StarMade - Devblog May 8th 2017

    schema

    Cat God
    Joined
    Feb 17, 2012
    Messages
    1,552
    Reaction score
    2,604
    • Schine
    Greetings citizens,


    It’s been a little while since the last news update. However, we decided, that with a new flexible release schedule it would be best to do weekly news posts when possible from here on out. This is all detailed in a forum post here: StarMade Release Cycle & News Posts


    What are we working on right now?

    One major addition will be a new request system, that will give better overall performance and superior logic for requesting chunks allowing for larger entities. Fleet commands will be made consistent between server restarts, as well as improved local movement, and we will be looking to make fleet fight-or-flight behavior a lot better.


    We are also working on other projects in the background, but we can’t reveal everything just yet. The level of planning and discussions has probably increased tenfold since StarMade’s next steps will be quite large, so what we can reveal right now is in the next section. Much of these discussions have revolved around our end goals document. We’ve been working on a public version that we would like to release soon.


    Future Plans

    Our current focus is on outlining the final gameplay elements of the game as a whole and making sure we cover the aspects of exploration, movement, building, fighting and developing your empire in an interesting and satisfying way for the player.


    For this to work properly, we have to adapt our current universe layout. We are discussing and planning how the next version of resource distribution will work in the universe. The game’s present universe is very uniform and doesn’t lend itself to a more dynamic universe we would like to see. This leads us to discuss and work on two specific things. Where resources are and how, you as the player, use them. The current system we are designing will be moving to more points of interest and contention in the universe. Meaning only specific capsules and ores will exist in specific parts of each galaxy. The crafting system will also have to take this into account and will be revised the same way.


    Our discussion internally is based around a concept of points of interest within the universe. A point of interest could be many things. It could be a sector, a set of sectors a planet or other stellar phenomena. All points of interest will/should have a gameplay purpose within the galaxy. These will become focal points for contention, and exploration. There will be more information about the specific locations and stellar objects in future news posts.


    While we prepare for all of that, bug fixing will once again be focused to establish more overall stability this includes fleets and AI. Work is still moving forward on audio, and our new power proposal. Both which will have quite the impact on the universe, but more on power next week.



    Thanks for playing StarMade,


    ~ The Schine Team
     

    MrFURB

    Madman of the Girders
    Joined
    Jan 31, 2013
    Messages
    1,116
    Reaction score
    413
    More fleet/AI features? Oh yes.
    Empire building? Oh yes!
    Count Duku? Oh no.
     
    Joined
    Feb 5, 2017
    Messages
    13
    Reaction score
    0
    I heard there was a new power system coming up too; can we get an update on if it is expected to change?

    kinda need to build everything around power so its a big deal for a lot of us.
     

    Lecic

    Convicted Lancake Abuser
    Joined
    Apr 14, 2013
    Messages
    5,105
    Reaction score
    1,222
    • Thinking Positive Gold
    • Purchased!
    • Legacy Citizen 10
    Meaning only specific capsules and ores will exist in specific parts of each galaxy. The crafting system will also have to take this into account and will be revised the same way.
    Can you elaborate on this? I just want to know if the recipe revisions will make the unequal resource distribution matter, and why changing the recipes is even necessary.
     
    Joined
    May 8, 2015
    Messages
    117
    Reaction score
    55
    Glad to hear the update! Does a flora and fauna update function separately than the universe update, or will it be integrated within it?
     
    Joined
    Jan 19, 2015
    Messages
    364
    Reaction score
    87
    I heard there was a new power system coming up too; can we get an update on if it is expected to change?
    Read the last line of schemas post, the devs are currently working on their 2nd proposal.
     

    Calhoun

    Part-time God
    Joined
    May 26, 2015
    Messages
    872
    Reaction score
    237
    • Purchased!
    • Legacy Citizen 3
    • Thinking Positive
    Fleet commands will be made consistent between server restarts, as well as improved local movement, and we will be looking to make fleet fight-or-flight behavior a lot better.
    This interest me. Will Fleets actually remember their last command when the player is offline with that?
     
    Joined
    Mar 16, 2015
    Messages
    19
    Reaction score
    11
    The only thing that feels missing in regards to gameplay is a clearer sense of progression... it currently feels more like a sandbox than a game. It should take a lot of time and hard work to amass the necessary materials to make a gigantic/advanced spaceship.

    I personally would like to see an option to start on a planet with absolutely nothing and needing to do a lot of stuff before even reaching space with whatever tiny ship I was able to make. I don't wanna be able to have a large/advanced ship until I've been playing for months.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: Neon_42
    Joined
    Dec 23, 2013
    Messages
    131
    Reaction score
    16
    • Purchased!
    • Legacy Citizen 3
    Get rid of stuffing the player into a 1m cube and make captains chairs already.
     
    Joined
    Dec 31, 2014
    Messages
    56
    Reaction score
    18
    The only thing that feels missing in regards to gameplay is a clearer sense of progression... it currently feels more like a sandbox than a game. It should take a lot of time and hard work to amass the necessary materials to make a gigantic/advanced spaceship.

