I have a couple of questions.

[metalsynkk]

Hi,

In advance, sorry for the questions but tbh I've been googling and wiki-ing around half of my actual playtime and some things I just can barely find.

I have started playing StarMade a couple days ago and I am enjoying it. I used to play alot of Space Engineers but the devs failed to deliver, and I stumbled upon this game. For these couple of days I have been enjoying it far more than SE and I will probably buy it a little later since 10 bucks aint much for a game of this quality, and it's not even finished.

Most stuff comes pretty easy or with little research, but there are a number of questions to which I have not yet found answers or the answers/explanations are a little unclear, since well I am a new player and haven't grasped everything yet.

1. I've been finding pirate stations around me and with trial and error I've constructed a small fighter capable of sustaining quite some damage yet taking out all turrets and ships they throw at me. Success rate isn't 100% but the rewards have been quite nice. However, said stations have a very large amount of shields which I have not been able to deplete, rendering them incapturable. Is this intended or do I need to get more firepower? Also, with almost every shot new pirate ships arrive, so I am unsure if it's meant to be this hard to capture one.

2. At times, my ships tend to randomly explode. Not the whole ship, but when I zoom out a more or less ball-shaped hole of 5-6 blocks in diameter is in my ship, the center of which being mostly a reactor. I haven't found anything like this while searching for a solution. Is it the reactors that tend to overheat, or some weapons misfiring somehow?

3. How do I decrease the Jump Drive charging time? I've tested the same ship with 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 Jump Drive blocks (and ofc the computer) and also variable reactor setups, but it seems to take the same amount of time every time I charge it. Is there a cap on it or am I doing something wrong here?

4. How do people build those amazing ships that are millions of blocks long? I've heard of this "advanced build mode" but haven't been able to figure out how to get into it. I presume it's possible to build lines/planes/cubes of blocks, or maybe copy/paste sections provided you have the materials, and I've seen something about symmetry. If someone could direct me to a proper tutorial video I'd be very grateful.

5. I've managed to grasp the concept of blueprints (it's very similar to the ones in Galaxy on Fire 2), but do you have to manually buy and add all the materials required, and then spawn it? Or is there some way of automatisation (for a fee maybe) with which you can buy all required blocks automatically? Again, I'm not sure it's possible but it's quite a hassle to alt-tab between a screencap of my blueprint and buy everything manually.

6. I've been wanting to change the max speed to something more than 75km/h and every single thread and page says it's in the server.cfg file, even for single player. I've changed it but there hasn't been any effect on my speed. I've been looking through other config files but can't find a similar line.

Thanks in advance for those who answer!

M.

PS: I'm also looking for a friendly survival server to help me grasp all this with a group of people, so far I've seen the NFD Build Server which I am going to try out, but if there are other servers looking for people that aren't focused on RP/PvP I'd gladly join!

 

[Saber]

Welcome to the game and the community metalsynkk! I don't have an answer to all of your questions, but I'll help with what I can.

1. The pirate stations you are discovering are ones which were built by actual players as part of a contest, the winners got their stations in the game as new default spawning stations. Because of that they are likely not as balanced for newer players as the original default was. My recommendation would be to build up a strong ship that can take out the turrets/fighters, but has another weapon for taking down the station shield quickly.

2. I'm afraid I'm not sure what this could be, other than a pirate firing a missile at you.

3. Unless there has just been a cap put in place for jump drives I'm not aware of one. As I understood it the more jump modules and power you have, the faster it "reloads" however it seems you have tried those options so I'm not sure what the issue could be.

4. You can access advanced build mode just by holding the Left Control while in build mode, then in the top right it will bring up a variety of options to use, including symmetry, increasing build box size, as well as copy/paste, build helpers and a replace function. You can find the latest tutorials for the game here on the official StarMade channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/schemastarmade

5. I'm not super familiar with the blueprint system yet, but as you first described it is how I believe it works, buy the blueprint, then if you have all the required parts you can spawn it in.

