Universe Patch Brainstorming: Incentives Against Turtling?

[jayman38]

Just a quick mention about Starmade in relation to EVE NPC Enforcers:

Schine could program enforcers that are just like an ordinary ship, but with rules that simply don't apply to normal ship-building. Think: 2-block lance lasers that lock on with 100% accuracy to destroy any number of blocks in a target ship along the beam path, regardless of HP, size, strength, shielding, etc, with 1000x acid damage spawning out from that line of destroyed blocks. Or invulnerable shields. Or system blocks that produce 1000x more than the normal player rules. Or missiles or cannon shots that pop every single attached entity, regardless of how far away from the impact site it is mounted. Or top speeds 10 times faster than the fastest player ship. Or Insta-jump. With such rules, such as lance-lasers and rail-popper cannons and super-speed, an Isanth Enforcer wing could literally tear a titan apart, regardless of how big and powerful that titan might be.

Think of the Shivan "Lucifer" from the original Freespace, reduced in size to an Isanth, slicing up everything in its path with tiny-but-godly acidic lance-beams, and you can see how griefers could be put to rest very fast, assuming these enforcers are jumped directly to the scene of the crime-in-progress. Maybe it's time that the Starmade universe be introduced to Shivans?

 

[Edymnion]

It still suffers from the same problems as before.

Its an after-the-fact way of trying to get back at griefers, after they have done damage. The griefer doesn't care if you destroy his ship, because they're using throw away accounts with throw away ships. They'll come in, blow up whatever they can reach until the popo show up, and then they'll abandon that ship and that account and do it again with fresh ones.

IMO, nothing that kicks in AFTER a griefer has destroyed someone's stuff is effective, because most griefers don't care what happens afterwards. They just want to blow your stuff up, and as long as they can blow it up, they win.

The only effective way to stop griefer attacks is to prevent them from being able to attack in the first place. Maybe force them to stay on a server for several days to build up FP before they can attack? They thrive on fast turn arounds, anything that slows them down and makes them wait is going to seriously crimp their style.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

You really never know who will show up

Naturally occuring PvP, in the current game settings, playfield sizes and player types? I know all to well who will show up. Nobody, other than the rare occasion when you have agreed to a battle and set up a date and time for it. Unless it's some player/faction stalking you or the server hoping someone would undock or could be caught with their pants down.

 

[Tolnorus]

How about something as simple as a Sanctuary aura, granting a ship the same invulnerability enjoyed by a Home Base, but for a brief time after undocking from a Home Base? Just to keep it from being abused, it could be instantly and suddenly removed upon leaving the sector in which it was bestowed (that is, the sector of the Home Base). But otherwise, give a player a short period of undocked protection, just long enough to charge a jump drive and warp out. Then the chase is on to find him, but at least it would break the endless stalemate.

Now that I mention this, I'm also thinking about the various mechanisms that exist in World of Warcraft. For example, after a character changes zones, it gains an aura that prevents an attacker from gaining Honor from killing that character, which pointedly does not prevent damage or death, but at least removes a specific reward for an attacker. (Not everyone cares about Honor. Sometimes they merely want to stab you.) It may be worth discussing what rewards a StarMade attacker seeks and therefor what could be done to temporarily suspend that reward long enough to break the stalemate but without giving the defender an advantage that lasts any longer than necessary.

 

[Edymnion]

How about something as simple as a Sanctuary aura, granting a ship the same invulnerability enjoyed by a Home Base, but for a brief time after undocking from a Home Base? Just to keep it from being abused, it could be instantly and suddenly removed upon leaving the sector in which it was bestowed (that is, the sector of the Home Base). But otherwise, give a player a short period of undocked protection, just long enough to charge a jump drive and warp out. Then the chase is on to find him, but at least it would break the endless stalemate.

Changing homebase invulnerability to home sector invulnerability has been discussed before, but it was generally shouted down by the griefers because it would do exactly what you said, allow someone who doesn't want to fight to jump out of the system to avoid being camped. Having a home sector toggle for PvE servers would be a good idea, IMO.

