The thoughts of a two hour player

[StripedMonkey]

I've played this game for a grand total of two hours so far, I figure I'd share my thoughts on the game from the perspective of someone who has played a metric ton of space games and a lover of minecraft but strangely enough has not really heard/played any Starmade before today. I have heard of it but never gotten past hearing of it as a minecraft-esque space game.

My first thoughts when I log into a singleplayer world is cool! I quickly manage to build my first spaceship and screw around with flying at supersonic speeds before settling down and making a ship that looks semi reasonable. I didn't really talk to the dude at the space station which in retrospect may have been a mistake but by the time I realized that I had no idea where that station was as I had launched myself all over the place. My biggest complaints so far are thus:

1. UI is not the greatest at my screen size. Its not *bad* but feels cluttered especially compared to how the tutorials look.
2. The in-game tutorials don't explain controls nearly as well as they should. I also noticed that it said "in later tutorials" but those aren't in there. There also needs to be more information on the different portions of the UI specifically on the build screen.
3. After starting the game I only have salvaging lasers, while thats cool and all once I try to use them they seem a bit janky (specifically the 12 I have at the front of my ship I only seem to be able to get one to fire at a time, perhaps thats just me)
4. No Middle click functionality for selecting things. Maybe its just me but that feels like a huge waste of a button especially how often it's used in other games.

Overall not bad, here are some of my biggest likes.

1. overall feel of the game. I don't understand/know all of the mechanics but it already seems pretty in-depth. I've not even seen a space battle but I can already see that it would be a huge amount of fun to zip around in a little fighter twisting around the bad guys.
2. Size of everything. It feels big but still close enough together, at least around the starting area. The stations I have encountered so far are big and I think they look pretty cool. I play another space sim called Avorion which to me has the same sort of feel when it comes to size. You can build a massive battleship and still be dwarfed in size when looking at other stations.
3. Ship Mechanics, I've not seen exactly how everything works but I'm liking how the things I've figured out function.
4. Crafting system seems cool, I've not done too much but I like the method and how it shows you recipes.
5. Warp, its probably me nerding out but the hyperspace/subspace/whatever looks cool and makes me geek out a little.

Personally I'm already liking it and I'll definitely sink a couple hundred hours in once I get a good grasp of the mechanics, I bought the game just because I like the devs and I look forward to having it fleshed out more.

 

[Top 4ce]

Welcome! Glad you're enjoying it. There's a big update coming Soon (TM), which will how overall power and shields work. So we will all be relearning the game.

If you have any questions just ask!

 

[Non]

Advice:

Play on a server. Thats the best place to learn a lot.

The details panel for weapons is not entirely accurate. Reload time and weapon range are correct, but damage/second and damage/shot are off, probably power consumption too.

Branching from that, do math. (assuming you are in release build) Each block in a weapon contributes 10 dps to the gun. Damage per second is 10*toatlblockcount, damage per shot is 10*totalblockcount*reloadtime. Power usage is is 10* those damage numbers, so power usage per second is 100*toatlblockcount, per shot is 100*totalblockcount*reloadtime. Some weapon effects modify these values.

Try pvp at some point, it motivates a very high level of ship design. Starmade has a pretty high skill cap, and a lot of people don't have a good indication of where they lie in it, pvp can tell you very fast.

Your ship probably isn't big. There are players who have several kilometer long titans, granted those don't get pulled out in servers for combat really, but they exist. 500k mass ships are used on servers fairly often though.

I hope that managed to be helpful and encouraging.

 

[SmilingDemon]

- do not get attached to much to any mechanic or math in the game ... its quite possible to change to something different
- the tutorials are placeholders (more or less). the interactive tutorial got killed because of changes to game mechanics (to keep it updated would have been to much of a time waste )
- there are quite some well known irritating glitches in the game. if you do encounter something like that. just ask about it, probably there is a work around (or an advice what to avoid doing)
-have fun

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Welcome aboard, StripedMonkey ! I hope to run into you in one of the servers!

