Roleplay PVP rules that are easily applied to server battles?

[JinM]

Who would be interested into pvp "competetive" matches on LvD, that feature some extra restrictions on ship design to enforce non-meta oriented ships?

Please dont confuse it with classic roleplay pvp. I am not interested into enforcing fights between ships that have at least 50% interiour and look like this or that scify setup in some specific style.

What I simply want are fights between ships that don't look and fight like the current meta ships.


1. Here are my suggestions:

1. Ships start at 2.5k mass to ensure that they are big enough for missiles to get hit.
2. The upper limit is 20k mass. 2 reasons: Farming time - ships should be quickly enough to farm that people are fighting often, and spend more time for pvp than for mining. FPS - Yes you can build ships in big sizes that dont slow down the server and your pc in fights, but I think this is the easiest way to ensure stable battles with as few as possible rules.
3. Beams only make up 50% of your total weapons output in dps. - This includes the beam weapons on turrets.
   
4. No vertical ships. - Their advantage in turn rate is too big, and would force everyone to use them.
   
5. Hull is 90% enclosed and 90% made out of armour blocks. (No motherboard, light-rod hulls etc pp).
6. Max thrust starts at 2.5k mass with maximum thrust possible (333m/s right?), and linearly declines to 20k down to 180m/s. - No thruster configs for maximum rotation. Chambers are ok to enhance rotation.

2. To further explain myself...

...this shall be big NO to: Vertical ships with their main weapons being only beams on turrets, turn rate is maxed and speed is 330 even though the ship has 50k mass. xD

I simply want fights between naturally feeling ships, where a 5k mass fighter is fast and a 20k cruiser is actually slow and turns not too quickly. Where we actually use cannons and missiles because the ships are slow enough to get hit. ^^

I am searching for rules to make this idea feel a little bit equalised and competetive, but mainly: Fun.


3. Spread the word?

What rules would you use? They should be easy to apply (very short) and only a few ones (up to 5 or 6, goal is 3), so they can be applied easily by all participants and can easily be remebered.

This isnt a contest or anything, just hoping some people find some good ideas. And maybe, if many people like to play like that, to spread the word and have some people on servers that know what's talked about.

I am just unable to find fun in the current meta but really would like to find some way, to have fights that are actually fun.

 

[petrenko17]

I would love to participate, combat in starmade wasnt interresting for me since i started playing. It is kind of sad, you have to force rules which should be in some way already in the game. On the other hand it is very funny that most of these problems are rooted in broken albeit besides combat functional and practical movement in the game. How different would it feel if you could only thrust forwards (with very slow backward movement) and with slower steering (mainly for small ships, bigger ones are slow enought).

 

[Zoolimar]

How different would it feel if you could only thrust forwards (with very slow backward movement) and with slower steering (mainly for small ships, bigger ones are slow enought).

Considering that most actual combat ships have their main weapons placed on turrets with close to 360 degrees of rotation - not that much. Maybe a little more jousting.

 

[petrenko17]

Considering that most actual combat ships have their main weapons placed on turrets with close to 360 degrees of rotation - not that much. Maybe a little more jousting.

You have very narrow vison of combat movement. It is not only how you move but how other ships around you move as well. I could bring more depth in fighter fights and prolong combat for bigger ships. Your position and momentum would matter a lot, with this system you woulnt be able to suddenly dodge to side - major buff to cannons. If you pass by your target you wouldnt be able to to instantly stop, take quick turn a shot your target like in current meta. I think such movement, although limiting outside of combat, would bring more fluent fights.

 

[Zoolimar]

If you pass by your target you wouldnt be able to to instantly stop, take quick turn a shot your target like in current meta.

You don't need to turn if your turrets can rotate and shoot at the target anyway. Floating turrets can shoot at almost all angles around the ship. And I don't there is an angle where you get less than 30% of firepower.

Your position and momentum would matter a lot, with this system you woulnt be able to suddenly dodge to side - major buff to cannons.