Now that I mention this, I'm also thinking about the various mechanisms that exist in World of Warcraft. For example, after a character changes zones, it gains an aura that prevents an attacker from gaining Honor from killing that character, which pointedly does not prevent damage or death, but at least removes a specific reward for an attacker. (Not everyone cares about Honor. Sometimes they merely want to stab you.) It may be worth discussing what rewards a StarMade attacker seeks and therefor what could be done to temporarily suspend that reward long enough to break the stalemate but without giving the defender an advantage that lasts any longer than necessary.

One option that has been floated before (which was again immediately shouted down) was that once we get the point evaluation system up and running semi-competently, that we do basically what you just said. Have a reputation system. If you attack a ship much weaker than your own (as determined by the point value, which again is really random and unusable at this point), you would gain a negative reputation. Fighting opponents of your own level would increase your reputation.

Then, if your reputation got low enough, various NPC factions could then declare war on you automatically (maybe based on random tolerance level settings per faction). That way someone who "is just playing a pirate faction" would have to deal with the repercussions of that when the entire universe decides to shoot on sight.

Bounty systems have also been done with mods on some servers I've seen. Where if someone is being an ass, you can set a bounty on them. Basically you'd pay into the bounty mod however many credits you wanted, people could check the bounty list, and if they thought the bounty was worth the effort go out and hunt down the person with the bounty on their head.

That method was kind of biased against new players though, as if you wanted to be a jerk an established player could put a huge bounty on a newb and let other people do the dirty work for them.

Won't help against actual griefers, but would help against generic asshole players.

 

[MacThule]

Changing homebase invulnerability to home sector invulnerability has been discussed before, but it was generally shouted down by the griefers because it would do exactly what you said, allow someone who doesn't want to fight to jump out of the system to avoid being camped. Having a home sector toggle for PvE servers would be a good idea, IMO.

Having the option for servers to implement home sector or even home system protection would be great! Just as long as it's not the default. I don't even think HB protection should be default, just a server option. PvE servers could benefit a lot from home sector protection, but even the existing HB invulnerability kind of strangles dynamic PvP.

 

[Edymnion]

even the existing HB invulnerability kind of strangles dynamic PvP.

Which was rather the original point of this thread, how to encourage people to spread out away from a single invincible homebase.

 

[MacThule]

I'm 100% for players who dont want to fight to be able to avoid doing so. I'm also 100% for wanting to encourage people to WANT to get out there and rumble.

But I also want to see encouragement for BOTH sides to do more than sit in one single base all the time.

I think we can all agree that the reason turtling exists is that the risk to reward ratio is greatly skewed against us. If that is in the form of being afraid of griefers, or simply finding it's not worth the time and resources to build when anything an outpost can do, a home base can do better, outcome is the same.

A solution to the issue therefore has two possible paths to take. Reduce the risk, by say increasing protection against unwanted pvp, or increase the reward so that it's worth getting a station blown up every so often.

This is the difficulty. Player pirates and troublemakers are actually the main reason less-aggressive people bond together and form communities. Without them, it's just a chat room full of people who can succeed at the game independently without cooperation or community. But when we empower players to oppress each other, there are always a few who take it way too far. Deliberately.

Honestly, I know Schine doesn't want to copy other people's solutions, but on a certain level a voxel game is fundamentally a copied solution in the first place. Eve Online has a very good solution to this problem; there are large swaths of space where all players start that are controlled by powerful military forces which will quickly respond and eliminate any attacker. As you move away from these centers, the rewards become richer and the protection becomes less. So players get to choose the level of risk they feel is acceptable based on how impatient (greedy) they are about raking in credits.

I think that HB invulnerability should be removed by default, and that instead the entire spawn system (not just sector) should be made invulnerable. Perhaps even the entire cube of systems around spawn (27 star systems or even 125, which sounds like a lot, but really isn't. maybe a server toggle option to protect 1, 27, or 125 core systems). Then there is ample safe space to learn and grow, but also more than ample free space to wreak havoc and fight wars. Peaceful players can stay in this area, build home bases here that will be protected, venture out for trade runs or just a taste of combat if they dare. Others can venture out into the wild, claim their own territory and set up empires. Staying in safety would have to mean no system claim, so no mining bonus - less reward, but still 100% viable and not penalized. Venturing out would offer huge bonuses. Additionally, it would encourage peaceful players to gather in one geographic area, facilitating trade, co-operation, and community. Empires would benefit from setting up near the core because of trade availability and recruitment, but pirates would also want this area so would be constantly competing to operate within imperial space, retreating out to the vast rim regions when hard pressed.