Now, a few tips for beginners:
- Learn the map and waypoints (M and N menus) Space is large, and in this particular space game that statement is more true than in any other (maybe except Elite:Dangerous) Knowing where you are in this mind-blowingly large universe is of key importance.
- Spawn sector by default is sector 2, 2, 2. Just so you can get back where you started.
- The salvage lasers and the weapons fire only one projectile as long as the blocks in the group all touch on at least one side. Probably the reason behind you seeing only one beam. Stacking more blocks on one group however do make that one group more powerful - so your discretion whether you go for a lot of small groups or fewer large ones. Recommended lot of small groups for mining beams. There's something more experienced players call the "double checkerboard setup". You'll figure it out.
- Shields are your friends. Unlike Empyrion and (vanilla) Space Engineers, you can and should put shields on your ship. Easier to recharge shields after a barely escaped encounter, than replacing missing blocks - especially that some non-player and definitely a lot of player-made entities will have some pretty big and nasty missiles that can crack a ship in two without much effort.
- Careful around stars. They behave like stars. If you go too close, your face - and your ship - melts. I can't put enough emphasis on this after seeing all the death messages due to flying/jumping into stars during my countless hours in this game.
- Never bet all you have on one option. I have seen a lot of ragequits due to people spending everything they had on one ship, and then losing it to a pirate fleet/pirate station/sun. A good advice taken from EVE Online: only take out a ship you can afford to lose.
- When playing on a multiplayer server, especially a populated one, try to join a faction, or make your own. Placing a faction module on stations, planets, ships and even asteroids allows you to faction lock them, making them inaccessible to other players. Without them, anyone can hijack your things. And they do. My first multiplayer experience in Starmade was watching someone fly off with my first ship when I got out for a second.
In addition, each faction is allowed to have one homebase (station or planet; preferably a station) which is invincible. Factions can also claim star systems, which gives a boost to resource mining for the owner. You can do so on the faction block on a station or planet your faction owns in that system. It's logical to claim the system your homebase is in (and to build homebase in an unclaimed system) as another faction can revoke your claim by destroying the station (or faction block) on which the claim was set.

There's plenty more to learn, and the game itself may be subject to major changes in mechanics and gameplay, so the most important rule is to never be afraid to ask if you need information!

 

[jayman38]

These new-player posts are probably super-valuable for Schine to make the beginning game more accessible. Thank you for posting!

When you get a chance, please clarify some of your statements, to help Schine improve.
1. What screen res did you start with (E.g. 800x600) and what GUI element didn't work right (E.g. Hotbar along the bottom cut off on the ends, inventory scrollbar was below the bottom of the screen, etc.)? Was the GUI getting in the way of using the game in some way?
2. If you were to write one of the tutorials, which controls and GUI elements would you highlight first? This can really help Schine prioritize those tutorials and put them ahead of others. (E.g. "Press this button to toggle the button-helper screen, press this button to bring up the menu, press these buttons to add and remove blocks, press this button to enter and exit build mode. Show how close you have to get to a block to get the helper notes. Show the ship core block for an extended period of time to show users how important this block is, etc.)
3. It sounds like a tutorial on system/weapon grouping needs to be prioritized for new players.
4. I remember suggestions for a middle-click function coming up before. Good call.

Thank you!

 

[StripedMonkey]

When you get a chance, please clarify some of your statements, to help Schine improve.
1. What screen res did you start with (E.g. 800x600) and what GUI element didn't work right (E.g. Hotbar along the bottom cut off on the ends, inventory scrollbar was below the bottom of the screen, etc.)? Was the GUI getting in the way of using the game in some way?
2. If you were to write one of the tutorials, which controls and GUI elements would you highlight first? This can really help Schine prioritize those tutorials and put them ahead of others. (E.g. "Press this button to toggle the button-helper screen, press this button to bring up the menu, press these buttons to add and remove blocks, press this button to enter and exit build mode. Show how close you have to get to a block to get the helper notes. Show the ship core block for an extended period of time to show users how important this block is, etc.)
3. It sounds like a tutorial on system/weapon grouping needs to be prioritized for new players.
4. I remember suggestions for a middle-click function coming up before. Good call.

