Allow Shop Blocks On Ships

Calhoun · Jan 20, 2017

splatthecat said:
What if you was in range of a station shop AND a ship shop? None of this makes any sense.

Same thing that happens if you make a station shop close to a shop, I imagine.

splatthecat · Jan 20, 2017

Calhoun said:
Same thing that happens if you make a station shop close to a shop, I imagine.

Exactly! No, bad idea all day long.

Lord_Greyscale · Jan 20, 2017

Hmmm, lemme try my hand at this, with the most prominent arguments.
(literally, the ones that leapt at me and latched on.)

First, the "no-one knows where the trade ship is" argument.

Yes/no. Allchat exists, so simply announcing "I'll be putting a temp-shop at X-Y-Z, selling B, G, Q & R." is mostly sufficient.
In addition, set the shop-ship as it's own damn fleet.
This means anyone looking at the star-system, and has previously scanned the system, will see what sector the damn ship is in.
Hell, they can even see the Fleet's name, and what faction owns it.

Does this make it a target? Yes, but to a lesser degree than a station-shop on the trade-network. (note that very few players put non-homebase station-shops on the trade network, unless server "rules" force them to, specificlly because anyone looking at the Galaxy can see that trade-networked station.)
Among other things, an attentive player can order it to run away, but if they've built it properly, then it is so small a resource investment that losing 500 of them "won't matter". (go for the minimum, enough thrust for a 1-to-1 thrust ratio at "full" cargo-load, and "enough" cargo-space to do the job)

Next, the "overlapping shop radius" argument.
This is a tricky little shit, and has multiple possible solutions, based mostly on "how the devs think players are using the shops.

*01 - Let's start with the perspective of the typical "not exiting my cloaked & jammed ship for any reason" ultra-paranoids. (yes, you do often have a valid reason for such paranoia, so don't be taking this as a slight against you.) One quick 'n dirty option, is to change the shops to function based on "Trade with targeted shop-entity".

*02 - Next, we have the "I'm gonna dock with that home-based station-shop, so that even if I do get shot, I'll live through it." ("and maybe spark a war between the guy harrassing me, and the NPC/guy I'm shopping with")
This one would probably prefer "Trade with shop-entity I am docked to", since they're going to the trouble of docking with a shop-station/shop-ship anyway.

*03 - Finally, from the perspective of someone that likes walking around on stations. The "RolePlayer".
This player would probably like it best as "Trade with nearest shop-entity", as this allows them to meander around a "station" composed of many docked shop-ships, (remember that argument earlier in the thread about a ship "merely" being an entity with a ship-core? yeah, they don't need to "look" like a ship either) and pick and choose which shops to buy from. (assuming they don't simply walk up to and use the shop-module they wish to buy from.)

I should note, that all three options could work together, in a "simple" priority arrangement. "nearest shop" being lowest priority, "docked to" being next, and "targeted" being the final override.

Next, the "what could they possibly be selling that is different from the one right nest to them?" argument.
Well, filled blueprints immediately leap to mind, especially so if they're otherwise faction-restricted. (I know I've wanted to fly many a faction-ship, but wanted nothing to do with being in said faction. Yes, these were "merely" their shuttles/dropships, and not their warships)

Then we get into the "limited cargo-space".
You aren't likely to find, say, two shops adjacent to each other, both offering only ADV armor of the same color, at the same price.
They'll be selling whatever they have, that their opponent('s) don't have (because they're not total idiots)
And if their opponent changes his wares? If the owner is even a little bit attentive to their shop, they'll come by and tailor their wares to be different from their immediate neighbors.
That ^ is easier to do as "simple" ship-shops that are free-floating, as you simply send a new one, and recall the old-one once the replacement arrives.
But it is easy-enough to do if it is a "permenantly" docked entity too.

Next, the "selling stuff to new-players" argument. More accurately, it's stated counter of "just sell that to the guild/the NPCs".
Sure, you could sell to the Guild, untill the Devs remove the guild, and fully replace them with the Traders. (the Traders that are allready notorious for not selling critical ship parts. Mostly Jump-drive and Thruster.)
Oh, and then there's the simple fact that the Traders have a cripplingly limited "sell" list compared to the Guild! They won't "sell" most of the shit they have, because anything that isn't "critical" for their own designs, counts as a "generic" resource that they NEVER have enough of.

