10 most irritating things in Starmade

[linwe talion]

Since September, when I first joined SM many things have changed, were incredibly improved, revamped, redesigned, fixed etc.
But still there are some features, that remain just since then and every time I face them, I feel deeply depressed by the way they behave.
Here's the list of them for public discussion. Please, use the poll for general agreement\disagreement.

1) Advanced build mode. More specifically: mechanics of selecting cuboids, pasting them, rotating them, replacing them, removing them, and absence of mirroring option. For exemple if you want to copy and paste something you will need to click 2 different points, one for selection and the other one for pasting. This leads for surrounding the structure with a web of sticks for proper selection and pasting.

2) Credits limit. Some servers have bank plugins, most do not. Thus it becomes a problem.

3) No banks in game, unability to store credits in storages etc. Yes, you can drop credits, but you can't place them in a storage, thus save them e.g. when going in a pirate raid.

4) Absence of real AI. Simple commands like "dock to me, undock and attack, follow me, attack my target" for the bobby AI modules on the ships would do 90% of needed functionality.

5) Faction permissions. Yeah, they are still not enough. For exemple, there's no way of preventing someone entering some territory (F6 glitch) or opening a storage and stealing everything.

6) No autopilot. Space. Warpdrives. Lasers. And no damn autopilot? Are you serious?

7) Static cameras on the ships. Well, it adds some special gameplay for larger ships, okay. But personally I would like to have an option to look around while piloting or fighting.

8) Useless planets. They are very arcade-like, but the game itself has overgrown the arcade state long ago. Look at the galaxy map, does this feel like an arcade? Planets need some real reason to exist, rare loot in them or anything. Now they are just a place that I avoid for not causing lags on the server.

9) No "fill" function in the build mode. Thus a long line of blocks, placed half inside the ship, half outside, would penetrate hull and stick out in the outside. Adds damntonns of work.

10) No decent curves in the adv builder. The primitives we have can provide only primitive ships, obviously. Even making a large diagonal of blocks is a pain.

11) (my own pain) absence of complete support for SMedit. Those guys deserve some help, as this is the only way to import something really cool in the game from the outside.

And here are some newer issues, that make life difficult:

1) Manually adding stuff to the blueprint. I know, I know, Shine is working on it already, but nevertheless.
2) Absence of a button "set plot to" in a faction diplomacy window. I can't copypaste coordinates either from the faction home info. I have to write them down somewhere. When it is -4 15 324 it is easy to memorize, but when it is -4228 1497 -513 I am having problems.
3) No drag function in the galaxy map. Or have I never found it (which is possible, sometimes I am surprised by my own stupidity).

That's all I can make up my mind right now, I guess, I'll add some issues later if I get stuck into them again.

 

[Ithirahad]

I agree fully with all of these. Some long-term solutions are planned, but if we want newer players to stay when they come to the game, then they should probably be addressed sooner than later.


The other thing that bugs me is that storages can hold infinite amounts of blocks without adding any mass or volume to a ship. I don't want to see stack size limits because that just makes inventory management annoying, but adding blocks to a "storage array" to increase total maximum capacity would be nice and simple. Also, stored blocks should add to a ship's mass. Maybe .1 mass for every 100 blocks. It seems ridiculously unbalanced that they magically have no weight at all. (This rule should also apply to carrying blueprints around.)

 

[CyberTao]

11) (my own pain) absence of complete support for SMedit. Those guys deserve some help, as this is the only way to import something really cool in the game from the outside.

People still use SMedit to import things though. It still works for bringing ships into starmade, it just doesn't work in reverse; you can't export from SM.

 

[Megacrafter127]

2) Credits limit. Some servers have bank plugins, most do not. Thus it becomes a problem.

The limit is 2^31-1, which is the highest number a signed 32 bit integer can store. The limit exists due to the storage limitation. I don't know why schema chose to use an int instead of a long (64 bit integer) though, as the 32 bit JVM simply uses 2 ints to represent a long, so longs themselves aren't a problem, it wouldn't even affect performance.

3) No banks in game, unability to store credits in storages etc. Yes, you can drop credits, but you can't place them in a storage, thus save them e.g. when going in a pirate raid.

