Dear all,
After a pretty solid play through I'm ready to hang up my space suit and move on to another game, though I'll be coming back to Starmade in the future to see how its progressed. Before I do I'd like to share a few observations, for what its worth. Apologies in advance for this wall-of-text, bear with me..
First, I want to say what a cool game this is, lots of potential & depth and also the best customer support of any game I've played. Having a few issues running the game I was in correspondence with Andy Puttman from support, the last email I received from him was at half past midnight - Christmas day! That really is dedication above and beyond the call of duty IMO.
This is mostly a list of things I dislike and suggestions to make the game better. There's a ton of things I love about the game, but since I already think they're great there's no point mentioning them. I'll list these numerically for simplicity's sake.
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1. Autopilot. A common request I know - and I'm sure its coming, but it really can't come soon enough for me. Currently its a very dull affair sitting there with your finger glued to the W key. I want to tell the ship where to go and then be able to get up and wander round the interior, looking out the windows or play a game of space chess with my (Wookie) first mate. I don't want to sit there like a lemon for five minutes holding the W key!
2. Property roster. For pity's sake what is the point of a vast procedurally generated galaxy when you can't locate any of your stuff when you're more than a few Km away from it? Perhaps there is a way that I missed, but really, its putting the cart before the horse having sexy Newtonian physics and in depth power/mass ratios etc. when you haven't covered the very basic things like "where the hell is my ship?" Same applies to point 1.
Look at Egosoft's X3 series. You could do worse than copy a few of their ideas for points 1 & 2 as they had it pretty well covered. And now that they've set fire to their franchise with the execrable X-rebirth I'd say there's a gap in the market for the things X3 was good for.
3. Fleets. I want to see fleets of fighters launching from my carrier, not just drones but fighters piloted by hired NPC's who will gain experience and have morale and who I'll feel sorry for when they're ultimately vaporised.
4. Capital ships. Again a common thread in discussions but it sticks out like a sore thumb in the game. Though the laws of physics may permit a massive ship to handle like a fighter given enough power & thrust, but it makes for a particularly shitty game mechanic. If a massive ship can do everything a small ship can, but is 100 times stronger, there's absolutely no point flying a small one. That capital ship just becomes a regular one (because they're all like that) and the whole thing loses any meaning.
I would also say (and I know that I'll be crucified for this) that the forums seem to have a very vocal contingent who have pumped a lot of time & effort into building their enormous ships and don't want to see them nerfed in any way. Well sorry guys, that needs to change or the game will be the poorer for it.
5. Planets. Sorry. Planets are no good (even putting the lag aside), nor are the asteroids. I know its a voxel game and all but blocky asteroids and terrain don't cut it for me. I had a play through of 7 Days to Die recently and their landscapes look great. I don't know if your engine could support what they've done - I suspect not or you'd have surely have done it.
I do however love the slow rotation you get on the planets, its pretty cool to see the star field rotate around you when you're on the surface. If there could be some sort of reason to have that on a lag-free station I'd love that too!
6. Movement range in astronaut mode. Sucks. Really needs the full 360 degree range of movement.
7. Roll speed on ships. Insanely fast compared to turn speed. Desperately needs toning down.
8. No save game. Ok I understand this is how you want it. However, if you have a game-killing glitch and crash (as I did) it can be a real pain in the backside!
9. Simplicity. This should really be 9,10,11 & 12 - if there's one thing you pay attention to this should be it.
The logic/push-pull etc. modules are great and all, but I promise you 99% of your players will never bother with any of it. At the moment you have a dedicated core of players, many of whom are rather clever and get a kick out of this sort of thing. As the game opens up to a wider audience of casual players, I doubt many of them will be bothered to take a degree in Starmade just so they can set way points or program a drone or miner etc. By all means keep it in there but give the player an easy and intuitive UI to do all the normal things you'd want to do.
10. Zoom and zoom monitor. Perhaps I missed how to do this but you need to have a zoom function. Also half the time the enemy you'll fighting will be just a few pixels wide on your screen so it'd be nice to select them and bring up a window showing you exactly what they look like.
Well, anyone who's just read all of that probably deserves a medal. Thanks all & I'll see you again down the line.
