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This is not meant to be a suggestion thread, although I hope a variety of suggestions arise from it. If it is in the suggestion forum, it was moved there in error and should be returned to general discussion. I’m not suggesting anything new here - I’m elaborating on much-discussed issues as thoroughly as possible.
There have been a number of discussions about balancing large and small ships, balancing resource costs, generating strategic conflict between factions, and why we should (or equally adamantly why we should not) add fuel to Starmade. Here I will endeavor to bring these separate discussions together and elaborate on various possibilities.
The implementation of fuel in Starmade seems inevitable, but is a topic of hot debate and argument, and even flaming. Now why is this so controversial? It is clear that when fuel is added, it will be configurable so those who don’t like it won’t have to use it. Thus, these changes will not affect those who don’t like the idea of fuel. If you don’t like fuel, play on a server that has it turned off. There are those of us who want fuel, and for a number of good reasons.
Arguably the foremost is that players want a bit of a challenge, a certain struggle in life to spice things up and make gameplay interesting as they fight to survive in a harsh universe. What’s a story without a conflict to drive the plot? Tastes will vary greatly in this from a hardcore survival play style where just keeping the engines lit is a struggle, to a fairly easy play style where fuel is only remotely concerning unless you’re just plain lazy. Of course there is also the rather noisy and outspoken group of players who hate the idea that fuel might be even a slight problem. Such players will choose servers that have fuel disabled completely (unlimited fuel). To accommodate this range of play styles, I expect fuel burn, rarity of fuel sources, and whether such sources are exhaustible will be exposed in the configs.
Another reason players like fuel is the same reason many others hate it: micro-management. Some players find it fun to manage infrastructure, or even perform repetitive tasks. (If some people didn’t like some amount of repetition, RuneScape would have never gotten off the ground). I understand that most don’t, but the key is to strike as much of a balance as possible for the default configs, but at the same time leave enough options exposed in the server configs so that they can be customized for the player base of each server.
Thus far I’ve been stating the obvious. Here’s where things get interesting. Configured in different ways, fuel has the ability to influence average ship size, frequency of faction conflicts over resources, and the ratio of players to ships. How, you ask? Listen up now and critique my theory so it can be improved.
Fuel in most forms will influence the balance small versus large ships if it is in any degree of shortage. If fuel is used as a buff rather than a necessity, a smaller ship with fuel may match or defeat a larger ship without fuel (and a number of smaller ships are already known to have a tactical advantage over one larger ship that equals their combined mass). If fuel is a necessity to even operate a ship, concerns about running out will encourage players to use a ship just big enough to get the job done, reducing average ship size somewhat. In both cases, fuel can be made largely irrelevant in this respect if it is plentiful enough that everyone has far more than they need all the time. If you want balance to be the same as today or nearly the same, make fuel unlimited or practically so in your server configs. The reason for all of this is that when considering a larger ship, one must always ask if the benefits of the larger ship outweigh the cost in fuel to operate it. This is an extension of simple supply and demand economics.
If fuel is sufficiently bothersome and a ship of a desirable size becomes a nuisance to maintain alone, players will more frequently opt to reduce their workload by joining up with one or more other players to maintain a larger ship. Thus, fuel can influence the number of ships manned or maintained by multiple players as it affects how much player experience is improved by working together on one vessel. If this:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/save-player-relative-to-ship-upon-logout.1804/
ever becomes a reality, it will greatly augment this effect by making co-ownership of vessels more convenient. Currently, some servers impose artificial limits on the number of ships over a certain size a faction can field to prevent capital vessel spam. The same thing can be done economically with fuel, however. Capships obviously use a lot of fuel. To field one, a faction must take into account the cost in fuel and the potential to use this fuel for something else, like several battleships instead of a titan and a few frigates. This is more dynamic and interesting than an artificial limit on ships because a lot of things can affect fuel supply.
Of course, one thing that can affect your fuel supply is other factions attacking your fuel sources and taking them. Here’s another interesting factor: the nature of fuel sources. If a fuel source can run out, factions will move around a lot and probably spend more time looking farther than fighting over what’s nearby. For a faction to want to take over an exhaustible resource, the potential gains from that source must outweigh the cost of battle both in fuel and in ships. This is unlikely, not to mention exhaustible fuel sources would mean entire galaxies would eventually become bereft of fuel to burn. This option would only be good for people who like to explore and mine/gather/whatever constantly, with little more than a rare skirmish. I personally would find this boring.
