A call for PvP servers

[Az14el]

I think the problems with size creep on servers can absolutely be curbed with some smart automation on resource generation.
Reason why myself & a lot of others typically fly around their biggest/strongest? Because big ships are durable, and good at protecting their block investment, even with several layers of armor all over, the surface/volume of a 300k mass ship is vastly superior to a 30k mass ship with only a single layer. This can be spawned once and if you pick your fights last pretty much forever, I've had to unbuild a 100k+ mass ship only once due to battle damage (should see the other guy hurr hurr). Can't say the same for smaller ships, unbuilding & reblueprinting those (or deconstructing in shipyards if you're a smart person who values their time & sanity) for me is pretty regular on MP servers.

Automated resource generation would cut so much of the work out of fleet maintenance, which is already frustratingly time consuming even when you have millions of all caps in storage. And for myself the reason why I prefer to have/use the largest stable/well balanced ship in my arsenal for the job.

 

[NaStral]

I think the problems with size creep on servers can absolutely be curbed with some smart automation on resource generation.
Reason why myself & a lot of others typically fly around their biggest/strongest? Because big ships are durable, and good at protecting their block investment, even with several layers of armor all over, the surface/volume of a 300k mass ship is vastly superior to a 30k mass ship with only a single layer. This can be spawned once and if you pick your fights last pretty much forever, I've had to unbuild a 100k+ mass ship only once due to battle damage (should see the other guy hurr hurr). Can't say the same for smaller ships, unbuilding & reblueprinting those (or deconstructing in shipyards if you're a smart person who values their time & sanity) for me is pretty regular on MP servers.

Automated resource generation would cut so much of the work out of fleet maintenance, which is already frustratingly time consuming even when you have millions of all caps in storage. And for myself the reason why I prefer to have/use the largest stable/well balanced ship in my arsenal for the job.

Taking the mining/labor out of the equation would be the solid way to go. Something along the lines of strategy games where occupying a territory nets you X amount of resources every day or something like that.

Would be nice too if you could separate certain kinds of players from one another, but that's also not viable as there's no quantitative way of measuring "hardcore" from "casual" players. Many, in fact would find ways of passing themselves off as newbies just so they could hunt with a heavy experience advantage.

Time is an important thing to consider on a PvP server as well. If a server reset it's universe every week, only a certain degree of progress would be possible. This would be the best way of keeping things even, provided progress to a "viable"(would require a majority agreement on what that actually is) pvp capability was not overly difficult for a newer player to achieve. Virtually all popular games of a player vs player nature have a time element that serves as a core regulating mechanism. Without it, inequalities of an increasingly insurmountable nature develop.

Another thing that would mitigate pvp inequality is some kind of required upkeep starting at a particular block count and increasing in a logarithmic fashion. For example modest upkeep would start at 50k and ramp up to be completely unsustainable at say 800k or whatever the server owner set the parameters at. If upkeep wasn't met, then blocks would begin to break down at a slow rate. Ideally new players could zip around in their fighters and corvettes with no maintenance issues plaguing them while the pilots of larger ships would need to operate with significant expenditures to keep their massive titans operational.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Ahem.

Guys.
This turned into another "normal servers should to this and that"
Well guess what: by PvP servers, I did not mean "Normal persistant world servers that may try to encourage PvP but usually fail" but arena servers. If you remember Minecraft, then you remember there were servers that didn't even have a normal mine-build-repeat world and focused entirely on PvP or competitive co-op gamemodes such as spleef or hunger games.

Because one PvP event a year (Blood and Steel) just doesn't cut it.
I'm talking about an environment where players can just jump in, without having to grind for even a minute before, get in a match (be it 1v1 duel, free-for-all, team deathmatch, Rocket League style ball game, space race or MOBA style objective control) and blow stuff up without having to worry for a split second about the resources spent on the ships. Could be even spiced up with all teams being given the same ship roster so only piloting skills and/or teamwork decides the winner.

As you too mentioned, the current economy can't really be helped. So, what about scrapping that part altogether?

 

[JinM]

"Normal persistant world servers that may try to encourage PvP but usually fail" but arena servers.

So how does an arena or combat focused server look like? Because I want such a server too. But if you think about the details it gets complicated. How do you prevent blueprint spamming and get good fights?

Easiest idea: Whitelist.

My other thoughts: First of there should be the ability to buy ships from the server for a set amount of money. The money should reset if you loose all your ships.

Or you scratch the money part, and make a event every 30 minutes, where players can fight pvp or pve missions with resetted ships every 30 min.

Secondly there could be the ability to upload your own ship traded against ingame points (with size restrictions! you need to spend time in the forum and show your creation there to use larger blueprints than 100m length, and only if you have enough enemies to take on bigger ships), that you earned after you spent like 10 hours on the server fighting - or maybe doing mining or trading missions with the server-ships (because many server owners are not satisfied with a pvp only server and dont want to scrap the creative part of the game, and like to create points of interest like a mining station or some trade outpost, and the same goes for the users).