Cheers,
Riff
After a pretty solid play through I'm ready to hang up my space suit and move on to another game, though I'll be coming back to Starmade in the future to see how its progressed. Before I do I'd like to share a few observations, for what its worth. Apologies in advance for this wall-of-text, bear with me..
First, I want to say what a cool game this is, lots of potential & depth and also the best customer support of any game I've played. Having a few issues running the game I was in correspondence with Andy Puttman from support, the last email I received from him was at half past midnight - Christmas day! That really is dedication above and beyond the call of duty IMO.
This is mostly a list of things I dislike and suggestions to make the game better. There's a ton of things I love about the game, but since I already think they're great there's no point mentioning them. I'll list these numerically for simplicity's sake.
------------------
1. Autopilot. A common request I know - and I'm sure its coming, but it really can't come soon enough for me. Currently its a very dull affair sitting there with your finger glued to the W key. I want to tell the ship where to go and then be able to get up and wander round the interior, looking out the windows or play a game of space chess with my (Wookie) first mate. I don't want to sit there like a lemon for five minutes holding the W key!
2. Property roster. For pity's sake what is the point of a vast procedurally generated galaxy when you can't locate any of your stuff when you're more than a few Km away from it? Perhaps there is a way that I missed, but really, its putting the cart before the horse having sexy Newtonian physics and in depth power/mass ratios etc. when you haven't covered the very basic things like "where the hell is my ship?" Same applies to point 1.
Look at Egosoft's X3 series. You could do worse than copy a few of their ideas for points 1 & 2 as they had it pretty well covered. And now that they've set fire to their franchise with the execrable X-rebirth I'd say there's a gap in the market for the things X3 was good for.
3. Fleets. I want to see fleets of fighters launching from my carrier, not just drones but fighters piloted by hired NPC's who will gain experience and have morale and who I'll feel sorry for when they're ultimately vaporised.
4. Capital ships. Again a common thread in discussions but it sticks out like a sore thumb in the game. Though the laws of physics may permit a massive ship to handle like a fighter given enough power & thrust, but it makes for a particularly shitty game mechanic. If a massive ship can do everything a small ship can, but is 100 times stronger, there's absolutely no point flying a small one. That capital ship just becomes a regular one (because they're all like that) and the whole thing loses any meaning.
I would also say (and I know that I'll be crucified for this) that the forums seem to have a very vocal contingent who have pumped a lot of time & effort into building their enormous ships and don't want to see them nerfed in any way. Well sorry guys, that needs to change or the game will be the poorer for it.
5. Planets. Sorry. Planets are no good (even putting the lag aside), nor are the asteroids. I know its a voxel game and all but blocky asteroids and terrain don't cut it for me. I had a play through of 7 Days to Die recently and their landscapes look great. I don't know if your engine could support what they've done - I suspect not or you'd have surely have done it.
I do however love the slow rotation you get on the planets, its pretty cool to see the star field rotate around you when you're on the surface. If there could be some sort of reason to have that on a lag-free station I'd love that too!
6. Movement range in astronaut mode. Sucks. Really needs the full 360 degree range of movement.
7. Roll speed on ships. Insanely fast compared to turn speed. Desperately needs toning down.
8. No save game. Ok I understand this is how you want it. However, if you have a game-killing glitch and crash (as I did) it can be a real pain in the backside!
9. Simplicity. This should really be 9,10,11 & 12 - if there's one thing you pay attention to this should be it.
The logic/push-pull etc. modules are great and all, but I promise you 99% of your players will never bother with any of it. At the moment you have a dedicated core of players, many of whom are rather clever and get a kick out of this sort of thing. As the game opens up to a wider audience of casual players, I doubt many of them will be bothered to take a degree in Starmade just so they can set way points or program a drone or miner etc. By all means keep it in there but give the player an easy and intuitive UI to do all the normal things you'd want to do.
10. Zoom and zoom monitor. Perhaps I missed how to do this but you need to have a zoom function. Also half the time the enemy you'll fighting will be just a few pixels wide on your screen so it'd be nice to select them and bring up a window showing you exactly what they look like.
Well, anyone who's just read all of that probably deserves a medal. Thanks all & I'll see you again down the line.
Cheers,
Riff
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