Next, we have the "but evul player #31875 force-docked my shop and dragged it to his shipyard so he can steal it!" argument.
So? You act as though players don't allready do this to the very physical "trade fleets" the NPCs send back and forth to one another.
I certainly did it, and then retro-fit the Trader Freighter into a drone-carrier. ("earned" about 60,000 capsules in the process, as it had been carrying them)
The single Easiest way to stop that, is by NOT bulding a damn rail-dock (USD, or other) onto the shop-ship.
The second easiest, is to have your docks have a lockout override. One that you enabled before you sent it ut into the black.

If they decide to be an asshole, and obliterate the shop-ship?
Declare war, and beat them so hard they leave the server.

In truth, the second biggest argument against ship-shops, isn't their admittedly niche useage. (there's been a few ideas accepted that "were" niche-useage)
It isn't their vulnerability.
It is the terrible user-interface, that makes setting up a shop a far bigger pain in the ass than it really needs to be.

jayman38 said:
I think it was simply limited to stations to give stations more value. I agree with the suggestion.

^ That right there is the argument against ship-shops.
The Dev-Team don't like the concept of a mobile shop, because it makes their "precious" stations less relevant. Not, for example, from a coding perspective.
The Dev-Team has a history of not-liking many things that parts of the playerbase clamour for.
One of the biggest is factories on ships. The Devs hate the very concept, and are rather vocal about it. (again, it makes their "precious" stations less relevant) (yes, some of the Dev-Team are actually just "meh" about it, but the lead developer keeps poo-pooing it every time it comes up.

They hate the concept of shipyards on ships. But, at the same time, they want some form of "constructor ship"(smells like a shipyard on a ship) to go and build stations with, since they're trying to do away with the blueprint items.
Again, relevancy is the real argument against it.

Jojomo · Jan 21, 2017

Lord_Greyscale said:
^ That right there is the argument against ship-shops.
The Dev-Team don't like the concept of a mobile shop, because it makes their "precious" stations less relevant. Not, for example, from a coding perspective.
The Dev-Team has a history of not-liking many things that parts of the playerbase clamour for.
One of the biggest is factories on ships. The Devs hate the very concept, and are rather vocal about it. (again, it makes their "precious" stations less relevant) (yes, some of the Dev-Team are actually just "meh" about it, but the lead developer keeps poo-pooing it every time it comes up.

They hate the concept of shipyards on ships. But, at the same time, they want some form of "constructor ship"(smells like a shipyard on a ship) to go and build stations with, since they're trying to do away with the blueprint items.
Again, relevancy is the real argument against it.

I think of this as like the rules and referee in sports. We all complain when they stop us doing something we want (or something the team we follow wants) to do, but if you took away those rules and referees the sport wouldn't actually be any fun anymore.

I wouldn't like to see (non-homebase) stations become unimportant.

You missed one 'argument' against: there isn't any really any need for this to happen, stations with shop blocks have pretty much got it all covered already.

splatthecat · Jan 21, 2017

Jojomo said:
You missed one 'argument' against: there isn't any really any need for this to happen, stations with shop blocks have pretty much got it all covered already.

Yes! 100%!

Reading the arguments and counter arguments over and over again I still think that a shop module that functions like a shop module on a ship is a no go on many levels.

Maybe no such thing is required at all as we could simply have a " Trade" tab that could facilitate most of what the OP suggested. No need to build a shop ship any fly around like some galactic door to door salesman.

In the 21st century we have ABS, seatbelts and airbags on our cars, but in the 23rd century Star Trek universe at least, mankind has ditched these in favour of FTL travel. I tell you, if my arse was travelling at the speed of light I'd want something to hold onto at least.

Similarly, if we want to buy something in StarMade, we have to get off our arse, jump into a ship and fly to the nearest shop. Gone are the heady days of the 21st century with internet shopping and home delivery!

Even in deep space, you should be able to access the trade network and have your items delivered to you. If that is the situation, you are far more likely to be working on a space station than a ship. Even if you didn't want to announce your location by having a shop module connected to the network, maybe one storage module could be set as being able to accept deliveries?

The shop on ships idea will probably go the same way as factories on ships but if by some miracle it becomes a "thing", can we also have an option to have our turrets to attack any ship with a shop module on it? Just the "23rd century" equivalent of the "No Junk Mail, No Selling at the Door" signs I have on my 21st century front door.

Wolverines527 · Jan 21, 2017

max stripe said:
any particular reasoning for making them useless?