You would end up with a safe, tight-knit neighborhood of relatively peaceful players densely packed into the core region, and a vast, sprawl of trade republics, militarized empires and empty regions filled with pirates as you move away from the core, with scattered brave souls gambling to snatch at the untapped wealth in the outer regions.

The only serious constraint would be that asteroids no longer respawn by default. This is not as restrictive as it seems though, because of the way the trade network and NPC factions operate. Players and NPCs will constantly be selling materials they gather from the outer regions, which players in the core would be able to purchase, manufacture into components, and resell.

There probably would have to be at least one other source of decent income though. It's easy to imagine that within a couple of months the core would be stripped of resources as well as farmable NPC rats, leaving complete desolation to greet new joins. Perhaps there could be an option to enable very low rates of low-quality asteroids to respawn only within that core region - this would go a little ways to alleviating expansion/ exploration stress on peacefuls as well as adjacent empires. Though perhaps that would actually be worse. Economic pressure is a beautiful thing, and based on my experience so far it would take a lot of pressure to convince me to spend time doing exploration jobs, mapping out undiscovered resource caches, etc. Such pressure could also eventually force groups to work together to migrate to an adjacent galaxy (like a virus XD).
[doublepost=1531423376,1531422684][/doublepost]You could even set it up as a protected core, immediately surrounded by dense clusters of NPC factions/empires, then player empires would have to start further out a bit but could eventually work their way in to get their backs up against that protection wall. This would be good if the NPC empires start saying "no attacks in our space at all" and send defense fleets to hit not just anyone who attacks them, but anyone who attacks anyone in their space. It would be semi-safe, but not as safe as the invulnerable core region. Gradation of safety and risk. The player empire layer would be less safe, and the rim would be a total hive of scum and villainy.

 

[Neon_42]

This is the difficulty. Player pirates and troublemakers are actually the main reason less-aggressive people bond together and form communities. Without them, it's just a chat room full of people who can succeed at the game independently without cooperation or community. But when we empower players to oppress each other, there are always a few who take it way too far. Deliberately.

Honestly, I know Schine doesn't want to copy other people's solutions, but on a certain level a voxel game is fundamentally a copied solution in the first place. Eve Online has a very good solution to this problem; there are large swaths of space where all players start that are controlled by powerful military forces which will quickly respond and eliminate any attacker. As you move away from these centers, the rewards become richer and the protection becomes less. So players get to choose the level of risk they feel is acceptable based on how impatient (greedy) they are about raking in credits.

I think that HB invulnerability should be removed by default, and that instead the entire spawn system (not just sector) should be made invulnerable. Perhaps even the entire cube of systems around spawn (27 star systems or even 125, which sounds like a lot, but really isn't. maybe a server toggle option to protect 1, 27, or 125 core systems). Then there is ample safe space to learn and grow, but also more than ample free space to wreak havoc and fight wars. Peaceful players can stay in this area, build home bases here that will be protected, venture out for trade runs or just a taste of combat if they dare. Others can venture out into the wild, claim their own territory and set up empires. Staying in safety would have to mean no system claim, so no mining bonus - less reward, but still 100% viable and not penalized. Venturing out would offer huge bonuses. Additionally, it would encourage peaceful players to gather in one geographic area, facilitating trade, co-operation, and community. Empires would benefit from setting up near the core because of trade availability and recruitment, but pirates would also want this area so would be constantly competing to operate within imperial space, retreating out to the vast rim regions when hard pressed.

You would end up with a safe, tight-knit neighborhood of relatively peaceful players densely packed into the core region, and a vast, sprawl of trade republics, militarized empires and empty regions filled with pirates as you move away from the core, with scattered brave souls gambling to snatch at the untapped wealth in the outer regions.

The only serious constraint would be that asteroids no longer respawn by default. This is not as restrictive as it seems though, because of the way the trade network and NPC factions operate. Players and NPCs will constantly be selling materials they gather from the outer regions, which players in the core would be able to purchase, manufacture into components, and resell.

