that last release for you."

Agreed. A free schedule sounds like the beginning of the end for this game. A lack of communication will further atrophy the player base. Even if it is just a simple 'Checking In'. The point being to build trust in the player base. Lots of other successful indie games do this. Maybe not weekly, but definitely on some regular schedule. It gives your players confidence that their investment in the game will pay off.

 

[Lecic]

A comparison of how something works now to how something is planned to work in the future is not a valid comparison. This simple anaylsis of your statement shows your entire argument regarding AI micromanaging to be moot.

I don't trust Schine to make a perfect AI that distributes my resources exactly the way I want to. I don't trust ANYONE to make an AI that can do that, because last I checked, I don't have a chip in my brain that lets an AI read my thoughts. Players should be able to control where their resources go.

Maybe the faction is too big?

Utter nonsense. 5-10 people is "too big," for an EMPIRE, no less? The simple fact of the matter is that you cannot keep enough sectors loaded to defend your territory from unloaded fleets cruising through, no matter how big or small your faction is.

As for large faction border issues I find scattering a metric ton of gun stations to work for most enemies. As for coordinated attacks it really depends on the players attacking.

That said there might be a way to check ships and stations on save to set their unloaded combat rating.

How is a gun station supposed to block a fleet that isn't loaded when unloaded combat doesn't exist?

 

[Tamren Shade]

Sounds exciting! And I'll be here as a player as long as the devs are here as a developers

 

[Lecic]

How do you even intend to begin thinking about how to balance unloaded combat? What constitutes combat power for a ship when you have to do what amounts to comparing numbers on very complex player-created spaceships? Is a gun that faces backwards counted? Are turrets worth more or less? Is the turret that sits inside the ship capable of shooting out? Is more ships better than fewer? There's no easy way to "simulate" the offline battle without huge discrepancies compared to how the battle would have played out in a "loaded" fight

You can easily account for these variables. Why does it matter if a gun is facing backwards? It doesn't, because a gun facing backwards would probably be missiles anyway. Why should it matter if a turret is hiding inside a ship? It doesn't, it would have the same load on a ship either way.

The complaints about "unbalanced unloaded ships" are moot, because these problems can be balanced around and will likely result in an "unloaded optimized ship" being totally worthless in real combat anyway, whereas a ship balanced for real combat will probably be good in either.

 

[EricBlank]

schema for the universe update, were you moving away from solar systems being cubes 0f 16^3 sectors set in regular patterns? will they be spheres or ellipses or something centered around a star that are distributed randomly instead? Will they be potentially much larger or smaller than systems we see now? Will there be space, within galaxies, between star systems?

 

[Valiant70]

The complaints about "unbalanced unloaded ships" are moot, because these problems can be balanced around and will likely result in an "unloaded optimized ship" being totally worthless in real combat anyway, whereas a ship balanced for real combat will probably be good in either.

That, and server owners can police the catalog as much as they see fit to pick out ships that are definitely "unloaded optimized" and enforce penalties.
[doublepost=1502413592,1502413277][/doublepost]

schema for the universe update, were you moving away from solar systems being cubes 0f 16^3 sectors set in regular patterns? will they be spheres or ellipses or something centered around a star that are distributed randomly instead? Will they be potentially much larger or smaller than systems we see now? Will there be space, within galaxies, between star systems?

I certainly hope so! Sectors need to remain as cubes for the sake of mechanics, but I don't know of any reason systems should have to be cube regions. That forces them to be all the same size, and on a grid, which isn't desirable in any way.

I'd like to see star systems much farther apart. Perhaps jump drives could get a much longer range, or perhaps this would just incentivize the use of jump gates.

 

[Shaker]

Need some incentive to group up, more faction abilities, grouped up players play for longer

Its all good to automate everything, but solo factions never last long

 

[Comr4de]

Additionally, they will also be able to wage war, but a player cannot send attack fleets to fight battles in unloaded sectors.

Very disappointed honestly. I thought the purpose for ship scoring was to have unloaded fleet combat.

This doesn’t mean you can’t go further out and discover other galaxies though

No, please god no. Nobody uses this feature now. Actually, people TRY to use it to avoid player contact in the main galaxy but most admins prohibit leaving the main galaxy due to database bloat. Just don't. How is travelling to a new galaxy productive? What benefits does it offer? Right now those benefits seem to include "making it inconvenient for other players to visit you".

 

[nightrune]

Very disappointed honestly. I thought the purpose for ship scoring was to have unloaded fleet combat.
No, please god no. Nobody uses this feature now. Actually, people TRY to use it to avoid player contact in the main galaxy but most admins prohibit leaving the main galaxy due to database bloat. Just don't. How is travelling to a new galaxy productive? What benefits does it offer? Right now those benefits seem to include "making it inconvenient for other players to visit you".

For right now consider it possible end game content. We understand that it needs limited, there are gameplay limits planned and admin limits planned.

 

[GDPR 302420]

Need some incentive to group up, more faction abilities, grouped up players play for longer

Its all good to automate everything, but solo factions never last long

I think the opposite is the solution to that problem.