You CAN place them in a shop block, however they are completely lost if that block is removed for whatever reason.

4) Absence of real AI. Simple commands like "dock to me, undock and attack, follow me, attack my target" for the bobby AI modules on the ships would do 90% of needed functionality.

undocking can be done via logic, attacking is done automatically, and "attack my target" is an option for the bobby AI, although you do have to have selected a ship all the time for it tp work properly.
Following should be easy, but docking is much harder, as there is no easy way to locate a docking module without iterating through all of the blocks of the entire entity. A simple list of the locations of all docking modules would help with that though.

6) No autopilot. Space. Warpdrives. Lasers. And no damn autopilot? Are you serious?

There would only be the clocked-push-effect autopilot, which doesn't steer.

8) Useless planets. They are very arcade-like, but the game itself has overgrown the arcade state long ago. Look at the galaxy map, does this feel like an arcade? Planets need some real reason to exist, rare loot in them or anything. Now they are just a place that I avoid for not causing lags on the server.

Planets are cheap bases for newcomers, and they contain a lot of ore in a single place, but that's all though.

9) No "fill" function in the build mode. Thus a long line of blocks, placed half inside the ship, half outside, would penetrate hull and stick out in the outside. Adds damntonns of work.

What if the shape you want to fill has a hole? The ship's entire bounding box would be filled, OR the ship would grow indefinetly, until you run out of blocks.

11) (my own pain) absence of complete support for SMedit. Those guys deserve some help, as this is the only way to import something really cool in the game from the outside.

Tbh, that is not Schine's fault, how the "new" blueprint format is structure is openly explained in the wiki, although the unofficial wikis have much more info about it: http://www.starmadewiki.com/wiki/File_format(the link leads to an unofficial wiki)

1) Manually adding stuff to the blueprint. I know, I know, Shine is working on it already, but nevertheless.
2) Absence of a button "set plot to" in a faction diplomacy window. I can't copypaste coordinates either from the faction home info. I have to write them down somewhere. When it is -4 15 324 it is easy to memorize, but when it is -4228 1497 -513 I am having problems.

Agreed, although I have less problems with 2.

3) No drag function in the galaxy map. Or have I never found it (which is possible, sometimes I am surprised by my own stupidity).

A way to simply type in coordinates and the galaxy map would automatically "zoom in" on them would be enough.[regardless of weither or not there is an animation for that]

 

[mrsinister]

7) Static cameras on the ships. Well, it adds some special gameplay for larger ships, okay. But personally I would like to have an option to look around while piloting or fighting.

You can hold down Right Shift and look around in the core, camera blocks, and in 3rd person.

 

[Poofer]

these are not suggestions, but complaints. Some of these issues are already on their way to be improved on.

 

[linwe talion]

Megacrafter, most things you describe are just a way-arounds, supplementary tools that we, the community, found out being not able to use them directly, such as placing credits into a shop block instead of placing them in a storage. Or an autopilot via push logics instead of a button "autopilot". Yes, they help to make things run in SOME way, but is it a part of real game experience? No. Is Starmade thus bad? Of course, not. It is hilarious, that's why we are all here.
But since it is out in steam, it is time for some teenage-illness to be corrected, time to grow up and solve the things like 32 bit restriction on credits, don't you think so?
And yes, for advanced game experience just typing in the coordinates on the galaxy map is not enough. It should be easily dragged, moved, sized, rotated, overrotated, sliced in every way etc etc. Why? Because it is the main strategic instrument since the faction points update. Some operations require to handle the map in a very sophisticated way, e.g. finding an opening one-way warpgate from a sector 3 galaxies away, while 15 gates lead in approximately same direction. Try modelling it in single player, you will "like" it. As to myself, I hated shift+arrow jumping from void to void to follow the 1-pixel line of a warpgate route through 4 galaxies.

these are not suggestions, but complaints. Some of these issues are already on their way to be improved on.

When a man points you on an open window and tells you, that it is cold in the room, remember, this is a suggestion to close the window.