There probably would have to be at least one other source of decent income though. It's easy to imagine that within a couple of months the core would be stripped of resources as well as farmable NPC rats, leaving complete desolation to greet new joins. Perhaps there could be an option to enable very low rates of low-quality asteroids to respawn only within that core region - this would go a little ways to alleviating expansion/ exploration stress on peacefuls as well as adjacent empires. Though perhaps that would actually be worse. Economic pressure is a beautiful thing, and based on my experience so far it would take a lot of pressure to convince me to spend time doing exploration jobs, mapping out undiscovered resource caches, etc. Such pressure could also eventually force groups to work together to migrate to an adjacent galaxy (like a virus XD).
[doublepost=1531423376,1531422684][/doublepost]You could even set it up as a protected core, immediately surrounded by dense clusters of NPC factions/empires, then player empires would have to start further out a bit but could eventually work their way in to get their backs up against that protection wall. This would be good if the NPC empires start saying "no attacks in our space at all" and send defense fleets to hit not just anyone who attacks them, but anyone who attacks anyone in their space. It would be semi-safe, but not as safe as the invulnerable core region. Gradation of safety and risk. The player empire layer would be less safe, and the rim would be a total hive of scum and villainy.

I wonder if spacing spawns out would help. Have any of you played Sea of Thieves? I think some aspects of that game could be applied to star made that would have positive impacts on gameplay. In terms of base building would it make sense to have random spawns spaced out through the universe/galaxy. That is to say players would spawn on random planets like players spawn at random islands as in Sea of Thieves. Then players would have to explore to find each other and there wouldn't be an obvious place to go look for newbies. Servers have a player limit so you'd basically have to divide the total play area by the number of players to get the mean spawn distance from each other. I think that in the current system the play area would be the galaxy size and players would be free to leave it if they wanted.

 

[Edymnion]

Yeah, personally I've wanted to see the spawn mechanic changed for ages.

Have you spawn on a random planet somewhere in the galaxy, somewhere say within 3-5 systems of another player (so you don't get one person on the opposite end of the galaxy that will never meet anyone else). Make the story that you were on an escape pod or a crashed ship (and put those blocks on the planet for you to salvage instead of them just being in your inventory).

Basically do a mini Factorio where you have to build up a bit and produce a ship. But I might be biased there, I love Factorio and would LOVE to have that level of automation in Starmade. The idea of building those conveyer belts and arms and factories one block at a time makes me very happy.

I think it could be a limiting factor on drive by server-griefers as well if they have to actually stop and play the game for a while before they can even get off-world to REACH another player, and then still have to actively FIND those players instead of having a central hub to terrorize.

 

[OfficialCoding]

Here is my plan:
1) Remove HB Invulnerability (it is highly unrealistic, and leads to people stuffing all their crap there)
2) Give Stations the ability to summon fleets when the shields go down below a certain level (specified by the player of course)
3) Give Stations a very primitive jump drive that can jump them maybe 1 sector over when the station starts taking damage, but then has maybe an extremely long cooldown.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Yeah, personally I've wanted to see the spawn mechanic changed for ages.

Have you spawn on a random planet somewhere in the galaxy, somewhere say within 3-5 systems of another player (so you don't get one person on the opposite end of the galaxy that will never meet anyone else). Make the story that you were on an escape pod or a crashed ship (and put those blocks on the planet for you to salvage instead of them just being in your inventory).

Basically do a mini Factorio where you have to build up a bit and produce a ship. But I might be biased there, I love Factorio and would LOVE to have that level of automation in Starmade. The idea of building those conveyer belts and arms and factories one block at a time makes me very happy.

I think it could be a limiting factor on drive by server-griefers as well if they have to actually stop and play the game for a while before they can even get off-world to REACH another player, and then still have to actively FIND those players instead of having a central hub to terrorize.

Empyrion does something similar, you start planetside and have to build your way up to your first small spaceworthy vessel, then gather the materials on the moon and asteroid belt to build and fuel your first short-range jump drive, and progress to the next system where you find your advanced materials for long range jump drives, and capital-grade components and weaponry, up until you get to the endgame materials in the furthest reaches of the map.

The problem with that is, that it's entirely "first come, first served", and the factions who established themselves first after arriving to the server, can easily terrorize casuals or newbies who simply don't have the man-hours to keep up or haven't yet reached a stage where they can compete.

 

[Edymnion]

The problem with that is, that it's entirely "first come, first served", and the factions who established themselves first after arriving to the server, can easily terrorize casuals or newbies who simply don't have the man-hours to keep up or haven't yet reached a stage where they can compete.