Yes, for the second part you would need a second currency. Like some sort of kill counter or mission objective counter. If you kill a ship (that can be extracted from the server log), you get some control points, and with those points you are allowed for certain stuff.

But if you had a pvp or pve server only, you could really make some nice missions and different economy. But it is far different from the usual server setup and needs some programming.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

So how does an arena or combat focused server look like? Because I want such a server too. But if you think about the details it gets complicated. How do you prevent blueprint spamming and get good fights?

Easiest idea: Whitelist.

My other thoughts: First of there should be the ability to buy ships from the server for a set amount of money. The money should reset if you loose all your ships.

Or you scratch the money part, and make a event every 30 minutes, where players can fight pvp or pve missions with resetted ships every 30 min.

Secondly there could be the ability to upload your own ship traded against ingame points (with size restrictions! you need to spend time in the forum and show your creation there to use larger blueprints than 100m length, and only if you have enough enemies to take on bigger ships), that you earned after you spent like 10 hours on the server fighting - or maybe doing mining or trading missions with the server-ships (because many server owners are not satisfied with a pvp only server and dont want to scrap the creative part of the game, and like to create points of interest like a mining station or some trade outpost, and the same goes for the users).

Yes, for the second part you would need a second currency. Like some sort of kill counter or mission objective counter. If you kill a ship (that can be extracted from the server log), you get some control points, and with those points you are allowed for certain stuff.

But if you had a pvp or pve server only, you could really make some nice missions and different economy. But it is far different from the usual server setup and needs some programming.

Blueprints would be buy with credits, obviously.
A possible way to do this:
Each player would select a gamemode with wrapper commands, for example: !join duel (1v1 duel), !join tdm(Team deathmatch, last team standing wins), !join ffa(free for all, last man standing wins), etc. Upon selecting gamemode, each would be assigned to a faction named after their team (if applicable) and teleported to their team's preparation sector (protected sector, with a shop in the middle) where they get their credits and they would have say, 5 minutes to spawn their ships and board them, discuss tactics etc. As the countdown for the specific gamemode expires, the players get teleported to the gamemode's respective sector(s) and the match starts. In duel mode and free-for-all, match ends if there is only one player alive left in the game area, in team deathmatch, it ends if all players present belong to one team (dead players respawn in the lobby sector, 2 2 2) This is the simplest version. Upon a match ending, the game area resets, all ships deleted, and players are teleported back to lobby.
As for rewards: each player gets points (stored by the wrapper) for every kill, AND won match. These are displayed in the Hall of Fame (!halloffame gamemode) and will increase their starting credits (so they can access bigger ships) Players lose one point per lost match.

IN ADDITION, upon entering a gamemode, the players would have 120 seconds to vote for the budget of the match (to allow different size ranges - fighter, corvette, frigate, capital) for example !votebudget fighter would mean a 1 million credit budget, !votebudget capital would mean 500 million credits. The bonus from the already earned points would apply in addition to the base budget.
The server would offer default blueprints for each size category (best decided by a contest), but players could also upload their own.

 

[JinM]

And is this even possible with the starmade netcode? I know that you can code some other ingame currency and items in. How do the scripts work? Is this even possible now?

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Well, obviously a good scripter and a good wrapper would be both needed, but I have seen someone before doing something similar, it even had an objective control based gamemode where you could gain control of sectors for over-time credit injections, you had kill credits, allied MOBs spawning when you took control of a sector, and win condition was destroying the faction module on the enemy station. It was called Ares Mod. So yes, this is possible if we can find a scripter who has the time and the motivation.

 

[JinM]

Look, the one thing that server owners allways want is usage of their stuff. We are 2 guys. If I look over all the server I see that there are not many people who say "I want instant-pvp and not survival". That has nothing to say about how much fun it is, but how arbitrary it is and unknown. I mean even if such a server exist, the server owner might be a sad man because there are not enough players in Starmade to fill the servers.

Look at the numbers, summ the players online on all the server up, at max there are 100 (?): Top servers by connected players
The work needed to set such a server up, is not equal the players you can get for the gamemode. Thats only a theory of mine.

I think its not worth to amount of work when all you get is some 5v5 if you are lucky once a day because there are hardly any people, compared to the depth and demand some people (especially serverowners) feel when they play rp and survival.

I hope some day we can have some nice pvp. But I just have the theory, that its not possible at the moment because the SM community is too small and the blueprint and setting work is too high.

But maybe some servers could host more events and spawn in all the ships. That would be a realistic option and something everyone can request from his server. Ofcourse then everyone should join a server who promotes some events and is not so focused on only one gameplay setting and no variety.