It dont make them useless it just makes it more of a fair thing for established shops on stations then merchants selling wares while a merchant will be able to have more easy to make blocks So that an easy income for nomads being a thing is possible

max stripe said:
any particular reasoning for making them useless?

that is a matter of opinion basic wares are far from useless i use more basic hull then i do standard or advanced armor its easier on a budget if your new and who will be the first thing they will be shopping on first a shop ship

Basics include
Cores
thrusters
Power
Shields
Weapons
Hull
Plants

So tell me how that is useless
Because you cant have everything on a ship that we have on stations you would essentially break the game to the point it would be pointless of stations even existing there has to be pros and cons on each thing

While stations have more options they will have more expensive wares and can be far away

Shop ships can be any ware at any time and can come at the beck and call of a player with cheaper prices for basic essentials

Lord_Greyscale · Jan 21, 2017

Jojomo said:
I wouldn't like to see (non-homebase) stations become unimportant.

You missed one 'argument' against: there isn't any really any need for this to happen, stations with shop blocks have pretty much got it all covered already.

That's two arguments then? Okay.

Last one first: "there isn't any really any need for this to happen"
I don't count that as a "good" argument against, because if I did, literally every suggestion that wasn't a blind-stinking-obvious upgrade of existing shit (most of the suggestions on this forum would suffer), would have another strike against it.
Oh, and this would mean we'd still be using the piss-ugly first textures. (and the first interface, and the first playermodel) because better ones "aren't neccesary".
It is literally too broad of an argument to bother with.

Next: "I wouldn't like to see (non-homebase) stations become unimportant."
They allready are unimportant.
The one and only thing stations can do, right now, that isn't done better on a homebase station, is claim territory. (most players claim their first system with the homebase anyway, because that means the "claim station" is invincible so long as the faction isn't in negative points)

That's literally all a non-homebase station is good for, on a "normal" server, where they don't have rules forcing you to build and deploy specialty stations. (IE: at least one server has rules, enforced, such that putting a shipyard on your homebase results in you being permanently banned. In order to have a shipyard on that server, it must be vulnerable)

This is because stations are garbage.
They don't have any form of combat bonus, can't move at all, (even the biggest titan can "roll" and present un-damaged armor to it's attackers) and can't have built-in weapons. (literally, a Swarmer built as part of the station will not fire, because of hard-coding to prevent it from working.)
Oh, and because Scanners can't be logic fired, are permanently vulnerable to assholes in a cloaker-poker. (Hell, I'd like to see that changed too, and to prevent "OPness" make it so only stations can logic fire a scanner)

Now, how to fix Shitty stations?:
Well, part one is clearly giving them better blocks. Probably simple, and immersion breaking "buffs" at first, if only to find the values that are least disagreed over, then coding the actual better blocks.
To prevent them from simply appearing on ships? Obscene mass, (said blocks would need to be excluded from loot-pools to prevent them from screwing you over while collecting pirate loot) and/or making them "station only".

Part two: allowing scanners on stations to be logic fired. That stops the cloaker-pokers.
OR: preventing Warheads from being cloak-able. That allso stops the cloaker-pokers.

Doing both of those gives reasons to keep shop-modules on stations, without simply restricting them to stations.
(because it is now genuinely safer to have them on a station)

Batavium · Jan 21, 2017

Shop blocks on ships.

Does it change the way i play StarMade?

No

Can i completely ignore this feature even though others may use it?

Yes

Will the feature force me to do things differently?

No

Conclusion:

Passed

Have your toy should Schema like it and decide to spent time coding it.

Jojomo · Jan 21, 2017

Lord_Greyscale said:
That's two arguments then? Okay.

Well not intentionally.

Last one first:

Click to expand...

"there isn't any really any need for this to happen"

You're right, my language is wrong. It's how I think of it, but not what I mean.

I should have said "there's (almost) no benefits from it that aren't already covered by shops on stations".

That's literally all a non-homebase station is good for, on a "normal" server, where they don't have rules forcing you to build and deploy specialty stations.

Except for shops, spawning, factories, shipyards, and warp gates?

Oh, and because Scanners can't be logic fired, are permanently vulnerable to assholes in a cloaker-poker.

That issue's an interesting matter of opinion. I'm going to start a thread on it.

a Swarmer built as part of the station will not fire

I didn't know about this. Why do swarmers behave differently to other weapons?
[doublepost=1485032594,1485032441][/doublepost]

Batavium said:
Can i completely ignore this feature even though others may use it?