As long as your main drive is still powerful enough you could turn and burn at a new angle. To really change it you need to cripple rotation speed for ships of larger sizes in addition to removing lateral movement.

 

[GnomeKing]

To really change it you need to cripple rotation speed for ships of larger sizes in addition to removing lateral movement.

... best remove dumb doom-laser and 'bombs' as well then ...

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

You want rules to make PvP more sane? Edit the configs.

Set stabilizer distances lower, enable breakaway, enable collision damage (with a lower sensitivity than the default "I touched a wall there go some blocks"), turn off the ship dimension affecting turn rate (absolute failure of a mechanic), crank down beam damage a ton, lower the mass of non-basic armor, change the thrust curve so that it's prohibitive to have even 2 TWR in a capital ship, and give lockon missiles a little better turning.

All of that will get you most of the way there because then you'll basically be playing Space Engineers with magic omnidirectional thrusters, pocket-dimension gyroscopes, unlimited ammo/fuel, and shield/weapon mods.
Except then the game will let your beams bypass shields somehow and some other glitches will happen and someone's running xbb turrets...and you would've just been better off playing Space Engineers.

StarMade's very close really to sane combat, it's just that the game isn't the most stable after all this time, the vanilla configuration is terrible, and some mechanics need changing.

 

[Donoterase]

You want rules to make PvP more sane? Edit the configs.

Yeah, did that. Discussing how to do it with a newer player, in fact. Some other player came in frothing at the mouth at how I was breaking the weapons update by tampering with missiles. I didn't have the heart to tell him he might as well yell at me for dialing down beams, changing the death ray back to a sniper laser and making the arc-beam into something that kinda-sorta resembles the damage pulse. Never played Space Engineers. I'll give them a look when I have time.

With that out of the way, I like your idea of an "art house" PvP game. Would this be like a tournament? Or an ongoing campaign?

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Yeah, did that. Discussing how to do it with a newer player, in fact. Some other player came in frothing at the mouth at how I was breaking the weapons update by tampering with missiles. I didn't have the heart to tell him he might as well yell at me for dialing down beams, changing the death ray back to a sniper laser and making the arc-beam into something that kinda-sorta resembles the damage pulse. Never played Space Engineers. I'll give them a look when I have time.

With that out of the way, I like your idea of an "art house" PvP game. Would this be like a tournament? Or an ongoing campaign?

People hate it when you touch their baby, or Schema's baby. Relatedly, OP is looking at doing this on LvD, thus a rather vanilla-like config (mainly way less stabilizer distance is different) that strongly favors the vertical ship meta and a playerbase that will be unlikely to abandon their current builds.

 

[Donoterase]

OP is looking at doing this on LvD, thus a rather vanilla-like config (mainly way less stabilizer distance is different)

Great minds think alike, apparently. My son and I confer before we put in any changes to the config. One of them was, interestingly enough, a change to stabilization. We decided stabilizers should perform more like cooling jackets or containment and modified things accordingly. I really miss capacitors. Not gonna lie.

 

[JinM]

a playerbase that will be unlikely to abandon their current builds.

Aye agreed that I try to change a thing that's pretty much set in stone on LvD. I totally would suggest another server but all other servers are not realistically usable due to a too low playercount. The sweet spot is around at least 8 players online, if there are less its really unlikely one of them is up for pvp at all at the time the pvp requester joins in.

My suggestions are all non-config relevant ones on purpose btw, so it doesn't matter what server is used. LvD is perfect because it has players online.

Apart from that I think that the lowered stabilizer distances could be the very reason LvD is the most visited server atm.

 

[Tsnonak]

Sadly, I currently have nothing pvp wise, that size :<

 

[JinM]

Sadly, I currently have nothing pvp wise, that size :<

You have not even one ship between 2.5k and 20k mass? What sort of player are you? :D

 

[Valiant70]

No vertical ships. - Their advantage in turn rate is too big, and would force everyone to use them.

Regardless of whether this is a good idea or not, you're going to have to ban horizontal "widebois" as well, since they have the same strengths. The only reason they're less popular is that people are used to strafing and turning left and right.