    I personally would like to see an option to start on a planet with absolutely nothing and needing to do a lot of stuff before even reaching space with whatever tiny ship I was able to make. I don't wanna be able to have a large/advanced ship until I've been playing for months.
    That would be cool, the game feels too creative sandbox, but for this kind of games "a lot of stuff and time" or "more difficult" can traslate directrly as "more grinding" which is really bad.
    Try playing Factorio, you will need to do a lot of difficult things on the planet surface before launching a rocket.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: Neon_42
    Joined
    Jul 29, 2013
    Messages
    174
    Reaction score
    15
    Oblivionburn I believe RODLON hit this one on the head pretty well. You sound more like a space engineers or Empyrion player than a starmade person when you mentioned those things. I believe the goal is to make starmade more like starmade than any other game as it will keep it unique.
     
    Joined
    Mar 3, 2015
    Messages
    457
    Reaction score
    158
    The only thing that feels missing in regards to gameplay is a clearer sense of progression... it currently feels more like a sandbox than a game. It should take a lot of time and hard work to amass the necessary materials to make a gigantic/advanced spaceship.

    I personally would like to see an option to start on a planet with absolutely nothing and needing to do a lot of stuff before even reaching space with whatever tiny ship I was able to make. I don't wanna be able to have a large/advanced ship until I've been playing for months.
    My time is too precious to spend months "playing" just to do what I want to do. I mean, if I'm gonna be neglecting my kids for this, it better be fairly quick before I'm able to go out and do the FUN things.

    It's a moot point. It'll probably be customizable in the config lol
     
    Joined
    Mar 25, 2016
    Messages
    49
    Reaction score
    59
    Finally i read things from you guys which seem ambitious enough that it would make an interesting GAME out of the current ship building simulator. I look forward to see you guys make it happen and hope for the best. Time has been an ever so annoying factor for quite a while when it comes to you guys making things happen but in the end what matters is that you indeed eventually get it done.

    Cheers! :davewink:
     
    Joined
    Jul 12, 2014
    Messages
    511
    Reaction score
    57
    • Purchased!
    • Legacy Citizen 5
    The key word for me here is 'exploration', can't wait to see what you guys come up with. ;)

    Greets,

    Jan
     

    Matt_Bradock

    The Shrink
    Joined
    Aug 4, 2013
    Messages
    798
    Reaction score
    464
    • Purchased!
    • Thinking Positive
    • Legacy Citizen 5
    A nice idea would be tying the resource types available in a system to the star's color and size. There's nothing wrong with not every system having every resource, and realistic because IRL stars of larger mass and higher temperature can fuse heavier elements of the periodic table. Another possibility is randomly calculated system clusters spawning more of one or two resources types and less or none of another 1 or 2 groups. This could be signified by the background image's main colors that could correspond with the color of the resources the system is rich in.
    That combined with a huge decrease of NPC trading posts (pink icon shops and tradestations, by huge I mean you're lucky if you find ONE of those in every 8 systems or so) would force player-player and player-NPC interactions and prevent players from getting away with spending all their time in a single system, and also might result in certain clusters that contain crucial resources worth waging wars for.
    Also would be epic for this to correspond with ship variations of NPCs and players from these clusters.
    For example, a cluster rich in zercaner and threns but with almost no hylat would result in ships using mostly beam and missile weaponry since they lack the materials to manufacture cannons. The hull colors would also be grey, red and maybe purple because that color of asteroid is present in the cluster.
    Another example would be the presence of heavily armored ships in clusters with an abundance of fertikeen asteroids.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: Lecic and Blodge

    Napther

    Grumpy builder of Kaiju Design Initiative
    Joined
    Feb 7, 2015
    Messages
    192
    Reaction score
    180
    • Competition Winner - Small Fleets
    • Community Content - Bronze 2
    • Legacy Citizen 2
    (pink icon shops and tradestations, by huge I mean you're lucky if you find ONE of those in every 8 systems or so)
    Hmmm. Maybe a bit more than that, or maybe "smart" deployment of shops to areas of "High interest" such as other civilisations, etc.
    I also believe stick shops will become part of a proper economic network, but I cant remember where I got this information from; either way, I can deal with less stick shops if they were just plain better.

    As for this new universe, interesting stuff. I HOPE jump drive mechanics are looked at and updated with this Point of Interest system as it would require a lot more movement of player craft (and even fleets), and current jump mechanics are uninteresting and annoying, and readily bypassed by the ChainDrive system...
     
    Joined
    Jul 10, 2013
    Messages
    626
    Reaction score
    486
    • Community Content - Bronze 2
    • Purchased!
    • Legacy Citizen 7
    Can you elaborate on this? I just want to know if the recipe revisions will make the unequal resource distribution matter, and why changing the recipes is even necessary.
    It will be necessary because to build some key component for ship or stations you need certain type of blocks. Those blocks need certain types of ores.
    I mean try and build a station without a build block for exemple.
     

    Criss

    Social Media Director
    Joined
    Jun 25, 2013
    Messages
    2,187
    Reaction score
    1,772
    • Master Builder Bronze
    • Video Genius
    • Competition Winner - Stations
    flora and fauna update function separately than the universe update
    They will likely be separate. Flora and fauna do not impact how you play the game in our current plans. For the moment, they are sort of a filler to populate planets. When we get close to working on them, we may find more interesting uses for flora/fauna.

    sense of progression
    A part of the universe update is this progression. Restructuring the universe allows us to create possibilities like establishing a base in a rich environment, or fighting others for rare resources and more beyond that. Right now you can settle anywhere and be completely fine.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: Zoli