 

[Chckn Wildstyle]

The Blighted Expanse server is a no strings attached PVP server that has a limited playable area enforced by RP forces of Chaos so that the majority of players will be in a condensed active area until they defeat a boss to expand the universe. The IP is 167.114.209.107 and can be found on the server browser as Blighted Expanse. The rules and G+ forum for it are here https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101357150960912537293. (The rules are there to basically say there are no rules, they are also subject to change based on player feed back)

Anyone brave enough is welcome to join. There is also a TS3 up under the same IP if you wish to talk to others on the server or the community at large, its also a good way to contact admins if you decide to play.

 

[Benevolent27]

This game desperately needs no-strings-attached PvP to bring it back to life. Because let's face it, what is PvP in survival mode Starmade now?
It's either roflstomping people through vastly superior firepower, or raiding unmanned, lightly guarded bases, or homebases for undocked small scraps. In my 4 years of playing Starmade, in my more than 1200 hours spent in PvP-focused factions, from NASS to old EE to Starside, I can barely count up to 10 hours total of actual fighting other people involved.
Which is pathetic. People spent more time than that flaming each other on the forums. Actually, probably a hella lot more time than that.

People who liked PvP are abandoning Starmade. It's supposed to be a core element of gameplay, even a complete server gamemode was designed around it, yet there are absolutely 0 (zero) servers around, that offer genuine, no strings attached PvP where you don't have to grind for days to have your ships, just to see them blow up in minutes.

Ares mod was a good concept for objective-based, team oriented cooperative PvP. Yet the lack of interest caused it to vanish into the dark.

So, this is a desperate call to server owners, admins, event managers: PvP is dying. Needs revival.

I am hoping to fill this type of combat with automated events over on LvD, though they cannot replace the core gameplay on our server, since it's based on survival PvP. But I do plan on having events where players can immediately get into the action and fight against each other for rewards that they can then use in survival. We also have a quest engine up and running where players can get random daily prizes (and also if they figure out the puzzle they will get more each day). We'll have different things like obstacle courses, puzzles, dangerous areas, "defend the ship", and team quests later on. I'd also like to use the basis of the server of "light vs dark" to establish ready-made rivalries, so players will be able to defend persistent bases, do capture-the-flag type events.. etc. However, every step of the way it is a real challenge to use the existing game mechanics and commands to do what I'd like, which is basically a fusion of what you suggest with PvP survival.

The strength of PvP survival is that you can build up and then use what you have to do battle, which is fun because the risk increases the reward of winning a battle. But it can get a bit monotonous and people can turtle too much. But I firmly believe we can create a fusion with these mini-game type concepts, which also carries over into the survival gameplay. Additionally, we are establishing an economy where players can purchase pre-filled blueprints with their rewards (bronze/silver/gold bars), and so can start fighting right away. No need to worry about that precious design of yours, it's just as ship you got from doing a few short quests.

But, progress is slow going. I am the only person scripting all these things into the custom wrapper I created for the server, so we have pages and pages of concepts we are working toward geting implement.ed If we had more players interested in being developers for our server to produce this unique content, it would be much faster going. Then I could focus on the behind the scenes scripting more, and implement the bases/ships/scenarios made by other players.

 

[Spoolooni]

Well, is there a server out there that allows each person to have one ship at a time for absolute no cost? It'll be nice if there's one like that so people can come in and test builds and once its all over, clean up the mess and restart again. I am thoroughly uninterested in EVE-style punishing kind of PVP but if there's a server that is like fractured space, hell yea- count me in, I will fight and die fighting for hours on end.

 

[NaStral]

Spoolooni I enjoy setting up events like you describe. Sadly, so few people actually take advantage of it despite my advertising. Scheduling such things rarely ever works out so it's pretty much catch me when I'm on, say you want a 1v1 or whatever can be organized given whoever's on. Know this, if someone wants to get something like that going, I will gladly drop whatever I'm doing to set it up.

 

[Spoolooni]

Spoolooni I enjoy setting up events like you describe. Sadly, so few people actually take advantage of it despite my advertising. Scheduling such things rarely ever works out so it's pretty much catch me when I'm on, say you want a 1v1 or whatever can be organized given whoever's on. Know this, if someone wants to get something like that going, I will gladly drop whatever I'm doing to set it up.

For sure buddy, once I finish my ship, i'd love to engage in a friendly one on one battle with whatever ship you feel is balanced against whatever I am constructing.

 

[Chckn Wildstyle]

For sure buddy, once I finish my ship, i'd love to engage in a friendly one on one battle with whatever ship you feel is balanced against whatever I am constructing.

I have been thinking about putting together an instance fighting arena on Blighted Expanse where players can use whatever they want in a sector by having an infinite shop on a central station you take a gate to which is one way so you can't come back after you enter without committing suicide. It would take a few minutes for the players to set it up themselves, but at least it would be something you could do in a significantly smaller amount of time than normal fighting.