Now what if there were an entirely unlimited fuel source? In that case, get one source and you have it all. All of your energy needs will be met by taking control of one source. Conflict will only arise if there are not enough fuel sources to go around and someone decides taking one over is easier than trading for fuel. In other words, conflict over fuel is still not likely unless someone is just being a control freak. Such an option could be ideal for moderate play styles where there is little micro-management (once you’ve got it made, you’ve got it made), some potential for conflict (people get suspicious or greedy and take more than they need), but in the absence of a big, scary, greedy empire, there’s little need to fight over fuel.
Next, think of a similar inexhaustible fuel source, but imagine that there is a limit to how much the source produces in a given amount of time. Factions will start out happy enough and will stay put, at least until they begin to outgrow their fuel sources. Then they will look to the stars for more. However, that “more” is more valuable than something that’s here today and gone tomorrow. Someone else probably wants it too. Conflict grows increasingly likely as factions grow in size. In the future on high-population servers, this may escalate to the point of driving factions away to other galaxies. Cool war zone, bro. This is my favorite option as it drives faction interaction and conflict harder than the others.
Before I close, here’s an angle that might not have been so obvious. A power source that is practical for a mobile, maneuvering ship might not be all that cost effective on a non-moving station or a planet. Purely as an example, let’s say ships run on antimatter. The stuff’s a bother to get as it has to be refined from, say a charged nebula that might have any of the fuel source properties I outlined above. Now let’s say I have a space station. Rather than use precious antimatter fuel, I elect to power my station with massive solar arrays that a ship can’t really carry as they are too heavy and bulky to be practical. This adds advantages to having a space station over a large ship other than being able to put your factories on it. How about a planet? Besides being pretty (unless you have your segments drawn set so high you get 5 fps near planets… silly people), starmade’s planets all seem to have molten cores. That means we can use geothermal power, which is cheaper than solar panels! Look at that: finite energy has the potential to solve one of the biggest problems with planets: their current lack of utilitarian usefulness. Add to this a feature like “deep core miners” from this thread:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/a-m...n-interactions-and-resource-acquisition.4613/
and planets will be popular for bases before you know it. Keep in mind of course that the power sources I outlined here are just examples. They could be entirely different, but this is something to consider when designing suggestions for fuel and such.
If you’re still reading by this point, thank you for hearing me out. If I’ve made any mistakes or left things out, please let me know. If you have ideas for particular fuel mechanics, feel free to link them below. One thing is for sure: the addition of an optional and highly configurable fuel mechanic is a positive thing for Starmade and its community.
There have been a number of discussions about balancing large and small ships, balancing resource costs, generating strategic conflict between factions, and why we should (or equally adamantly why we should not) add fuel to Starmade. Here I will endeavor to bring these separate discussions together and elaborate on various possibilities.
The implementation of fuel in Starmade seems inevitable, but is a topic of hot debate and argument, and even flaming. Now why is this so controversial? It is clear that when fuel is added, it will be configurable so those who don’t like it won’t have to use it. Thus, these changes will not affect those who don’t like the idea of fuel. If you don’t like fuel, play on a server that has it turned off. There are those of us who want fuel, and for a number of good reasons.
Arguably the foremost is that players want a bit of a challenge, a certain struggle in life to spice things up and make gameplay interesting as they fight to survive in a harsh universe. What’s a story without a conflict to drive the plot? Tastes will vary greatly in this from a hardcore survival play style where just keeping the engines lit is a struggle, to a fairly easy play style where fuel is only remotely concerning unless you’re just plain lazy. Of course there is also the rather noisy and outspoken group of players who hate the idea that fuel might be even a slight problem. Such players will choose servers that have fuel disabled completely (unlimited fuel). To accommodate this range of play styles, I expect fuel burn, rarity of fuel sources, and whether such sources are exhaustible will be exposed in the configs.
Another reason players like fuel is the same reason many others hate it: micro-management. Some players find it fun to manage infrastructure, or even perform repetitive tasks. (If some people didn’t like some amount of repetition, RuneScape would have never gotten off the ground). I understand that most don’t, but the key is to strike as much of a balance as possible for the default configs, but at the same time leave enough options exposed in the server configs so that they can be customized for the player base of each server.
Thus far I’ve been stating the obvious. Here’s where things get interesting. Configured in different ways, fuel has the ability to influence average ship size, frequency of faction conflicts over resources, and the ratio of players to ships. How, you ask? Listen up now and critique my theory so it can be improved.