6. You can change your max server speed (as well as many other settings) by going to the StarMade folder (wherever it's installed) and adjusting your server config text file, I know you said you already changed that, but be sure that you save the text file and that you are in your singleplayer, it will not affect servers you join. There you can change your max server speed, default build block size limit in advanced build mode, default planet size range, inertial dampening settings, as well as collision damage. There's a lot to see in there so take some time to look through it all, what most games do with mods, StarMade can do with it's config settings.

As far as a friendly survival server goes I do not know all of them, I personally play on MushroomFleet which has recently been made more of a survival server, and has designated areas where no PvP is allowed. It is a recording/building server used by a lot of content creators that stream or make videos for youtube, so there's some pretty amazing stuff on there. That said I encourage you to check out several servers and see which one fits your play style best.

I hope this helped and again, welcome to StarMade!

 

[SchnellBier]

1. Well one little fighter against a pirate base. The logic says that it should be hard.

2. You were shot by missiles.

3. Don´t know, haven´t experimented a lot with jump drives.

4. Keep left ctrl pressed to use the tools of advanced build mode. You can place more blocks, use symetry tools or copy paste to build faster and bigger.

5. Since this blueprint feature is quite new you have to do it manually for now. I recommend not buying but crafting. (It´s more fun.)

6. THRUST_SPEED_LIMIT = 75 If you modify this line it should change the max speed. If it doesn´t work I don´t know why.

 

[metalsynkk]

1. Well one little fighter against a pirate base. The logic says that it should be hard.

2. You were shot by missiles.

5. Since this blueprint feature is quite new you have to do it manually for now. I recommend not buying but crafting. (It´s more fun.)

1. Well I did manage to take out all the turrets with just a couple frontal blocks killed, for a new played I'm quite proud of my design (4x 12-long master beams with slaved 12-long cannons and 4x 12-long missiles tubes linked to 2 separate missiles computers, surrounded by a layer of advanced armor). But then again, I see your point lol.

2. The first time it happened I wasn't in combat with anything, just mining, when suddenly I saw debris around me and a chunk of my mining ship was gone. I am 99% certain that there were no pirates, I check the navigation menu quite often before I get surprised.

5. Gonna do that later, still figuring out how to setup factories and such. I did set up refining thingies for ores linked to chests. Which reminds me, they pull ore from the chests, but is it possible to link it back so they deposit the refined capsules in the same/another chest?

 

[SchnellBier]

2. Strange, this shouldn´t happen without cause. Did you accidently place some disintegrator blocks in your ship and somehow blew yourself up?

5. I´ve not really tried it but i think you can. As I know the chests can pull items out of other blocks. You have to set what items should be pulled in the chest and conect them. But I´m not sure how it works exactly.

 

[aceface]

PS: I'm also looking for a friendly survival server to help me grasp all this with a group of people, so far I've seen the NFD Build Server which I am going to try out, but if there are other servers looking for people that aren't focused on RP/PvP I'd gladly join!

I think you should try the feedupyourbeast server. it has lots of players and pirates have medals that can be traded in for ores (at a special custom station we created!) hope to see you there one day
ip: sm.feedupyourbeast.de:4242

 

[Mr. V]

2. The first time it happened I wasn't in combat with anything, just mining, when suddenly I saw debris around me and a chunk of my mining ship was gone. I am 99% certain that there were no pirates, I check the navigation menu quite often before I get surprised.

Stars can cause random damage to your ships when you're too close (they can possibly damage your personal health too) -- possibly you wandered a little closer to a star than you should have?

The only other thing I can think of is a missile fired from a long ways off (missiles can be fairly long range -- and this game doesn't always make the sound effects you'd expect when you're getting attacked)

Other than that I'm just as perplexed as to how to explain it as the other players here.

 

[aceface]

missiles can be fairly long range

this.
the isanth type-zero Mb can shoot missiles to people outside navigation range

 

[KiloZulu]

The number of blocks does increase the charge rate, but it is a very gradual increase in performance. I'm generally happy if I can get it to charge in about 40 seconds, anything more than that would likely take an absurd amount of blocks.