Being in a solo faction without assistance from friends or other factions should be a logistical nightmare to the point where grouping up with friends or getting assistance from other factions should be almost a requirement for survival.

Discourage one man factions rather than encourage grouping.

 

[Edymnion]

Very disappointed honestly. I thought the purpose for ship scoring was to have unloaded fleet combat.
No, please god no. Nobody uses this feature now. Actually, people TRY to use it to avoid player contact in the main galaxy but most admins prohibit leaving the main galaxy due to database bloat. Just don't. How is travelling to a new galaxy productive? What benefits does it offer? Right now those benefits seem to include "making it inconvenient for other players to visit you".

This is something that always amused me.

If you say that you don't like PvP but like being on servers to have someone to talk to, you're considered weird.

If you say you like PvP but run to the next galaxy over so that no one ever comes close to you, nobody bats an eye.
[doublepost=1502460399,1502460333][/doublepost]

I think the opposite is the solution to that problem.

Being in a solo faction without assistance from friends or other factions should be a logistical nightmare to the point where grouping up with friends or getting assistance from other factions should be almost a requirement for survival.

Discourage one man factions rather than encourage grouping.

God, please no.

It will be school group projects all over again where 1 person does all the work, and everybody else lounges and does nothing.

If I'm going to have to carry all the weight, I'd rather carry it by myself.

 

[GDPR 302420]

For right now consider it possible end game content. We understand that it needs limited, there are gameplay limits planned and admin limits planned.

You have enough "planned" features on an ever growing backlog of "planned" features to where saying a feature is "planned" does not give much confidence.

This is something that always amused me.

If you say that you don't like PvP but like being on servers to have someone to talk to, you're considered weird.

If you say you like PvP but run to the next galaxy over so that no one ever comes close to you, nobody bats an eye.
[doublepost=1502460399,1502460333][/doublepost]God, please no.

It will be school group projects all over again where 1 person does all the work, and everybody else lounges and does nothing.

If I'm going to have to carry all the weight, I'd rather carry it by myself.

That will not be the case if implimented correctly.

One man factions should not be a viable gameplay choice, you should be required to have friends or allies from other factions if you want to survive in the factions world.
[doublepost=1502462953][/doublepost]Gonna leave a link to a clip of a conversation between Schine and Veilith on twitch during his stream.

Schine said some pretty bold stuff and Veilith responded in the first clip, second one is just talking about how nightrune said "put more money into the game" which starts a massive shitpost about Steam and Advertising.

Clip 1

https://clips.twitch.tv/ManlyZanyCarabeefDuDudu

Clip 2

https://clips.twitch.tv/SmoggyStupidManateeDAESuppy

 

[jontyfreack]

One man factions should not be a viable gameplay choice, you should be required to have friends or allies from other factions if you want to survive in the factions world.

adding onto this somewhat.
even in single player the player would want to take over command of one of the NPC factions if they want to have a large faction.
A small one man faction on a single player world would be extremely difficult to set up before entering the imperialist stage without the use of admin commands or help from the NPC factions (if those can help the player at all).

On multiplayer you would want a few friends to get the faction set up to the imperialist stage and to function in the imperialist stage, because I am pretty sure a large faction on a multiplayer server would be a very interesting target for other factions and even players who go about business on their own (such as the fighter player thingy, basically a mercenary) and so for an imperialist stage faction to survive it would need several members doing their own thing towards the upkeep of the faction, a lot of things would be automated such as mining and fleet building, but the fleet fighting would be limited to telling the fleet to go to a sector where you can meet it and then commanding the fleet battle from within the fleet.

Actually I like the no unloaded fleet combat, because if players want to attack another faction with fleets they would have to actually think about where to put them before attacking. And I think scanning systems unveils the location of fleets, both friendly and enemy fleets, so intercepting a fleet is possible.
Im sure you can still tell fleets to move to an unloaded sector outside of where you are going to attack, and then a player can travel to that sector where the fleet is and command the fleet battle against what they want to fight.


I have not had much sleep at all so excuse me if any form of idea or meaning is lost.

 

[StormWing0]

It'd be nice if they figured out unloaded combat for AI ships and stations since it'd open some doors.

 

[Lecic]

God, please no.

It will be school group projects all over again where 1 person does all the work, and everybody else lounges and does nothing.

If I'm going to have to carry all the weight, I'd rather carry it by myself.

A "faction" being run by a single person would be as hard to maintain as a one man faction. This is good, inactive factions should die out.

On another note,

I've recently learned Starmade already has some limited "unloaded combat" which Tunk has been testing on his server box. It seems to work pretty well with some kinks that need ironed out. Why Schine cancelling this feature when it's already partially implemented?

 

[Neon_42]

One man factions need to be viable, because not everyone wants to cooperate with others. Edymnion has it right. I don't want to be the only one maintaining a faction while others sit around. To be clear though I'm not saying one man factions should be able to conquer the universe. There might be some scale limit where it becomes unfeasible to do more without other players. But there should be no reason why I cant maintain a small faction on my own. There is a happy middle ground here. Small factions can be run by single players like pirate bases or mining colonies, but galactic corporations and empires should probably require more players.