Yes

Will the feature force me to do things differently?

No

It'll remove one reason to build stations, so it'll affect everyone.

Lord_Greyscale · Jan 21, 2017

Jojomo said:
You're right, my language is wrong. It's how I think of it, but not what I mean.
I should have said "there's (almost) no benefits from it that aren't already covered by shops on stations".

That's better. This does basically come down to "we want a mobile shop, so we aren't forced to pay X amount of credits per shop, and have the option of the shop running away in the event of an attack."

Jojomo said:
Except for shops, spawning, factories, shipyards, and warp gates?

This comes back to vulnerability.
Only the homebase can be invincible, as such, any station that is not the homebase is a resource liability waiting to happen. (and, in war, is a write-off as soon as an enemy enters an adjacent sector)
The only ones that routinely get used are "claim" stations and Warpgate stations.

Lemme tackle these in order, K?

First up, a TL:DR.
Without server-side rules forcing you to do otherwise, StarMade massively encourages "Jack of all trades" Homebase-stations, because all other stations are too damn vulnerable without ludicrous over-building/exploit mechanics.

RolePlayers have a butt-ton of options for stations, that's kinda what role-playing does.
But PVPers really only have the "jack-of-all-trades" and "claim station" options, with the possible exception of WarpGate stations.

Shops?
I've yet to see anyone put a shop on a non-homebase station, entirely because of the same vulnerability argument you make about ships.
I've yet to see a server require Shops be a non-homebase station, but I very much doubt that someone hasn't tried it.
(and then un-tried it, because that just rewards bigger factions that can afford to have a player sitting on his thumbs doing sweet-fuck-all combat-wise)

Claim stations?
For all their importance, these are typically piddly-ass nothing-stations, because they're functionally impossible to defend to any "significant" degree. (in war, all your enemies will be gunning for these, and they will find and kill them.)
Some players use "shipyard" or "factory" stations to multi-role this, but those are typically just as shittily defended/armored/shielded as a "mere" claim-station. (for the same reasons too!)

Spawning?
I assume you mean "where a player goes when he dies?" Why on god's green earth would you not go to your homebase?
(AKA, the base with your shop, your shipyards, all your resources, and your spare ships?)

Factories?
Hmm, it may well be nice to have my ore-processing facilities closer to the asteroid fields, but they're too damn easy to kill (without ludicrous over-building/exploity design) to be worth the resource expenditure.(Exploity being abuse of un-linked Cargo-space, to prevent the station from overheating even with total loss of all other blocks)
Allso, having factories that aren't built into the same station as a shipyard is a waste, as that then ties up a second and third player with running the factory and schlepping resources from the factories to the shipyard. Per factory-station. (since AI won't dock, resources can't be easily transferred to/from an AI cargo-ship. You need a player to do that.)
(again, that just rewards bigger factions that can afford to have a player sitting on his thumbs doing sweet-fuck-all combat-wise)

Shipyards?
Okay, I'll admit, sometimes I find it hard to run a Battleship, 2 cruiser, and 4 frigate/destroyer yards at the same time. (I find it harder to design enough ships to need to run them all at once)
But at least mine are all on the home station, so I don't have to worry about opportunistic assholes obliterating a shipyard while I'm out oppressing some other enemy.
Really, the only reason(s) for non-homebased shipyards are:
as mentioned/discussed earlier, if Server-side rules are preventing you from building them as part of your homebase.
or, as a part of a dedicated RolePlayer, who dislikes all-in-one stations.
And, like Factory-stations, they require a player in order to function at all.
(again, that just rewards bigger factions that can afford to have a player sitting on his thumbs doing the bare minimum combat-wise)

Yes, you can build a "shipyard" station to build just one class of ship, and that's certainly fun, ...
except that you then need a player sitting there running the factories/shipyard/push-beams to clear the yard, so you may as well stick it all in your homebase and get invincibility too.

WarpGates?
These are basically the only ones other than claim stations that get used often, and they're a colossal target, both in the figurative and the literal sense. (anything that hampers a faction's ability to move about the galaxy/galaxies is a good thing for their enemies, and they're gigantic too)
Given that they only function in pairs, (that's right, twice as vulnerable as any-other station type) they're a waste of resources the very moment one of them goes boom.
And then we have the "new-ish" Chain-drive technology.
Most of the range, at maybe a hundredth of the resource cost? Sounds like a nail in the coffin to me!

