What makes a good mechanic?

Another rant thread.

I don't understand why such small power change thing can upset people so much, and why they love the old system so much. I mean the old power was about making mazes, if your ship was below 100m lenght, and after that you just pasted in your 20m dimensions power cube to get 2 mill e/s. That's so random man.

JinM said:

I don't understand why such small power change thing can upset people so much, and why they love the old system so much.

Click to expand...

It is not about power. It is the fact that an update and this one just happends to be power. Turns all user creations into trash.

For a build game a six year old build game that is just plain r e t a r d e d. That is really declaring all out war on your player base.

Anything and everything they set out to fix or do or add to this game could have been fixed in a way that did not turn all the player creations into junk. That shows that the developers have little to no love for there own game or the people that play it.

JinM said:

Another rant thread.

I don't understand why such small power change thing can upset people so much, and why they love the old system so much. I mean the old power was about making mazes, if your ship was below 100m lenght, and after that you just pasted in your 20m dimensions power cube to get 2 mill e/s. That's so random man.

Click to expand...

It's not that we think the old system was good, rather that the new system is even worse than the old one.

Should the whole update be scrapped? Definitely not. I mean, a power update is absolutly necessary for a lot of future features. I used to think that the stabilizers themselves are a good idea, just that the distance that is required between them should be a way smaller factor then originally intended... Like i said, i used to. I put more thought into it and came to the realization that they surely limit building more then it was intended to.
If anything should be scrapped it's stabilizers. Instead, the reactor stability should either be based on the total ship-system-mass (mass of all system blocks, meaning hull and decoration is excluded) or the largest ship dimension - without forcing us to actually place blocks at one end.

Lecic said:

It's not that we think the old system was good, rather that the new system is even worse than the old one.

Click to expand...

So you wouldn't complain, if you didn't know about the old system allready?

JinM said:

So you wouldn't complain, if you didn't know about the old system allready?

Click to expand...

I didn't like the previous power system and it was better than the new one, so why would I not complain about the new one if it was what we started with?

What you're implying is extremely transparent. No, I dislike the new system because it's a shitty system, not because I like the old one.

Maybe not completly scrapped, but rethought, definetly. I relly dislike the old system, its just building long lines with a completely arbitrary and nonsense generation cap.
I also dissaprove the new system, not because I don't like the idea, which is much better than the old, but because the design decisions the keep making. They keep going with the arbitrary limitations for the sake of balance and gameplay restrictions instead of creating an original and coherent power system.

Lecic said:

It's not that we think the old system was good, rather that the new system is even worse than the old one.

Click to expand...

If you think that the new system is so bad, I will not try to change your mind.

I took a hiatus about a year ago because all my ships turned into bricks with the new update. It's kinda infuriating that a year later the same problems seem to be hurting the game. I hope the devs can come up with a sensible, solid basis for ships so that they can move on to other things. While it was obvious that a change needed to be made a year ago with all the new weapons and things, the community outlash towards whatever is going on is concerning to me.

Most of the concepts introduced in this update have problems in one way or another, or could have been done better another way.

• Stabilizers are the worst offender. All they've done is stretch ships out into needles. Schine's NPC ships don't count because they're all yachts, and no warships.
• Reactor HP nerfed the heck out of roleplay ships. Power 1.0 was better in this respect. You could make things more interesting than power 1.o by giving each system its own HP, and giving the structure its own HP.
• The chamber system is cool, but could have been far better. Rename chambers to modules and tie them into the systems they modify. Rename chamber capacity to wireless channels and tie them into some kind of central computer.
• FTL should be a system, or reactors need to be called Warp Cores.
• Recon should be separate system. There's no reason to glue your radar to the side of a reactor.
• Stealth can be done better by taking a little inspiration from Mass Effect.
• The Schema and gang have this idea that they can force empty space by some roundabout means. There is ONE way to do that - add a bonus for putting systems farther apart. Do it that way and I wouldn't mind.

I'd settle for fixing or removing stabilizers, but really there's a lot more wrong with the update that no one is paying attention to because the stabilizers dwarf it all. Schine is going to hear about the other problems for years to come just like they did with the previous system, and we're either going to have a gradual change like we had from early alpha to the end of power 1.0, or another complete change to a "systems 3.0" model.

I voted yes because almost everything about the new system hurts creative freedom, player experience, and depth of game play. Rather than naming a good mechanic, I'd like to poss the counterpoint of what makes a BAD mechanic. "If you need a strange workaround to implement a new idea, it's generally not a good idea."

New power is awful, and the tweeks to fix it only make it worse. stabilizers are a weird workaround to ship sizes and beams are a weird workaround to that workaround to try to make it work.

Using weapons as capacitors is broken. Right now capacitors naturally balance the advantages of alpha weapons. Separating defense into alpha/dot to fix it is a weird workaround

Bubble shields are in of themselves a weird workaround.