This is true here as well though. Whoever has been on a server longer is going to have a distinct advantage.

 

[Neon_42]

Empyrion does something similar, you start planetside and have to build your way up to your first small spaceworthy vessel, then gather the materials on the moon and asteroid belt to build and fuel your first short-range jump drive, and progress to the next system where you find your advanced materials for long range jump drives, and capital-grade components and weaponry, up until you get to the endgame materials in the furthest reaches of the map.

The problem with that is, that it's entirely "first come, first served", and the factions who established themselves first after arriving to the server, can easily terrorize casuals or newbies who simply don't have the man-hours to keep up or haven't yet reached a stage where they can compete.

On the first come first serve issue. I think if players spawned reasonably far away from established factions this issue would be minimized. By spawning them far away established factions would have to spend time and resources to find newbies to pick on. If newbies spawned far enough away that could give them an appropriate amount of time to get some defences up.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

On the first come first serve issue. I think if players spawned reasonably far away from established factions this issue would be minimized. By spawning them far away established factions would have to spend time and resources to find newbies to pick on. If newbies spawned far enough away that could give them an appropriate amount of time to get some defences up.

That would only be true if homebase coordinates weren't displayed for every single faction, and their claimed systems wouldn't be highlighted in the galaxy map.

 

[MacThule]

Have you spawn on a random planet somewhere in the galaxy, somewhere say within 3-5 systems of another player (so you don't get one person on the opposite end of the galaxy that will never meet anyone else). Make the story that you were on an escape pod or a crashed ship (and put those blocks on the planet for you to salvage instead of them just being in your inventory).

I think a version of this is much-needed. Players should start on planets, and not all on the same spot - it affects the entire way players experience the game. Literally because we start all up on each other and often someone takes random pot-shots at you in the protected sector and it feels crowded and you feel very exposed in a place with a known position, I think it is a big part of what creates the instinct to fly far from the core, get away from other players, and get some distance for safety.

Starting alone, in random spots would leave players craving to find other humans, more likely to search out neighbors and communities to interact with. This in itself would probably go a little ways towards reducing the turtling instinct.

I think:

1. make the cube of 125 core systems protected from damage, claimed by an NPC empire, and be the only part of the verse with any asteroid respawn,

2. give core systems higher planetary spawn rates and make all the planets in that region immune to mining, prohibit build blocks on them (but not manual mining/building), and give them higher numbers of "planetary features" (i.e. precursor artifacts, ruins, abandoned facilities, monuments, natural wonders, etc) so that new players exploring them can have some fun and wonderment,

3. put all those planets on a spawn list that randomizes itself once a day (to prevent counting spawns and camping the next one to shark new joins),

4. as new players join just keep going down the list and putting them on the next planet.

A bit extreme, perhaps, but I think people would be more sociable and new players would be more likely to enjoy the very long and steep early learning process, making them more likely to become long-term members of the community. That is really one of the biggest things the game needs, and while tutorials & UI upgrades go a long way towards that, a better system for entering the game and a safe, beautiful environment in which to learn but with the opportunity to get dirty later would go further, IMO.
[doublepost=1531597330,1531596271][/doublepost]Reducing turtling isn't going to be a one-shot kill. I think that a lot of small changes and a few big ones could contribute.

1. Eliminating HB invulnerability in exchange for substantial improvements to stations (see hundreds of suggestions) -OR- placing strict limits on the mass or features invulnerable HBs can have so we can't all-in-one forever,
2. Improving the spawn mechanic to not give new players the feeling of being rats in a trap,
3. Increased complexity to the refining and crafting systems coupled with more streamlining to trade to encourage complex economic relationships and the travel and interactions those bring,
4. Changes to factions (#Quarters) that improve the way leaders can handle and support their players against death so death isn't as much of a setback,
5. Improvements to resources distribution that reward travel and expansion,
6. Improvements to territory dynamics that make taking and holding territory viable and rewarding,
7. A vast increase to the database of stock stations, anomalies, NPC factions, planetary features, and planetary types that will make just cruising around more fun in its own right,
8. ... so many, many other items that slip my mind right now.

 

[JinM]

I would not join a server at all where my homebase is vulnerable under any circumstance.

