MicroMade - Modded StarMade

Asvarduil said:

I think back in the "new vanilla" thread, docking depth came up as a topic. I was going to go with a depth of 5, but a depth of 4 can provably work (station -> ship -> turret base -> turret barrel) I'll probably start at 5 to be less restrictive, and then see if the data corroborates any need for a docking depth of 5, or if I need to loosen it up (given the 100 mass limit, probably doubtful).

I'm as yet undecided on other points due to just not experimenting with them yet, but I'm paying attention to the discussion.

Also, I might settle for a Station limit of 10k mass, but I'm not sure. I've become aware of a configuration setting that prevents me from needing to write any 100-mass limit code (thanks to Tunk) I guess the question is, can I have my universe use pre-fabricated stations with greater than 10,000 mass, if my station limit is 10,000 mass? It's another experiment to run when I'm done building custom systems.

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I doubt that at this size anyone will even attempt to go to drones with turrets or anything that goes remotely close to 5 deep chains... at this size even turrets themselves are useless save for point defense.

This is not really related to the current point, but to the OP - I'd like to point out that Minimade did only die because its server was a cheap potato which could only hold two persons online at the same time before getting 3k ping, leading the people to leave frustrated, myself included.

Also, I'm not sure how you can solve the issue of small combat. 100 mass is an exaggeration, and my last experience with that range of mass was in the old NFD triathlon fighter arena, where I did speed tank all the afternoon long and gave up because it was taking really long and getting really boring. The meta on this will probably be turrets with a bunch of 1-1 output beam little turrets, but that will depend on how big the sectors are...

Asvarduil said:

Week 2 - "It's Alive! It's Alliiiivvvveeee!!!!1!!one!"
This week has been an important one for the MicroMade mod - I've got a basically working version on my local machine, with the core system public commands implemented, and most of the core system admin commands implemented.

Commands
!NETWORTH ME - View net worth
!CASHOUT - Convert all stored net worth to credits. This depletes your net worth
OUNTY [PlayerName] [Amount] - Put a bounty of Amount credits on PlayerName. This depletes net worth; if you don't have enough credits, the bounty is not posted.
!FEEDBACK [Rating: 1-5] [Details] - Give direct feedback on the MicroMade mod/server.

Admin Commands
!SHUTDOWN [Duration] - Shut down the MicroMade server and StarMade server instance.
!PROMOTEADMIN [PlayerName] - Make the named player an Administrator in the MicroMade mod (*)
!DEMOTEADMIN [PlayerName] - Make the named admin no longer be an Administrator in the MicroMade mod (*)
!GRANTNETWORTH [PlayerName] [Amount] - Increase PlayerName's net worth by Amount. A negative value decreases Net Worth. Be nice to your admins.
!REMOVEBOUNTY [PlayerName] - Clears all bounties on PlayerName.

Note: the HELP keyword can be used as the first argument of any command, to view help text on how to use it correctly.

*: One thing I need to do is change my commands not to just emit one 'response' command, but multiples. I know exactly how to do this, though it may take some labor to accomplish. Thus, Promote Admin and Demote Admin won't just change admin status in the MicroMade mod, they will also be able to change admin status in StarMade as well. An Admin is an Admin.

Content
Coalition System Base Type A - Outpost (Hull) (Shipyard Topic: Here)

Enter Penumbra
Penumbra is the name of the mod software that will wrap the StarMade dedicated server. I originally came up with the name because the mod was supposed to be "Not quite Shadow", but has actually become quite different. For one thing, it's coded nearly entirely in C#, and uses the System.Diagnostics.Process setup - which comes with built-in Input, Output, and Error pipes - to communicate with StarMade.

The details of Penumbra will be quite boring to most players, so long story short - I've been able to successfully run Penumbra alongside StarMade and issue ! commands. There's some modest bulletproofing I want to do. Long story short, though, there will be a 0.1 beta test in the near future.