Jojomo said:
I didn't know about this. Why do swarmers behave differently to other weapons?

I'd not known that any other weapons would work. I did a test about a month ago, and none of the weapons worked.
If this has changed, ... then that's either one less argument for shop-ships, or a bug.

Anyway, the only weapons that would matter, for a station, given that it can't move to aim it's in-built weaponry, are Swarmer and Pulse.
One being an independently tracking "fire and forget" type, and the other being a "close-in deterrent/anti-boarding" type.

Allright gentlemen, I apologize for any typos/odd-looking sections in this, I'm somewhat tired of writing it, (interruptions, ho!) and the sinus headache I've had all day is starting to really kick my ass.

I'll be able to edit/respond again in a few hours, have fun while I'm out. (and here's hoping none of you get sick, being sick really sucks)

Jojomo · Jan 21, 2017

Lord_Greyscale said:
I'd not known that any other weapons would work. I did a test about a month ago, and none of the weapons worked.
If this has changed, ... then that's either one less argument for shop-ships, or a bug.

Anyway, the only weapons that would matter, for a station, given that it can't move to aim it's in-built weaponry, are Swarmer and Pulse.
One being an independently tracking "fire and forget" type, and the other being a "close-in deterrent/anti-boarding" type.

Ah, I think perhaps we might be talking about different things - I think you're actually talking about weapons that are part of the station entity, as opposed to weapons docked to it?

I didn't know that station weapons *had* to be docked weapons to work, but I wouldn't really consider that a weakness of stations as docked weapons are fine for the job.

Batavium · Jan 21, 2017

Batavium said:
Can i completely ignore this feature even though others may use it?

Yes

Will the feature force me to do things differently?

No

Jojomo said:
It'll remove one reason to build stations, so it'll affect everyone.

Since when does anyone need a reason to build a station?

Can i not deside for myself if and when i build a station?

Maybe i just want to add some Clouds. credits: Jontyfreack

Quadro · Jan 21, 2017

Erth Paradine said:
Why?

Personally I think waste belching factory ships would be a lot more interesting, instead of some creepy traveling sales ship.

so you can be like a merchant travelling from faction to faction making deals.

Jojomo · Jan 21, 2017

Batavium said:
Since when does anyone need a reason to build a station?

Can i not deside for myself if and when i build a station?

Maybe i just want to add some Clouds. credits: Jontyfreack

I can't tell if this is a serious post...?

No-one does anything without a reason, and with fewer reasons to build stations, people will decide for themselves to build stations less often.
[doublepost=1485039161,1485039114][/doublepost]

Quadro said:
so you can be like a merchant travelling from faction to faction making deals.

From station to station? The stations can have shop blocks, no need for the ship to have them too...

DrTarDIS · Jan 21, 2017

AFAIK any weapon computer can be used on a station, you can still "get into and fire" cannon computers. You can force-fire the weapon by "c" connecting a button to "v" the weapon computer. it's useless because of aim, as said above, but ya.

Quadro · Jan 21, 2017

Jojomo said:
I can't tell if this is a serious post...?

No-one does anything without a reason, and with fewer reasons to build stations, people will decide for themselves to build stations less often.
[doublepost=1485039161,1485039114][/doublepost]

From station to station? The stations can have shop blocks, no need for the ship to have them too...

stations can have shields, no need to let ships have them

Jojomo · Jan 21, 2017

Quadro said:
stations can have shields, no need to let ships have them

If you're going station to station trading, for each transaction between a ship and a station, only one of them needs a shop block. Because a station will probably already have a shop block, the ship won't need one.

Erth Paradine · Jan 22, 2017

Quadro said:
so you can be like a merchant travelling from faction to faction making deals.

Well, in that case. Then if this were implemented, I'd like to see items drop upon ship destruction too...would be fun to farm traveling sales-ships for resources from invuln HBs

Quadro · Jan 22, 2017

Erth Paradine said:
Well, in that case. Then if this were implemented, I'd like to see items drop upon ship destruction too...would be fun to farm traveling sales-ships for resources from invuln HBs

Actually that would already happen. The shops items would be stored in a cargo hold so would be able to be taken when blown up

Nickizzy · Jan 23, 2017

splatthecat said:
home delivery!

u sure m8? Who's got butt loads of money and is to lazy or building and wants some more plants?

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