1. My screen size is a bit funky @ 1280x1024, nothings cut off or anything but the UI (specifically the build UI) takes up a significant portion of the total screen size and makes it feel tight.
2. The things I feel need to be more talked about in the tutorials are:
   1. Specifically going over the initial crafting menus and how to get materials/where they come from.
   2. Connecting things and how to configure weapons and such. As it is I spent an hour trying to figure out how to get my salvaging lasers to actually fire. As it turns out the orientation of the computer matters (Which is stupid by the way, I would like to have them on my back wall but can't unless I just want to see the backsides of them)
   3. Rebooting/Repairing your ship. After flying a little too close to the sun I tried to repair the ship and I, to my dismay cannot replace broken blocks and it appears that damaged blocks can only be replaced in order to get rid of the damaged look.
3. Definitely.

After screwing around more:

1. map needs a bit of an overhaul in terms of information available. Its pretty easy to navigate and stuff but its impossible to for example search for your personal station and plot a course to it
2. Maybe I'm just missing it but there really needs to be a way to tab/alternate through all the available targets. Especially when in a fight its useful to cycle through all your enemies.
3. It might be just a bug but after my station was attacked by pirates I can't seem to get rid of them. I obliterated them to nothing more than a few pieces of ship left but they won't actually die. I went up to one in person and started just shooting the core and it didn't seem to do anything. In any case that eventually led to me giving up and trying to leave the ship which was spinning like a top. When I did I was flung 3km from my ship by the momentum of the spinning pirate ship and spent a long time actually getting back to my ship.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

It might be just a bug but after my station was attacked by pirates I can't seem to get rid of them. I obliterated them to nothing more than a few pieces of ship left but they won't actually die. I went up to one in person and started just shooting the core and it didn't seem to do anything. In any case that eventually led to me giving up and trying to leave the ship which was spinning like a top. When I did I was flung 3km from my ship by the momentum of the spinning pirate ship and spent a long time actually getting back to my ship.

That definitely sounds like a bug... generally you have to destroy at least half the system blocks on a ship to kill (overheat) it. Shooting the core USED TO kill a ship, but not any more, as many players, especially PvP specialists, simply used a tactic we called "core drilling", so the devs made a HP system that took into account all system blocks in a ship. If you target a ship, you can see its system hit points (green bar). The Isanth Type Zero default pirate ship has a system setup that you really have to tear it up to actually kill it (probably to compensate the lack of shielding) but it should work (target the arms with the guns in them and the backside with the power/thruster blocks for max damage)
If they don't die below 50% system HP, it's definitely a bug.

 

[SmilingDemon]

-1. Left siude menu can be minimized and the right parts can collaps (that isnt helping much)
-2.2. that was explained in the old interactive tutorial ... will probably be back in some sort or another after the game is feature complete and in Beta. you can place a weapons computer as decoration, you do not have to connect it to anything
-2.3. damaged blocks can be repaired with the repair beam (either hand held or ship system afaik) , but remove and undo from build mode is faster °°. building on a damaged ship is going to reduce its HP and causes overheating, always reboot it first (exploid prevention reasons for that)
addendum
1. you can save waypoints in navigaen and set a course to them
3. uhm ... that sounds weird ... and hitting the core does nothing ... you have to kill an amount of systems to overheat the target

 

[StripedMonkey]

That definitely sounds like a bug... generally you have to destroy at least half the system blocks on a ship to kill (overheat) it. Shooting the core USED TO kill a ship, but not any more, as many players, especially PvP specialists, simply used a tactic we called "core drilling", so the devs made a HP system that took into account all system blocks in a ship. If you target a ship, you can see its system hit points (green bar). The Isanth Type Zero default pirate ship has a system setup that you really have to tear it up to actually kill it (probably to compensate the lack of shielding) but it should work (target the arms with the guns in them and the backside with the power/thruster blocks for max damage)
If they don't die below 50% system HP, it's definitely a bug.

Did I get em?

 

[Batavium]

Rebooting/Repairing your ship. After flying a little too close to the sun I tried to repair the ship and I, to my dismay cannot replace broken blocks and it appears that damaged blocks can only be replaced in order to get rid of the damaged look.