Chambers create fun effects that may be salvageable, but not as chambers of the reactor, not with a point-system, and not with FTL and Scanners built into cores. Shield chambers should modify shields, thrust chambers should modify thrust, etc, etc, etc... And their mass & cost should determine your limits, not some point system. This is so many weird workarounds to try to get a desired effect it hurts.

Integrity is a great idea for power 1.0, but seems redundant with other new systems like bubble shields, reactor beams, etc.

End Result: Learning curves just took a critical hit in the nards, because start-up is harder with so many unintuitive game mechanics and end-game is more boring because there are fewer (if any) meaningful technologies to be explored with complex logic systems.

stabilizers don't work for gunship sized supports/player pirate class size craft. make having a small early game mining vessel impossible.


the shields should be reverted back to what they were before, the integrity mechanic makes it so my damn laser pistol can pierce shields way larger than it should be able to.
Replace It with ion flux and lower the capacity of shield by the amount of ion damage please
Stabilizers purple beams are awesome but they should be smaller and only vulnerable to small arms fire.
Stabilizers with current distance choke ships out of way to much power and make building player milkrun/support transports(early miners too) impossible.
Many of the reactor buffs in chambers are artificial skill tree systems, keep the game focused on mass and energy please. But the idea of structures granting buffs is good. just perhaps don't tie it all into the reactor, make the buffs independent or work as a function of crew on the ship.


The stabilizers also make it impossible to upgrade ships at the start of the game. because to add more mining/salvage you need more power, to get more power the ship needs to get larger.

I am a Pirate boarding player, the new update makes starting the game way to long, and the system is way to complex.

I granted, have little experience with the old power system but do want to say:

1. I do like the concept of stabilizers, perhaps not as they are currently but as a feature definitely. My vision of reactor stabilizers is that they improve efficiency of the reactors specifically if they are balanced out across the ship. I think that if they gain efficiency when mirrored relative to the reactor and as such would be a much simpler system. The beam idea is neat, it means that you don't have to focus your fire on actual components and still have some effect on them. It means that you can interrupt the "supply" of power to different systems without directly hitting them. This doesn't necessarily disable them but it does weaken their ability. As they are its finicky and annoying to deal with. ESPECIALLY the bull that is the distance requirements. I have to nearly triple the size of my ship lengthwise in order to get proper efficiency. A little distance to improve efficiency is fine, but seriously that needs to be taken down to like at least a fourth of its current distance. I also would like them to work better as individuals instead of in bulk, how about they, if damaged, have the same effects as the beam being hit instead of there being a beam at all. It still accomplishes the aforementioned effects but means there isn't "that ugly beam". Compensating for this could be the requirement of more blocks (although I say keep it around the same amount because its far too many currently as the system stands)
2. I enjoy the idea of chambers but it seems to me like they are stuck on as an afterthought and the requirements are wayy up there in terms of building size.
3. Stations need a rethinking in strategy. Random thought: Make station reactors have beams, gives the ability to power more things and have an advantage over ships while not necessarily ruining the design of the station especially as stations are usually going to be several times larger than any ship, making them bigger isn't going to hurt people nearly as badly as making ships have to be multiple times larger.

I voted no, mainly because there isn't a need to have a complete overhaul. The new system has great promise and potential, and there are some things in there that really make sense. The concept of stabilisors on ships made a lot of sense, as did the idea of using a theme or concept/role to build a ship. What happened was that some of these created other problems in the process of implementation, but that doesn't mean we immediately flip. It's like going to a hospital, and getting treatment. Sometimes medicine gives you side-effects, but cures you in the process. What we need are just significant tweaks that will solve these side effects, not a complete overhaul again.
We have to remember that this is still technically a very new feature. I mean, previously there were updates that were pretty bad, but they were gradually fixed. It's just that this update happens to be on a core mechanic, so we shouldn't get too worked up and demand a fresh start.

Nosajimiki said:

Using weapons as capacitors is broken. Right now capacitors naturally balance the advantages of alpha weapons. Separating defense into alpha/dot to fix it is a weird workaround

Click to expand...

Just want to point out that outside shield breaking or absurdly small ships alpha weapons are actually worse in every way. Due to the way whichr schema decided to scale block damage alpha weapons actually do significantly less damage than rapid fire weapons. Its on a curve so its hard to put a concrete ratio on it but as a rough rule making a weapon do 10 times as much damage per shot will only kill 3 times as many blocks, therefore a weapon that fires faster will always be better than a weapon that fires more powerful shots (once you pass about 3k damage per shot, does not apply to missiles)

Fortunately the weapon update is supposedly going to return weapons to a more linear scaleing that will free alpha weapons from doing frankly awful block damage.

AtraUnam said:

Just want to point out that outside shield breaking or absurdly small ships alpha weapons are actually worse in every way.

Click to expand...

Atra, pls, shields.