Part of my 1.0 deliverable is published source code on GitHub as well as a way to download the server wrapper in a 'ready-to-go' state.

Goals and Objectives
Earlier this week we had some interesting, and sometimes confusing, discussion over the goals of the server and the mod. After due consideration, I'd like to share my current goals for the server and mod. Please feel free to contribute any other considerations that need to be serviced.

1. Mod and Server must be released; this means, Mod is freely available via GitHub, Server must be live and playable.

2. I want to maintain a community of around 5 players as frequently as possible. As this is a 'niche' server, I don't have very high expectations, but I want people to be present so that my game systems can bring them together. Fun just might also be an important outcome of that.

3. I want to maintain an average in-mod rating of the server at no less than 3.5/5. In my past experience, 3.5/5 is the lowest threshold I've had for a game that's been considered 'good enough', and keeps people playing. If players' opinions of the mod fall below 3.5/5, it's most likely I've done something quite wrong, and I should assume that the mod/server are in jeopardy.

4. Performance and hosting need to be as good as possible. I have some engineering challenges I need to overcome on the backend software, but I will take great pains to ensure my server is not hosted on a malfunctioning potato.

5. I will endeavor to ensure this software remains as bug-free as I possibly can. The way I'm doing this, is to develop my Penumbra back-end using "Unit Tests", or tests of code that simulate certain things and end-user can do. Every time I change stuff, I run it through the gauntlet of these tests. If a test breaks, I fix it before releasing.

6. Rapid releases - I don't want the mod/server to sit fallow for too long. I'd prefer to release updates every two weeks, per conventional industry wisdom, but keeping it between 2 weeks-1 month seems most reasonable. To achieve this I will code to unit tests, I will contain the scope of my changes, and most importantly I'll listen to my community.

7. Obsolescence. This is the most important goal that is influenced by all others. The point of this mod is to be 'fix-fic' for StarMade. I want to show, and prove, that this game has good ideas that can be leveraged to make it better. I want schema and Schine as a whole to see things on this server that encourage them to make the game more fun. Some things are easy, like better content. Other things are harder, like better-designed gameplay. If this server is rendered obsolete by changes to the game, that is the ultimate measure of whether or not this mod has succeeded.

Tuning
We've also had great discussions this past week of how best to tune the server.

There are many considerations, everything from IP configuration to sector size and custom block configurations. I especially thank Tunk for his sage advice on server administration, a subject I'm a total n00b to, as well as running a quick 'flavor-of-the-week' 100-mass-limit server to more practically test some concepts.

kulbolen has contributed good, practical feedback of micro-scale ship combat, which Tunk's 'flavor-of-the-week' server has more or less confirmed for me.

JumpSuit - while somewhat skeptical - got me thinking about what my concrete goals are, and thus how I need to measure whether this server is a case of me torching dollar bills, or is a useful contribution to people who want to have a better StarMade experience. These goals are higher-level than tuning, but will influence what direction all tuning goes in.

I intend to address tuning issues after my first, closed beta. This is partially to ensure I'm 'testing' as few variables as possible, but also because there's a lot of tuning changes needed to help this game perform well, and be fun at the same time. Tuning may be more involving than any coding I've done this week.

Conclusion
It's been a busy week, but the back end is just about ready for a beta. I've got to patch up the holes that doubtless remain, and get to work on that necessary mother - content. Everyone's contributions are making this mod and server a success, and it hasn't started up yet. I thank you all for caring so much, and look forward to playing with you as soon as possible!

See you all next week!

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Now that I have seen the Official 'MicroMade News of the Week!' (in my little world I call it dat :P ), You got my faith going up.

Awesome to hear!
Just remembered I still had that running so just shut it down.

If I remember correctly the wrapper is a C# deal, is it compatible with mono?

Asvarduil said:

So, quick question.

We all know the power update is coming Soon™. In the interests of actually creating some content for the first beta, I feel like MicroMade - at least in its early state - doesn't need to be tied to the legacy Power system, for shipbuilding purposes.