____________
And the last one. This is a point for everyone who thinks with words like "sufficient" and "enough". Every time you think in those terms, remember, that people play BIG. SM has become a game of huge numbers, enormous dimensions and thus extreme data handling both for PC and humans. And if personally you don't know how to freeze a server by a "block timeout" by just building a ship (one at a time!), ask those, who did it. Ask those, who make things BIG. Like 40 million blocks. And then forget about words like "sufficient".

 

[CyberTao]

Ask those, who make things BIG.

So the minority should dictate the progression of the game? I know that's not what you said, but the game is alpha, steam release was premature and everyone knows it, logic that starts with "now that it's on steam" doesn't make any difference when a good majority (imo anyways) feel that the game was not ready for steam in the first place. Some of the stuff you pointed out is barely of any importance in my opinion (banking and fill mostly), but I'm not here to argue.

Most of this stuff has plans associated with it, and most of our "workarounds" work just fine if you don't mind a smidgen of extra effort for the time being. Starmade has a slow dev cycle afterall.

 

[Megacrafter127]

Megacrafter, most things you describe are just a way-arounds, supplementary tools that we, the community, found out being not able to use them directly, such as placing credits into a shop block instead of placing them in a storage. Or an autopilot via push logics instead of a button "autopilot". Yes, they help to make things run in SOME way, but is it a part of real game experience? No. Is Starmade thus bad? Of course, not. It is hilarious, that's why we are all here.

True, but knowing there is a workaround is still better in the moment than standing in the dark waiting for the next release(s).

time to grow up and solve the things like 32 bit restriction on credits, don't you think so

I never said no to that, although an update implying that MAY require a full universe reset of ALL servers and SP-universes, as the length of a non-varlength variable has changed, unless a new file format for playerfiles is made, which would be…awkward in any way.
If a new feature is implemented that requires either of those two measures from the user's side, not switching the credits variable from int to long would be a waste, but otherwise…idk.(I'm oftentimes indifferent to everything)
Also, since blueprints are spawned in using blocks by default now, the credit limit has less of an effect now, than it had before.

The question I ask is: why use an int in the first place, if the scale of content of the game is supposed to be able to go beyond most scales?

And yes, for advanced game experience just typing in the coordinates on the galaxy map is not enough. It should be easily dragged, moved, sized, rotated, overrotated, sliced in every way etc etc. Why? Because it is the main strategic instrument since the faction points update. Some operations require to handle the map in a very sophisticated way, e.g. finding an opening one-way warpgate from a sector 3 galaxies away, while 15 gates lead in approximately same direction. Try modelling it in single player, you will "like" it. As to myself, I hated shift+arrow jumping from void to void to follow the 1-pixel line of a warpgate route through 4 galaxies.

Having the ability to instantly move the map to a specific set of coordinates[that is not limited to nearby{within the same galaxy} stars] is still better than not being able to do so at all.
Then again, I can IRL build a radio out of a few(no more than 4) diodes, a magnet and some scrap metal…(supposed to show ability to make very good use of something next to nothing)

 

[linwe talion]

So the minority should dictate the progression of the game? I know that's not what you said, but the game is alpha, steam release was premature and everyone knows it, logic that starts with "now that it's on steam" doesn't make any difference when a good majority (imo anyways) feel that the game was not ready for steam in the first place. Some of the stuff you pointed out is barely of any importance in my opinion (banking and fill mostly), but I'm not here to argue.

Most of this stuff has plans associated with it, and most of our "workarounds" work just fine if you don't mind a smidgen of extra effort for the time being. Starmade has a slow dev cycle afterall.

Wouldn't say SM has a slow dev cycle comparing to competitors. And of course, comparing to Grand Papas. That's the point which to my mind exuses greatly "premature steam release" - I don't know whether they (shine team) have any real life, seems from here that all their time is dedicated to updating the game with new stuff and they work 24*7. But I went offtopic.

 

[Criss]

1: There are issues with build mode copy/pasting and I totally get that, but how is there an absence of mirroring? Are there not 3 panes of symmetry and the option to mirror cubes found there? What do you mean?

2 + 3: I bet there are plans to change that. I wouldn't doubt it.

4: AI will likely get a massive overhaul. But there are other things that should be worked on first, especially if mechanics behind docking change.