Never take out your new toy for a spin without making a Blueprint! If you play on a Multi Player server then make them to your local PC since you never know when the server might crash and then you loose your design. Other players also love to shoot people so Blueprint and Blueprint often.

Heat damage is something we al had happen. Like any game there are some does and do nots. You tend to learn this by experience next time you will be more carefull or not.

map needs a bit of an overhaul in terms of information available. Its pretty easy to navigate and stuff but its impossible to for example search for your personal station and plot a course to it

You can add personal waypoints in the Navigation Menu N key. If you set a Home Base then the location of that is in the Factions list H key. Every other factions Home Base is listed there to.

Maybe I'm just missing it but there really needs to be a way to tab/alternate through all the available targets. Especially when in a fight its useful to cycle through all your enemies.

F = Select Target
[ = Next Target
] = Previous Target
' = Closest Target 'the arrow on the Enter Key points directly to it'

It might be just a bug but after my station was attacked by pirates I can't seem to get rid of them. I obliterated them to nothing more than a few pieces of ship left but they won't actually die. I went up to one in person and started just shooting the core and it didn't seem to do anything. In any case that eventually led to me giving up and trying to leave the ship which was spinning like a top. When I did I was flung 3km from my ship by the momentum of the spinning pirate ship and spent a long time actually getting back to my ship.

This has changed a few times in the past. Currently Pirate Ships just keep attacking until a target is death. The trouble starts when they can not do this. When a Pirate Wave spawns they should also get a Disengage command a few minutes later and fly into deep space so they can unload. They also call for more Pirates after a set time this can get out of hand.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

This has changed a few times in the past. Currently Pirate Ships just keep attacking until a target is death. The trouble starts when they can not do this. When a Pirate Wave spawns they should also get a Disengage command a few minutes later and fly into deep space so they can unload. They also call for more Pirates after a set time this can get out of hand.

His problem is being unable to overheat them.

 

[Batavium]

His problem is being unable to overheat them.

Yes but SmilingDemon already answered that part.

you have to kill an amount of systems to overheat the target

Rebooting/Repairing your ship. After flying a little too close to the sun I tried to repair the ship and I, to my dismay cannot replace broken blocks and it appears that damaged blocks can only be replaced in order to get rid of the damaged look.

I forgot that StarMade also has Shipyards. If you have a Blueprint or have made a design in a Shipyard then they are perfect for repairing a damaged ship. The Shipyard will unbuild your damaged ship and then rebuild it as layed out in the design. Provided you have the blocks needed to complete the repair.

Beware that on multi player servers it can be sometimes hard to load a design. The server is then to buzy but will report that it does not load because the structure is in the way even when it is not. You then have to wait until the server is less crowded. It should then work again.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Did I get em?View attachment 47008

OK. That definitely doesn't look right.

Are on a server or in singleplayer?
Are those pirates still there and active after a relog (log off/log back) or do they despawn/overheat?
I have seen something similar happen before but never could figure out how exactly it happens (it's highly unusual) you may want to submit an official bugreport with that screenshot included, here

 

[SmilingDemon]

first ... select that pirate to so its information (F deafult).
see if it is above its overheat value (i do doubt that from the picture)
we did had problems from them loosing factioning on overheating ... or something like that. Cant remember them not over heating at all.

 

[Scypio]

You can also enter the ship, as it is isanth they're not on a npc's fleets so you can steal them. Don't remember if this works on non-overheating ships though or if they become again pirates.

Just select them in the navigation menu, if they're not under 50% SHP they're not overheating and this is normal even though the ship look like it's completely destroyed. Isanths are really old and not suited to anything in the current state of the game. A lot of armor and really little to no systems to systain it.
If you are under 50% SHP they should overheat and that is a bug. In that case to get rid of them, select them in the navigation menu an type the command : "Destroy_entity_dock". "Destroy_entity" works too but remember the first one with dock otherwise you would have to clean up manually every docking entities on the ship. Isn't a problem here but that is a habit you should have.