That being said, one screws with power at their own peril. With the magic of BlockConfig, I'm sure I can do all kinds of things to it - make it scale with numbers of blocks in group, buff or nerf power generation/capacity/whatever - the ultimate question is, 'Should I?'

Is there a way that seems reasonable to mod power blocks, such that were I to release sooner than Soon™, people could build ships and only be minimally impacted by the Power update, or should I just suck it up and keep the existing system? Bear in mind - down the line, if I do nothing, it will slow me down as I'll have to more or less redesign every faction/pirate ship and station power system in my mod.

Station power is less important, since I can build a dedicated 'power plant' somewhere on the station to handle power generation/capacity...but that's not the point.

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Don't mess with the new values till you know what your messing with...

A reduction to the reactor e/s generation cap could be a good idea, one 2m e/s power line is ~150 mass in the first place and an extreme reduction (to like 150-200k e/s) would likely prevent some stuff using super large dimensions at this mass limit (incl mine fffuuu).

But if you want blueprint upload to be available to people then you really shouldn't mess much with power values at all, usually the hardest parts to have to rebuild after upload

Wow, you go away for a few months and forget about the game, and somebody has a neat idea.

It's too bad I'm playing only on a decent laptop, because I have serious doubts about the ability of this thing to run SM...Ah well, never know if you don't try. Anyway---color me interested, even if I can't really be certain about being able to, you know, play, at this point.

Those are all great changes (Except for the human factor---you may eventually need to force a slower speed on players, because humans can't physically track fast enough to make good combat use of most ships that size) for my computer, but I'm literally concerned about just being able to reach the SM menu. That said, we'll see. I did mention the pessimistic feelings I tend to have towards this computer, right?

I would say dont mess with power for now, old abd new can run parallel with appropriate server settings.
Also if you do mess witg power make sure to graph out your power curves vs the baseline, schine made the mistake of not doing that last power tweak and we ended up with super charged power systems for a week or so.

On the adjustments I would recommend upping block power from 25 per block and lowering the efficiency curve to make power more linear sub 100 mass.

I say that that would be OK, but you need to make a decision soon so I can start building ships for that server.

^^^ probably the best argument not to play with it however linear power was a good point to bring up and might help balance out "ships" vs "sticks" at this size, it would become a pure matter of ratios so might be seen as a "dumbing down" of the engineering aspects, but considering the mass in this case, you're not going to be hitting even the lowest of meaningful soft caps for any good reason (already over 80 mass and 800 meters), power doesn't really have anything "smart" about it at <100 mass, it's just ratios + "lol big dims", no huge loss in my books.

Not at all a piss take on your 100 mass idea there, I'm confident about the whole "actually landing hits" thing if people use their heads, and I plan to play the game with fancy shaders & high settings for a change.

For myself I don't mind rebuilding such tiny stuff if you do consider the change, maybe give it a go and try emptying out & refitting one of your current 100 mass ships, try a more power hungry design and see how it goes on linear compared to the default version in terms of stuff like dps;mass, mobility, shield ratios. Might force some of us oldguard pvp types to reconsider the kinda ship design & shape we consider "dangerous" when going into fights a bit too on linear :p

Madman198237 said:

Wow, you go away for a few months and forget about the game, and somebody has a neat idea.

It's too bad I'm playing only on a decent laptop, because I have serious doubts about the ability of this thing to run SM...Ah well, never know if you don't try. Anyway---color me interested, even if I can't really be certain about being able to, you know, play, at this point.

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A decent laptop should have no problems running Starmade. I had a craptop (AMD A6 4x2.2Ghz CPU with Radeon R4 iGPU and R5 M230 1GB dedicated GPU and 4 GB DDR2 RAM upgraded to 8GB) and that still managed to run Starmade decently until there were million+ block ships spammed on the screen. Hardly having any problems now with my i7 Skylake 3Ghz, 8GB DDR3 RAM, R5 M430 and SSD.