Ships, weapons, and the ones that have been discussed to death

[WaffulMann]

A couple of hours ago I was browsing another thread, and I thought of something.

You know, I always thought this was a good idea. There could be 2 types of weapons.

1. The noob friendly one: like the current mechanics. Easy to build and makes no sense realistically. But fun. You can always link a cannon to another cannon with space magic and have a good autocannon.
2. The realistic one: requires a lot of research into game mechanics to build, and costs a ton of skill to operate but is ultimately worth it. Kinda like how we used to make asteroid-destroying railguns with pulsators. Things like railguns and superlasers where you have to build batteries and coils. But of course, not OP.

This would make specially designed ships (ex: death stars, halo ships, mass effect ships...... etc) actually specially designed and not just some power-thruster shell with a weapon slab that you can swap out in 3 minutes.

What do you guys think? Because after I said that, I realized that really, all ships are big power-thruster shells with power slabs that can be swapped out in 3 seconds. Is the developers going to do anything about it? Is there even anything to be done about it? Do you people actually like that?

Really, when you think about it, every single ship in starmade is the same thing, only they look different.

 

[Lecic]

I would like to see some smarter design when it comes to building ships, but how would you do that in a way that doesn't end up annoying?

I think the first step would be needing crew to man computer stations, which was a very, very, very, hot topic a few months ago. @Vyor and I got into some particularly heated arguments over it. People then need to design their ships around keeping crew alive.

I think that different shapes to produce maximum efficiency in systems would be good. For example, Jump Drives might need to be in circles, or Overdrive works best in a triangular shape (these are just random examples, don't take them as actual suggestions.)

Logic on the hotbar, collision damage weapons being more reliable and balanced (shield ignoring is pretty OP), and being able to produce ships (in this case, ammo for collision weapons) would make people engineer designs that aren't the premade weapons.

We also need to discourage doom cubes by making things like turning and docking based around MASS instead of DIMENSIONS.

 

[Keptick]

Please make the voting options more imparial, they're EXTREMELY biased right now. And no, I want to keep the ability to do anything I want like we currently can instead of being extremely restrained like you're proposing.

 

[WaffulMann]

Please make the voting options more imparial, they're EXTREMELY biased right now. And no, I want to keep the ability to do anything I want like we currently can instead of being extremely restrained like you're proposing.

Yup, you can't edit options. I'm just saying how strange the current system is.

 

[NeonSturm]

I would like to see some smarter design when it comes to building ships, but how would you do that in a way that doesn't end up annoying?

I think the first step would be needing crew to man computer stations, which was a very, very, very, hot topic a few months ago. @Vyor and I got into some particularly heated arguments over it. People then need to design their ships around keeping crew alive.

I think that different shapes to produce maximum efficiency in systems would be good. For example, Jump Drives might need to be in circles, or Overdrive works best in a triangular shape (these are just random examples, don't take them as actual suggestions.)

Logic on the hotbar, collision damage weapons being more reliable and balanced (shield ignoring is pretty OP), and being able to produce ships (in this case, ammo for collision weapons) would make people engineer designs that aren't the premade weapons.

We also need to discourage doom cubes by making things like turning and docking based around MASS instead of DIMENSIONS.

Everything off it!


I would like to see more shapes.

Power = 3D cross | 2D cross *3/2size | line *3size
Gate = loop
Molecule-like things
​

Spoiler: Customizeable "Molecules"

A thruster array would be controll-able from a single controlled block from which the array spreads.

The controller which is more directly connected (over A, not over A and B for example) should win this block to his array
Thus blocks need in their meta-data an array ID and 4-bit or 5-bit distance counter (through how many rules it is separated from the controller)

Only calculated on block construction or an update. Damaged arrays should have a down-time.