5: Factioned structures do not prevent people from using storage blocks? That seems like a big oversight. I'm not really sure how tab+f6-ing into a ship is an issue when the pilot can get out by the same means, and is incapable of using the structure.

6: Inertial/linear dampening off in the config files. No doubt autopilot is planned, but there are more important things to work on.

7: Double press right shift. Free mode camera that you can use. You can't look around your ship and turn at the same time, but I can't think of a control scheme or a game that has pulled off both those movements at once. Without a console controller at least.

8: Planets will likely get their own update.

9: Filling sounds a bit complicated. You'd be asking the game to determine which blocks represent the outside edge then fill it up. What happens when there is more than one layer to the structure, does it just fill the hallways too? I have yet to come to a situation where I would want any portion/all of my ship instantly filled with a block. I get along just fine with build helper.

10: I'm betting it's not a complete feature. I see many people use it just fine. It does get messed up with larger shapes. But who really needs to build a ring with a 5k radius?

11: Smedit afaik is in no way connected to starmade in the formal sense. In that there is no obligation to get smedit running for the community on the devs part. I have gotten smedit running just fine. We cannot import existing blueprint files right now. This is likely because the game is changing, and would require schema to be in constant contact with the smedit devs in order to keep it functional. I'd rather let schema work on the game.

 

[Lecic]

2) Credits limit. Some servers have bank plugins, most do not. Thus it becomes a problem.

Credits are not nearly as useful as they used to be. It's not like before where you needed them for ships. Their main use now is for stations. And really, what do you need more than 2 billion+ credits for?

3) No banks in game, unability to store credits in storages etc. Yes, you can drop credits, but you can't place them in a storage, thus save them e.g. when going in a pirate raid.

You can use a shopblock as a bank.

4) Absence of real AI. Simple commands like "dock to me, undock and attack, follow me, attack my target" for the bobby AI modules on the ships would do 90% of needed functionality.

AI improvements are planned.

5) Faction permissions. Yeah, they are still not enough. For exemple, there's no way of preventing someone entering some territory (F6 glitch) or opening a storage and stealing everything.

the F6 glitch is a GLITCH, as you've said.

 

[linwe talion]

Credits are not nearly as useful as they used to be. It's not like before where you needed them for ships. Their main use now is for stations. And really, what do you need more than 2 billion+ credits for?

I have 16 billions atm, though I spend a lot on charity and events and don't have time to refill my bank account recently, I could have had much more. Some of my partners on the server have 60+ billions, anothers 80+, and even 120 in a rare case. What for do we need them? For everything. E.g. hiring a fleet of mercenaries, helping a newcomers to buy blocks and manage stations etc etc. A derelict station "cathedral" costs 1.3 billion to be renewed, btw. I would feel naked left with only 700 mil after such an operation. Credits are still the most common thing in the universe, thus being needed for exchange and measuring needs. The limit reduces economical role of credits forcing their replacement by barter, greatly weakening the economics part of the gameplay. And yes, I CAN use the shop block as a bank, but I don't wan't to, because:
1) it is static
2) it is shown on the map
3) it has permissions, but doesn't have a null permission
4) all prices will have to be set in case I don't want it to work like a scrapyard, buying all the trash it can until reaching 50k blocks limit of every type.
5) IT WAS NOT MADE FOR STORING CREDITS. It was made for exchanging them for goods. Like, yeah, I can use a bicycle for riding to job instead of a broken car, but it is neither comfortable, nor fast.

 

[MacThule]

2) it is shown on the map
3) it has permissions, but doesn't have a null permission
4) all prices will have to be set in case I don't want it to work like a scrapyard, buying all the trash it can until reaching 50k blocks limit of every type.
5) IT WAS NOT MADE FOR STORING CREDITS. It was made for exchanging them for goods. Like, yeah, I can use a bicycle for riding to job instead of a broken car, but it is neither comfortable, nor fast.

A shop being shown on the map is fine as long as it's attached to my home station. And I don't need null permission for my shop - I just zero it. Setting all prices to zero (prerequisite to using shops as a personal bank OR any form of trade) *IS* a huge pain in the arse and deterrent to using shops for anything at all in the first place.