Fuel in most forms will influence the balance small versus large ships if it is in any degree of shortage. If fuel is used as a buff rather than a necessity, a smaller ship with fuel may match or defeat a larger ship without fuel (and a number of smaller ships are already known to have a tactical advantage over one larger ship that equals their combined mass). If fuel is a necessity to even operate a ship, concerns about running out will encourage players to use a ship just big enough to get the job done, reducing average ship size somewhat. In both cases, fuel can be made largely irrelevant in this respect if it is plentiful enough that everyone has far more than they need all the time. If you want balance to be the same as today or nearly the same, make fuel unlimited or practically so in your server configs. The reason for all of this is that when considering a larger ship, one must always ask if the benefits of the larger ship outweigh the cost in fuel to operate it. This is an extension of simple supply and demand economics.
If fuel is sufficiently bothersome and a ship of a desirable size becomes a nuisance to maintain alone, players will more frequently opt to reduce their workload by joining up with one or more other players to maintain a larger ship. Thus, fuel can influence the number of ships manned or maintained by multiple players as it affects how much player experience is improved by working together on one vessel. If this:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/save-player-relative-to-ship-upon-logout.1804/
ever becomes a reality, it will greatly augment this effect by making co-ownership of vessels more convenient. Currently, some servers impose artificial limits on the number of ships over a certain size a faction can field to prevent capital vessel spam. The same thing can be done economically with fuel, however. Capships obviously use a lot of fuel. To field one, a faction must take into account the cost in fuel and the potential to use this fuel for something else, like several battleships instead of a titan and a few frigates. This is more dynamic and interesting than an artificial limit on ships because a lot of things can affect fuel supply.
Of course, one thing that can affect your fuel supply is other factions attacking your fuel sources and taking them. Here’s another interesting factor: the nature of fuel sources. If a fuel source can run out, factions will move around a lot and probably spend more time looking farther than fighting over what’s nearby. For a faction to want to take over an exhaustible resource, the potential gains from that source must outweigh the cost of battle both in fuel and in ships. This is unlikely, not to mention exhaustible fuel sources would mean entire galaxies would eventually become bereft of fuel to burn. This option would only be good for people who like to explore and mine/gather/whatever constantly, with little more than a rare skirmish. I personally would find this boring.
Now what if there were an entirely unlimited fuel source? In that case, get one source and you have it all. All of your energy needs will be met by taking control of one source. Conflict will only arise if there are not enough fuel sources to go around and someone decides taking one over is easier than trading for fuel. In other words, conflict over fuel is still not likely unless someone is just being a control freak. Such an option could be ideal for moderate play styles where there is little micro-management (once you’ve got it made, you’ve got it made), some potential for conflict (people get suspicious or greedy and take more than they need), but in the absence of a big, scary, greedy empire, there’s little need to fight over fuel.
Next, think of a similar inexhaustible fuel source, but imagine that there is a limit to how much the source produces in a given amount of time. Factions will start out happy enough and will stay put, at least until they begin to outgrow their fuel sources. Then they will look to the stars for more. However, that “more” is more valuable than something that’s here today and gone tomorrow. Someone else probably wants it too. Conflict grows increasingly likely as factions grow in size. In the future on high-population servers, this may escalate to the point of driving factions away to other galaxies. Cool war zone, bro. This is my favorite option as it drives faction interaction and conflict harder than the others.
Before I close, here’s an angle that might not have been so obvious. A power source that is practical for a mobile, maneuvering ship might not be all that cost effective on a non-moving station or a planet. Purely as an example, let’s say ships run on antimatter. The stuff’s a bother to get as it has to be refined from, say a charged nebula that might have any of the fuel source properties I outlined above. Now let’s say I have a space station. Rather than use precious antimatter fuel, I elect to power my station with massive solar arrays that a ship can’t really carry as they are too heavy and bulky to be practical. This adds advantages to having a space station over a large ship other than being able to put your factories on it. How about a planet? Besides being pretty (unless you have your segments drawn set so high you get 5 fps near planets… silly people), starmade’s planets all seem to have molten cores. That means we can use geothermal power, which is cheaper than solar panels! Look at that: finite energy has the potential to solve one of the biggest problems with planets: their current lack of utilitarian usefulness. Add to this a feature like “deep core miners” from this thread:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/a-m...n-interactions-and-resource-acquisition.4613/
and planets will be popular for bases before you know it. Keep in mind of course that the power sources I outlined here are just examples. They could be entirely different, but this is something to consider when designing suggestions for fuel and such.
If you’re still reading by this point, thank you for hearing me out. If I’ve made any mistakes or left things out, please let me know. If you have ideas for particular fuel mechanics, feel free to link them below. One thing is for sure: the addition of an optional and highly configurable fuel mechanic is a positive thing for Starmade and its community.