What do you think about blocks which have to satisfy rules? How fine should it be configureable? Easy language example :

--Syntax: --comment
--Syntax: .localVariable = --< inline/multiline comment == a space character " " >-- value || default
--Syntax: value1 value2 value3 || ( value1b && value2b )

.configVariable = ?
.configVariable = ?
.shape = "Molecule"
.efficiency = ( ship.count(category( "hull" )) / ship.count(category( "vitals" )) / 5 <= 1 )

--RequiredConfig --<without dot>-- = value || default --comment about possibilities
ArrayType = Weapon
Controller = "Name" 16 49
AllowedBlocks = 17 "Name" 18
Shape = .shape || "Molecule" -- "Molecule" || "FreeForm" || "Loop" || "cross3D"

-- if Shape == "Molecule" then you need following lines too:

--Syntax: Type_ofArrayMember = check( expression ), check( expression), replaces( Type Type )
A = nextTo( A.controlled )
B = nextTo( 2 A )
C = nextTo( 2 B || C ), overrides( B )

--Syntax: Type_ofArrayMember give( variableName value )
B give( array.damage (resourceCost.id( "coils" ) / config.damage) )
C give( array.reload (resourceCost.id( "batteries" ) / config.reload) )
B, C use( array.power (array.count) ) -- count without parameters returns the sum (cached value)​

This -implemented in a simple but powerfull way- could control a lua/java constructor/destructor controller for blocks and be modded by the community.

Implemention details:

It just has to parse values, calculation operators, brackets... and could limit number of lines or used parts (each has a cost) to save performance.
category( "hull" ) would pass a structure {type = CATEGORY, value= ID } to ship.count which knows how many blocks the ship has and knows how to handle a "type = CATEGORY"​

Then I hope we can use that to require 5 hull per reactor/thruster or weapon
or at least make every block type adjacent to a controller be an array which is controlled by it and has custom behaviour.

​

 

[WaffulMann]

There I added a third option.

 

[Vengeance42]

I kind of like some restrictions on how some blocks get put up, like power (and power tanks) are now. The loop idea for jump drives sounds thematic since warp gates are similar. Though it would be one more step to encouraging cubes, I think like someone suggested turning really needs to be based on mass.

I never liked for example being able to stick thrusters just anywhere, i have a self imposed restriction where I always lump them together in the back. I think at minimum they should behave like power tanks; benefit from being in one group.

 

[Keptick]

There I added a third option.

Ok, I'm voting for that one! A good game should always be easy to play while still reserving more advanced mechanics for the more ingenious players.

 

[NeonSturm]

I never liked for example being able to stick thrusters just anywhere, i have a self imposed restriction where I always lump them together in the back. I think at minimum they should behave like power tanks; benefit from being in one group.

thrust = (ship.count(thrusters))^0.85
new thrust = (ship.count( array.count(thrusters)^1.1 ))^0.8 ???

 

[Neoclad]

I don't like being forced to shape my arrays, all blocks should benefit from being in arrays but shape should not influence the stats.

However some mechanics could be implemented:

What about inertia? Thrusters only push the blocks in front of them. And we should be able to choose the direction of the push (but I think something is in the works for that)

Weapons that generate heat and need to dissipate it with heatsink blocks instead of using power? (also with some natural dissipation so you don't necessarily NEED heatsinks)
This could be a ballistic weapon that IGNORES SHIELD and we can choose the rounds (explosive, punch-through... or just using collision damage) forcing to build ships with that in mind. But of course a lot less damage than the actual cannons and maybe slower round. (could easily be OP though, not sure if good idea).

Being able to shoot logic like weapons would make it possible to shoot multiple effects at the same time and that would be awesome!

 

[WaffulMann]

That would not solve the problems I'm facing here: Currently all ships are "organic" in which you create an empty shell and stuff every air block with systems. Sure they might be organized in a particular fashion but in the end every block that hasn't been filled in has a shield/power/thruster block in its place.

 

[AtraUnam]

Wait. Your telling me people just do lines instead of taking the time to make a good reactor for that specific shape? You can get more than 10% more power out of a given volume (below the soft cap) just by optimizing your reactor.

 

[Lecic]

Wait. Your telling me people just do lines instead of taking the time to make a good reactor for that specific shape? You can get more than 10% more power out of a given volume (below the soft cap) just by optimizing your reactor.

On a big ship, slightly more power per volume doesn't matter. So, people just build long lines, with a few spares on board to provide extra power over the cap and to keep you above 1 million e/s should one line get severed.