As far as MADE FOR storing credits; a shop is a business and that's what business is - something you can invest value in and withdraw value from, so in terms of "intended use" I think the issue is philosophical, not concrete. A pistol can be used as a paperweight, rich folks use charities as tax shelters for their profiteering, dirty blankets have been used as biological weapons; intended use isn't constraining in any final sense even in the real world so I have no problem using a zeroed-out shop as a bank. Of course this only benefits the faction leader since only a home shop is safe at all - just one more tiny factor rewarding 1-man factions over multi-member ones.

Of course I wonder if it might be possible to solve the bank problem and more by enabling shop owners to give other players "accounts" in their shop. Then other faction members could also use the home shop for safe credit storage AND storage for a safe reserve of blocks as well (because currently faction security can keep outsiders from raiding your stash at home base, but not other faction members unless you are the faction head and have private storage in a waled-off area - yet another tiny factor encouraging 1-man factions). Might even be fun to enable negative credit limits for accounts up to a pre-set amount, with the credits taken directly from the shop owner. This would allow faction heads to give members a line of credit but still doesn't allow any magic credit-creation exploiting but would help new recruits get a leg up.

 

[lazarus78]

How about some proper ship orientation controls. And an artificial horizon. Lining up a ship with an object is painful for no good reason. Sime simple orientation controls would go a LONG way.

 

[Criss]

How about some proper ship orientation controls. And an artificial horizon. Lining up a ship with an object is painful for no good reason. Sime simple orientation controls would go a LONG way.

Have you not pressed C?

 

[En_Dotter]

I think that the opener is using the wrong approach when it comes to all (listed and unlisted) issues. The game is in alpha, meaning newcomers should know what that means, as well as players who played the game for some time. Saying that anyone buying the game needs to accept its work in progress and that demands patience. Also, making threads with the list of issues is not enough to help the game development (and thus help yourself as a player).
If i were you i would have started this thread in general discussion (since things u mentioned are only the observation of things you consider to be flawed in the game with no suggestion what so ever) in a bit of a "segmented" manner (a rough representation of my thoughts):
1. Open a thread where you put a poll about what issue is the most bothersome.
2. After that issue is "discovered" start the discussion on ideas how to possibly fix it.
3a. Open a suggestion thread with the best ideas for fixing the mentioned issue (if applicable).
3b. Or ask the devs to focus their attention to the issue.

 

[lazarus78]

Have you not pressed C?

C only orients your ship to "Galactic North" as I call it. It is useful for basic orientation, but there is nothing for facing left, right, "south", up, or down.

And before you make some snide remark about the game being in space so there is no up or down, the game's use of cubes, coordinates, and the fact that while in astronaut mode you have only one fixed orientation, lends to the fact that there is indeed an up and down. And even still, even NASA uses an artificial horizon to provide a common orientation for astronauts to go by. They can orient their ship so that their belly is facing earth, or whatever, all controlled by a computer instead of manual input. Starmade needs these things as well. Even Kerbal Space Program has such orientation features.

 

[linwe talion]

C only orients your ship to "Galactic North" as I call it. It is useful for basic orientation, but there is nothing for facing left, right, "south", up, or down.

And before you make some snide remark about the game being in space so there is no up or down, the game's use of cubes, coordinates, and the fact that while in astronaut mode you have only one fixed orientation, lends to the fact that there is indeed an up and down. And even still, even NASA uses an artificial horizon to provide a common orientation for astronauts to go by. They can orient their ship so that their belly is facing earth, or whatever, all controlled by a computer instead of manual input. Starmade needs these things as well. Even Kerbal Space Program has such orientation features.

I can't agree more then I already do. An artificial horizon (which for sure should be aligned with galactic coordinate system with the center of the galaxy as a center, not the Sol(the Sun) being one), "up" and "down", etc.

The game is in alpha

When I hear these words every time for the last several months, a small Hulk inside of me wakes up and rips a kitten to pieces.
Player: "The SM server freezes because of the console spam it creates, please, devs, fix it"/ "Excess of logics calculations loads game clients, devs, please, fix it" / "I can't transfer money to another player without visiting him, devs, please, fix it"...
Random newcomer: "But the game is in alpha..."
-"SMACK!..."