A loose collection of ideas of how to make starmade's ship systems interesting

[solarapple]

NOTE: These ideas were thought up out of random and may have holes or seem too simple. This thread is up to discussion and interpretation of adding or removing some details, or changing them to make them interesting, simple, efficient, and/or easy to code in. I will be putting any other suggestions or changes under spoiler tags at the bottom, if I'm not lazy.


So starmade's systems as of now are a bit boring. You place a couple of blocks, some weapons, and you've made a ship. The only thing that requires even a bit of thought is power placement. Other than that, make a small interior, plan where you want some blocks, and you're done. Now, whenever I build ships, and when I look at other ships online, the ship hulls like to show more than just that. Directional thrusters, power tanks, fuel tanks, balls of energy inside futuristic fantasy reactors, etc. And it would be so much better if starmade was like that. There could be economies and fuel deliveries, building skills of where to put what and armor techniques, more creative patterns for reactor design, and roleplay interiors could actually matter when it comes to cargo. Think industrial minecraft mods but for space.

Fuel idea(s):
As of right now I only have one idea for a useable resource which can be put into a ship and converted into anything. Think of it as a superpower oil that a 5 year old would make up, or SP-5 for short. If anyone has more ideas I'll list them here:

Power system:
Starmade's power system is simple: Make long lines of power that don't connect, and done. Sure, there are reactors that you can make but those are rarely used. So here's my idea: the SP-5 has lots of electrons. Now this is probably going to sound stupid and feel free to throw science books, but in the future this special reactor separates the electrons from the nucleus of the SP-5 atom. The SP-5 starts out in an armored multi-block chamber with 2 output pipes: One leading to the engines, and the other leading to the multi-block power reactors. So the SP-5 enters the chamber and through SCIENCE, the electrons are split and lifted into power cables into a transformer which makes it safe to use. The power is used to power almost everything in the ship except for lighting. You can also make a small single-block generator for scout ship use, or make one block (or multi-block) batteries.


Movement thruster:
Thrusters in the game aren't so great either. Make a big block and you can move now. Here's how I think we can make them more useful. The idea is that the SP-5 enters a multi-block chamber where it is compressed tightly through the power of SCIENCE and physics. Once it's ready, it's released into the engine nozzle. Before it makes it out, a barrier created by the SP-5 electricity ignites the compressed fuel and the fuel rapidly ejects. Also you can make thrust vectoring with rails. Directional thrusters will work the same way.

Jump drive:
As for the jump drive, charge time will depend on your ships power. To ensure the power won't go out ,there will be a control computer where you can adjust how much of your ships power you want powering the jump drive. You can't go past your ship's regen. Anyway, this time the same SP-5 that was compressed is ignited again. Instead of being let out normally, the electricity is used to compress it in a ball outside of the ship. Now, once again with SCIENCE, after a while this ball will be capable of bending the fabric of space outside the ship and pushing it forward. Longer sectors take longer times to jump.

Shield(s?):
I'm not too sure of the shield system. Starmade's shields as of now are pretty cool, but it would also be nice to have a bubble shield. Basically there are two types of shields I'd like to see:

1. The current shield system where the SP-5 is charged and spread out onto electric plates that spread them over areas on the ship depending on plate size.

2. Bubble shield powered by our current capacitors and regen except the capacitors are multi-block bubbles put in or out the ship and the regen generates the "bubble shield" soap.

Those are all the ideas I have right now. If anyone has more or imrpovements please reply.

 

[Darkkon]

Unfortunately, it seems that whenever bubble shields are brought up, people maintain that they are too difficult/laggy/whatever to implement. I for one, would love to see them too although thats mainly because im a huge star trek fan.

My opinion of the entire idea though is equally positive. Definitely like to see all of these implemented at some point, although the thrusters may be a little too in depth.

 

[solarapple]

Unfortunately, it seems that whenever bubble shields are brought up, people maintain that they are too difficult/laggy/whatever to implement. I for one, would love to see them too although thats mainly because im a huge star trek fan.

My opinion of the entire idea though is equally positive. Definitely like to see all of these implemented at some point, although the thrusters may be a little too in depth.

Yeah, I can see them being a bit hard to implement. To be honest I actually prefer plate shields over bubbles. Gives a ship more good looks. Like robocraft electro plates.

 

[Darkkon]

Something else i thought of is that splitting up blocks that do something into a bunch of blocks that can only do that same thing when arranged right, isn't quite the way Starmade is being set up for. From The Depths is more designed in that idea because its geared more towards optimizing and engineering your own vessels. StarMade is going for a more all around feel of space exploration, diplomacy, battle, and design so sticking to blocks that each do their own thing without having a ton of dependencies is a better idea.

Just my opinion, and observation.

 

[solarapple]

Something else i thought of is that splitting up blocks that do something into a bunch of blocks that can only do that same thing when arranged right, isn't quite the way Starmade is being set up for. From The Depths is more designed in that idea because its geared more towards optimizing and engineering your own vessels. StarMade is going for a more all around feel of space exploration, diplomacy, battle, and design so sticking to blocks that each do their own thing without having a ton of dependencies is a better idea.