 

[Mr. V]

The number of blocks does increase the charge rate, but it is a very gradual increase in performance. I'm generally happy if I can get it to charge in about 40 seconds, anything more than that would likely take an absurd amount of blocks.

I've taken to just setting up a repeating logic input and manually connecting the jump drive computers to it when they need to charge.. then connecting them back to the core when they're done --- multiple modules attached to a jump drive.. now that's just silly :D

I also started setting up defensive push effect modules on a similar logic system so that I don't have to be bothered with holding down W on long travels.

hmmm... logic might be making me lazy....

 

[Mr.Steam]

Aceface and Mr. V are exactly right. An Isanth Mb (Missile/beam) can fire a lock on missile with a range of over 20km. I lost 4 fighters to this because I wasn't careful about keeping my radar jammer turned on in unknown territory. Radar jamming is a MUST with ships that can't take a couple missile hits. I don't remember the strength of Isanth missiles but my shields were around 1000 and they got blown away in one hit. Also several small anti-missile turrets help. You can set turrets to target missiles in the AI tab. I find a cannon/cannon turret works well against missiles. It doesn't take a big one, any damage will destroy a missile.

Last night I finished a destroyer with 4 separate lock on missiles. It was awesome to target a pirate 15km away and fire and forget.

Those titans were built under the old system either with admin codes, or parts ship spawning, or when you could harvest an entire station for all the blocks and sell them and get like 100,000,000 credits then turn them in for a ship. It is a LOT harder to get big ships now that you have to find or produce ALL the blocks.

Get into advanced build mode by holding down CTRL while in build mode then set lines of symmetry, or use build helper for circles/spheres.

EDIT: Taking out the new pirate bases is a pain in the butt now. I had to totally demolish a base with missiles in order to find the faction module. You have to destroy the faction module to prevent the base from continually calling for reinforcements. I think after FINALLY taking down the shields and destroying the faction module there were about 30 pirates around me. Fortunately they are really crappy shots if you have your radar jammer turned on.

I really like the new bases, but they are tough to destroy if the faction module isn't near the "CORE" diamond.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

#2. Missiles currently have a bug where they do not render when fired from a neighboring sector. It is a bug I am pushing to get fixed as these invisible missiles are the #1 killer of my ships.

 

[kiddan]

this.
the isanth type-zero Mb can shoot missiles to people outside navigation range

About type-zero's... Why/what are the 20 or so different types? Different weapon combos?

 

[KiloZulu]

Not sure if missiles are visible through glass yet, either. That might be why it seems like a mystery hit.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Aceface and Mr. V are exactly right. An Isanth Mb (Missile/beam) can fire a lock on missile with a range of over 20km.

Missiles have a 1.6x multiplier to range based on the servers sector size. With default settings this should be 9,600 not 20,000
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About type-zero's... Why/what are the 20 or so different types? Different weapon combos?

The name indicates the weapon type, master and slave. Mb is missile with a beam slave for a long range tracking missile.

Not sure if missiles are visible through glass yet, either. That might be why it seems like a mystery hit.

Correct, missiles will also not render behind glass

 

[Mr.Steam]

Missiles have a 1.6x multiplier to range based on the servers sector size. With default settings this should be 9,600 not 20,000

My sector size is set to 5000, but I was hitting isanths at 15,000m so there must be a bug in the range. Also my weapons tab says my missiles have a range of 24,000. They are Missile/beam/explosive combo.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

My sector size is set to 5000, but I was hitting isanths at 15,000m so there must be a bug in the range. Also my weapons tab says my missiles have a range of 24,000. They are Missile/beam/explosive combo.

5000 * 1.6 = 8000 * 3 = 24000. Default sector size is 2000.

 

[Mr.Steam]

5000 * 1.6 = 8000 * 3 = 24000. Default sector size is 2000

Where does the *3 multiplier come from?

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Where does the *3 multiplier come from?

From being a sniper missile.

 

[Mr.Steam]

Lock on AND triple range. AWESOME!