It would allow any players at any time to have matches in the sector, and possibly, if supervised by an admin, would allow for rewards to the winner.

I'm fact, the more I think about this, the more I want to do it. I'll probably have a working arena on BE up within a week or two.

 

[AssIn9]

Like Ares Mod? fight for an objective. and then fight again? no cost, no loss, no gain?

 

[Chckn Wildstyle]

Like Ares Mod? fight for an objective. and then fight again? no cost, no loss, no gain?

Kinda, it'd require a few more chmod commands to pull that off which are listed here Additional Map/sector_chmod Functionality but I will be able to at least make a set of single sectors where two or more people can fight simultaneously. The sectors are 20kmx20kmx20km, so I can probably add some cover, like asteroids or something, to break up the space between the two sides.

 

[Loadout]

I think a simple script to fill the inventory of a pair of shipyards wouldn't be terribly hard to accomplish. It fills the yard, you purchase a premade BP dependent on what class you'd like for some variety.

Classes would be a fixed BC variation of server ships. All ships would have the same block count for balance. Types for instance could include a Glass cannon type with high speed and firepower but little shielding or armor. A defense type with Heavy shields, etc.

Regardless of what ship you play as you get the full instant-pvp experience as the shipyards are equipped with everything they need to create these vessels over and over again. Die and re-spawn with a fresh ship waiting for you.

All the commands needed are in-game already. You simply lose when you're out of cores to make more ships. Then the server resets using the script. You would basically need to have three sectors to make it work, or one very large one with 2 stations.

The basic requirements for this would be...

*Script to add blocks to each teams shipyard storage.
*Two stations - one safe for each faction, each with 3 shipyards ( one each for rock, paper, scissors )
* sector_chmods to protect the shipyards and prevent exit from battle zone.
* some people to try it out with!

 

[Chckn Wildstyle]

I think a simple script to fill the inventory of a pair of shipyards wouldn't be terribly hard to accomplish. It fills the yard, you purchase a premade BP dependent on what class you'd like for some variety.

Classes would be a fixed BC variation of server ships. All ships would have the same block count for balance. Types for instance could include a Glass cannon type with high speed and firepower but little shielding or armor. A defense type with Heavy shields, etc.

Regardless of what ship you play as you get the full instant-pvp experience as the shipyards are equipped with everything they need to create these vessels over and over again. Die and re-spawn with a fresh ship waiting for you.

All the commands needed are in-game already. You simply lose when you're out of cores to make more ships. Then the server resets using the script. You would basically need to have three sectors to make it work, or one very large one with 2 stations.

The basic requirements for this would be...

*Script to add blocks to each teams shipyard storage.
*Two stations - one safe for each faction, each with 3 shipyards ( one each for rock, paper, scissors )
* sector_chmods to protect the shipyards and prevent exit from battle zone.
* some people to try it out with!

An infinite shop on the station would be anice easy alternative, a little more time consuming on the player side, but no third party scripting necessary.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

I like the idea of a MOBA style instance with different ship classes of roughly the same size.
- A long-range Sniper with missile/beam and cannon/beam setups but below average shielding, light armor and little in terms of short-range defense. Countered by the Assassin, which can sneak up on it and cripple it before it has a chance to react.
- A medium to short range maneuverable glass cannon Damage Dealer that has rapidfire anti-block weapons (missile/cannon, cannon/cannon) with high DPS but quickly gets torn apart without the team's support. Countered by the Tank, which can pin it down for the rest of the team to finish it off.
- A slow Tank with heavy armor, shields and defensive systems (Ion, Piercing, Punch) and EMP main weapon + stop turrets for crowd control, but little real damage. Countered by the Sniper, which can stay out of its range and keep its distance while it gets through the Tank's shields and armor.
- A stealthy, agile Assassin with permajammer, high thrust/mass ratio and pulse slave weapons (beam and missile) for bursts of close-range damage and taking out vital systems on weakened or isolated targets. Countered by the Support, which can peel its jammer off and expose it to the rest of the team.
- A utilitarian Support with power/shield drain and -support beams, a large, quick charge scanner and Ion beams to do shield damage, to help out the Damage Dealer, and expose a lurking Assassin or Sniper to the team...
and the list goes on.

The idea of pre-loaded Shipyards sounds nice as well, but Cores shouldn't be the limit (since turrets use up 2 each) but for example, the faction block (since it's almost guaranteed only one of those go unto a ship), or a single otherwise useless, block placed on each available design. And there you go, once the shipyard runs out of those, no more ships can be spawned.
The event could be set up that the conflict sector could only be approached via one-way warpgates from each team's base (shipyard) sector, and a script should run to clear overheating every 5 minutes during the event (to remove wreckage before the lag kills the server)