Totally different story if it is a custom server with a dedicated pvp setup. But for the vanilla Starmade having to fear that the stuff I built online could be attacked is not working out for me.

It's totally fine if there are additional stations in my territory that could be attacked. For example mining outposts.

But there must be one or more stations that can't be attacked at all, no matter how long I am offline, or how long I am online.


My suggestion would be to have pvp zones, where you get points and a leaderboard, the longer you stay there be it while you mine or even when you set up a station there. There is no boundary that prevents you from taking ressources from the pve zone into the pvp zone, and vice verse. But you only rise up in the scoreboard for building, mining and winning fights in the pvp zone.

And for this zone I think some elaborated vulnerability mechancis (siege mode, offline protection and so on) would be great.

 

[OfficialCoding]

I would not join a server at all where my homebase is vulnerable under any circumstance.

Totally different story if it is a custom server with a dedicated pvp setup. But for the vanilla Starmade having to fear that the stuff I built online could be attacked is not working out for me.

It's totally fine if there are additional stations in my territory that could be attacked. For example mining outposts.

But there must be one or more stations that can't be attacked at all, no matter how long I am offline, or how long I am online.


My suggestion would be to have pvp zones, where you get points and a leaderboard, the longer you stay there be it while you mine or even when you set up a station there. There is no boundary that prevents you from taking ressources from the pve zone into the pvp zone, and vice verse. But you only rise up in the scoreboard for building, mining and winning fights in the pvp zone.

And for this zone I think some elaborated vulnerability mechancis (siege mode, offline protection and so on) would be great.

The problem with this is it is then not possible to destroy factions. In The Last Jedi, The Resistance couldn't just plop down a faction module on Crait and then have it be invulnerable. No, things aren't invulnerable. All entities must be able to be destroyed

 

[Alphajim]

The problem with this is it is then not possible to destroy factions. In The Last Jedi, The Resistance couldn't just plop down a faction module on Crait and then have it be invulnerable. No, things aren't invulnerable. All entities must be able to be destroyed

And why would you want to destroy a faction ? Seems more like those guys who spend their time to completely wipe out offline factions.

I don't find it attractive at all to connect some day and realise I've nothing left because some guy spent all the night to fight AIs and then destroyed my stations. At least when not in a PvP oriented server. Nothing can stop someone to destroy any kind of non-HB station in this game, besides another player.

 

[Edymnion]

1. Eliminating HB invulnerability in exchange for substantial improvements to stations (see hundreds of suggestions) -OR- placing strict limits on the mass or features invulnerable HBs can have so we can't all-in-one forever,

Again, I don't think PUNISHING a player is a good idea here. Removing options that we already have is going to feel really terrible.

Instead, again IMO, we should be treating stations the way we currently do ships. If you want a ship that can mine, fly around, get into fights, and do everything, you can. Its not going to be very good at it, but you can do it. But if you want a ship that is actually GOOD at what it does, you need chambers to specialize them.

I really do think that is the best answer for stations as well. Give them base capabilities, but then make chambers for everything so that if you want more than basic capability, you need a chamber for it. Which means, if properly balanced, you can only have a station that is good at one thing. Sure, you can have 10,000 factory enhancers on there and make tons of stuff, but this station over here is 1/10th the size and can do just as much because it has dedicated factory chambers. Oh, you got a million units of storage? Thats great, its huge, and this one over here is not only 1/10th the size but has built in logic support filtering and rapid asset management capabilities you don't have.

Let a single station do everything... poorly.

Hell, if we wanna get even more "you gotta specialize", make the HB invulnerability a chamber effect that you can only have active on one base at a time. That way you can have invincibility, but thats about all you can have. You can be safe, or you can be productive on a large scale, can't do both, that would be okay with me.

Those who want 100% safety can have it, they just won't advance as quickly and will require a lot more effort to maintain. Those who are willing to take the greater risks will get greater rewards.

The problem with this is it is then not possible to destroy factions.

You shouldn't be allowed to destroy a faction in the first place.

This isn't Civ where last man standing wins. Its a coop multiplayer game. You as a PLAYER on a server are NOT allowed to soft ban people from the server by destroying their faction to the point they can't rebuild. Only the server owner and admins should be allowed to say who can or cannot play on the server.

Total War must NOT be an option.