AtraUnam said:

Just want to point out that outside shield breaking or absurdly small ships alpha weapons are actually worse in every way. Due to the way whichr schema decided to scale block damage alpha weapons actually do significantly less damage than rapid fire weapons. Its on a curve so its hard to put a concrete ratio on it but as a rough rule making a weapon do 10 times as much damage per shot will only kill 3 times as many blocks, therefore a weapon that fires faster will always be better than a weapon that fires more powerful shots (once you pass about 3k damage per shot, does not apply to missiles)

Fortunately the weapon update is supposedly going to return weapons to a more linear scaleing that will free alpha weapons from doing frankly awful block damage.

Click to expand...

As I understand, alpha is supposed to be anti-armor while rapidfire is supposed to be anti-bulk, and it is likely to change significantly in the next update.

Wraithking said:

I voted no, mainly because there isn't a need to have a complete overhaul. The new system has great promise and potential, and there are some things in there that really make sense. The concept of stabilisors on ships made a lot of sense, as did the idea of using a theme or concept/role to build a ship. What happened was that some of these created other problems in the process of implementation, but that doesn't mean we immediately flip. It's like going to a hospital, and getting treatment. Sometimes medicine gives you side-effects, but cures you in the process. What we need are just significant tweaks that will solve these side effects, not a complete overhaul again.
We have to remember that this is still technically a very new feature. I mean, previously there were updates that were pretty bad, but they were gradually fixed. It's just that this update happens to be on a core mechanic, so we shouldn't get too worked up and demand a fresh start.

Click to expand...

If the side effect of a cold medicine is that kills 90% of test subjects but an 80% reduction of symptoms, you don't try to alter doses until it only causes a 30% chance of death and a 25% reduction of symptoms. You ditch the drug and find something else. The things the update fixes are WAY less of an issue than the things it breaks, and trying to fill a round hole with a tesseract shaped peg does not help the game. It just makes it weird, unintuitive, and less fun to play.

AtraUnam said:

Just want to point out that outside shield breaking or absurdly small ships alpha weapons are actually worse in every way. Due to the way whichr schema decided to scale block damage alpha weapons actually do significantly less damage than rapid fire weapons. Its on a curve so its hard to put a concrete ratio on it but as a rough rule making a weapon do 10 times as much damage per shot will only kill 3 times as many blocks, therefore a weapon that fires faster will always be better than a weapon that fires more powerful shots (once you pass about 3k damage per shot, does not apply to missiles)

Fortunately the weapon update is supposedly going to return weapons to a more linear scaling that will free alpha weapons from doing frankly awful block damage.

Click to expand...

Although technically true, this is actually a very deceptive statement. Dropping shields to START doing block damage is very important. If we both have 30mil shields and 2mil dps in ion weapons, but I use Ion Alpha beams and you use Ion DoT beams. I will have a x3 range advantage AND not have to wait 15 seconds to start engaging you with block damage meaning you could be half dead by the time my shields drop. Also, Alpha Missiles are WAY better at causing block damage than smaller missiles because smaller missiles don't dig as deep into vital systems, they break server limits quickly, and as hits begin to queue up to calculate block damage, they cause more radius overlap resulting in less total block damage. 3rd point here is armor. DoT weapons spread their damage across armor where as alpha weapons break armor and dig into systems. In contrast, DoT weapons are VERY strong in certain metas because they don't need as much capacity You can do more total damage with the same total block count. THIS is the balancing factor which makes both weapon types not only helpful, but borderline necessary when facing an unknown foe.

This all kinda leads to one of my points that needing to diversify and balance weapon types encourages creative and complex weapon designs. This makes for a very interesting and in-depth end game. Any noob can make a missile-beam-explosive turret and do okay, but advanced players can stage out their attacks, control engagement ranges, scatter missile vectors, and do a wide number of other things to improve the "spreadsheet" metas built into the engine itself.

Frankly, I feel that the current weapons system in the game is an AMAZING feat of balance, simplicity, and depth built around a very natural feeling and predictable "crafting" system. At most it could use some minor tweaks to things like Pulse as primary and Missile as secondary to really hit the mark on what defines a great system. The problem is that it ties into the current power system to find its balance so the devs are willing to sacrifice their best piece of work so far just to make their idea of capacity-less power generation work which will in-turn precipitate this new weapons update they have planned, but WHY? Why scrape the features of your game that make it stand out? That is like changing the Total War engine to only support one character model per squad, or removing technology trees from Civilization.

Valiant70 said:

As I understand, alpha is supposed to be anti-armor while rapidfire is supposed to be anti-bulk, and it is likely to change significantly in the next update.

Click to expand...

Well, outside of extremely large pierce missiles, alpha is pretty much entirely useless for anti-armor purposes. Rapidfire is substantially better at it because it is easier to make a rapid cannon that destroys a single advanced armor block each shot, and have potentially hundreds of these rounds going down range every second, than it is to make an alpha cannon that can penetrate armor and do effective system damage on the other side.