Just my opinion, and observation.

I can see where you're coming from. Starmade is a true universe sandbox, and with sandboxes you can have big wars. Still though, like minecraft has redstoners and slime block builders, starmade also has many ship builders. Although it probably isn't too neccesary right now, it would be nice if modular things like this could be implemented. It could also encourage war and diplomacy. Factions could fight over super rare high tier materials and resources. Sabotaging fuel cargo ships, discussing privately of best reactor patterns, tactics on how to disable a ship by aiming for the resource tank, and more. However it could take a long time and I prefer it shouldn't be added too quickly, otherwise all ships and stations would need complete refits.

 

[Darkkon]

I can see where you're coming from. Starmade is a true universe sandbox, and with sandboxes you can have big wars. Still though, like minecraft has redstoners and slime block builders, starmade also has many ship builders. Although it probably isn't too neccesary right now, it would be nice if modular things like this could be implemented. It could also encourage war and diplomacy. Factions could fight over super rare high tier materials and resources. Sabotaging fuel cargo ships, discussing privately of best reactor patterns, tactics on how to disable a ship by aiming for the resource tank, and more. However it could take a long time and I prefer it shouldn't be added too quickly, otherwise all ships and stations would need complete refits.

Maybe later on down the line, then yeah, that could be great. That being said though, and this is a common argument against complicating the way systems work, it would deter new players. Forgive me for using it as an example again but From The Depths is difficult to figure out when you're just starting the game because of just how much you need to know to get something to work. Yes it has prefabs and tutorials, but its still one of those things where it feels tedious having to learn all of it.

One solution is having the base blocks, and having a more advanced system that provides better performance or efficiency to the system you're working with, which does make sense. You can buy the standard, or go expert and build your own that works ten times better. The problem is though, the block ID issue (which I still don't fully understand but I'm sure someone reading this thread at some point does.)

 

[NeonSturm]

I am waiting for a system where a fraction of the ship is designated to blocks of a certain type.

• 20% systems
• 20% hull
• 60 free space (for Role-Play, ship design)

to make ship designs less limited by how you have design reactors, etc.

And then, I would give a small buff (about 10-20%) to ships that have their favourite system in a certain shape or part of the ship, depending on server/type rules (StarTrek: Klingon/Federation/ WH40k: SpaceMarines, or just the default rules).

 

[Byamarro]

Yeah, I can see them being a bit hard to implement. To be honest I actually prefer plate shields over bubbles. Gives a ship more good looks. Like robocraft electro plates.

Bubble shields would require even less computations than current ones.
Right now missile need to hit ship, which have very complicated shape, while bubble shield is just bubble.

I can see where you're coming from. Starmade is a true universe sandbox, and with sandboxes you can have big wars. Still though, like minecraft has redstoners and slime block builders, starmade also has many ship builders. Although it probably isn't too neccesary right now, it would be nice if modular things like this could be implemented. It could also encourage war and diplomacy. Factions could fight over super rare high tier materials and resources. Sabotaging fuel cargo ships, discussing privately of best reactor patterns, tactics on how to disable a ship by aiming for the resource tank, and more. However it could take a long time and I prefer it shouldn't be added too quickly, otherwise all ships and stations would need complete refits.

Builders will be able to implement more cool and USEFULL rooms. Like fuel storage for upcoming crew etc. Right now most of rooms are useless.

 

[NeonSturm]

Bubble shields would require even less computations than current ones.
Right now missile need to hit ship, which have very complicated shape, while bubble shield is just bubble.

True.
( projectile.{x,y,z} - ellipse.centre.{x,y,z} ) / ellipse.size.{x,y,z} [>1 : outside | <1 : inside | on_change : draw effect after coordinate/vector reverse calculations]

 

[kiraen]

Bubble shields used to be in the game. They were remove for many reasons.
One of those reasons was the severe performance impact.
Bubble shields are not going to happen.

 

[Darkkon]

Bubble shields used to be in the game. They were remove for many reasons.
One of those reasons was the severe performance impact.
Bubble shields are not going to happen.

Just to be clear on one thing regarding this "not gonna happen". I am a computer science major and one of the first things that I was taught was that you can do anything with computers, and computers are dumb. the second bit is not pertinent but the first part is inherently true. There are almost certainly ways for the performance impact to be minimized. Just requires some creative/careful coding. The largest barrier is the time and energy it would take to figure that out. I don't know what the other reasons are for removing bubble shields, but while I don't fault Schine for removing them in any way, i just want to point out that at some level you can make performance friendly *insert idea here* just because of the versatility of computers.

And back on topic for the OP, perhaps a system where you have modules that you can add on to existing systems that increase efficiency, output, input, etc. utilizing the power generator as an example, increasing efficiency could be a fuel system. In essence, the generator runs better when it has something to create energy from. Increasing output could be an amplifier added to the generator. Increasing input could be a stronger form of fuel.