An analysis of the relationship between planets, faction interactions and resource acquisition.

[Speedyblupi]

Thinking like this, you seem to wish to completely kill multiplayer gameplay. It is already hard enough to make up the resouces for ships on Vanilla.


1- There will be always that guy who has no life that will grind the heck of the game and make a doom(cube or brick).

2- So, you support the idea of enforcing people of a faction to do work for you ? This never works. Huge experience talking here.

3- No matter how difficult it is to make ships, people will never leave gigantism, because at the moment someone gets a 10mil blocks ships (do not use mass as a size measurement anymore, some blocks are now more heavier then others) nobody will ever bother to leave their homebases, unless they build something even bigger, making a snowball.

0- No. I don't want to kill multiplayer gameplay. This is in the context of a situation where resources would be differently distributed, meaning you'd need more trade, and battles between factions would be meaningful because they'd need to do it in order to get access to different resource types.

1- Yes, and you get that either way. There will always be people putting in days of effort to get huge ships whether "huge ship" means 50k blocks or 5 million blocks.

2- This never works? I guess you've been playing different MMOs to what I have. I've been in lots of situations where people have been able to work together to get resources for a big project.

3- See point 0. People will need to leave their home bases to get the resources they don't otherwise have access to.
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Uh... if you're a solo player worried about attacks you could always make the planet your homebase you know? I really don't see how an additional way to get ressources would make it harder to obtain cap ships.

The way I see it it'd alleviate the grind that is getting ressources by making part of it passive.

This is a situation where you would need to defend multiple planets to get multiple resource types. It would make it harder to get cap ships because it would mean that you can't directly mine planets with a salvage beam, instead giving you an option for slower income from a module on the surface.

 

[jorgekorke]

0- No. I don't want to kill multiplayer gameplay. This is in the context of a situation where resources would be differently distributed, meaning you'd need more trade, and battles between factions would be meaningful because they'd need to do it in order to get access to different resource types.

1- Yes, and you get that either way. There will always be people putting in days of effort to get huge ships whether "huge ship" means 50k blocks or 5 million blocks.

2- This never works? I guess you've been playing different MMOs to what I have. I've been in lots of situations where people have been able to work together to get resources for a big project.

3- See point 0. People will need to leave their home bases to get the resources they don't otherwise have access to.

C1 - My point has been made, then.

C2 - Try running a faction, and you will know what I mean. Your average SM player is more interested on building and fighting, not spending 5 full hours clicking right mouse button.

C3 - By "leaving the homebase" I don't mean a trip to a place just for mining. Of course, anybody could do this and remain hidden. No interaction will happen.

But nobody is going to bother fighting. I warned this since the day the BP update came out - and I was right. PvP only came back to it's tracks once servers started to increase giant mining multipliers.

Grinding is something that should be kept away from the focus on Starmade, this is not one of those asian MMOs.

 

[Lecic]

Your average SM player is more interested on building and fighting, not spending 5 full hours clicking right mouse button.

This is an extremely important reason why we need some sort of automated income. Mining drones (that work in unloaded sectors) and mantle extractors are needed.

Mining is a little bit fun for about 5 minutes. I like seeing asteroids vanish under a salvage array's might. It just gets boring and a bit blinding after a while. I wish salvage beams worked in an AoE.

 

[jorgekorke]

This is an extremely important reason why we need some sort of automated income. Mining drones (that work in unloaded sectors) and mantle extractors are needed.

Mining is a little bit fun for about 5 minutes. I like seeing asteroids vanish under a salvage array's might. It just gets boring and a bit blinding after a while. I wish salvage beams worked in an AoE.

Indeed, and this is one of the main reasons Planet mining is so popular

 

[Criss]

Alright I read through the OP but did not go through the 8 pages already posted here. So I may have missed something big and you should respond if I have. Let me first explain that there will be a vast difference between the interactions of players/planets/asteroids now and when the game is finished. What that looks like we do not know. But it will be more complex and could certainly be just as in depth as the solutions Keptick outlined.

Make planets invulnerable against mining beams (impossible to mine).

At this point I think it would be the best option. I do not know the source, but I believe it was stated before that planets would provide a different set of resources for different areas of gameplay.

The distance from the center of a galaxy. The center having the richest planets and the external systems having the poorest ones. For example, a 200m radius planet located at the center of the galaxy would have a greater regeneration rate than an identical planet located at the tip of a galactic arm.

This would need to be reversed to match the other areas of gameplay properly. The outer edges of the galaxy are supposed to be more dangerous to explore than the inner planets. With that comes risk versus reward. Are you willing to venture into hostile territories for more valuable planets/resources/loot? For example, bases in the center of the galaxy will be more easily protected against the weaker pirates than on the outer edges where hostiles are more powerful and come in greater numbers. This is a confirmed plan.

(optional) The more planets in a system the richer they are. The reason I say this is optional is because, while not being essential, it would encourage people to fight over rich planetary systems even more.

There are many ways to assign value to systems. Each type of planet could provide different resources for different things. To add to that, things like fuel and ammunition could be required for ships and therefore would require a planet base simply to function at all. It's best to assign things like fuel and ammo to a regenerating resource since all ships will undoubtedly need it.

Each plate has it's own "deep core miner". Meaning that if you want to completely exploit a planet you need a "deep core miner" on every single plate. Quite some work to set up, but very rewarding.

Having your harvest rate go over the regen rate would be a waste of extender blocks.

At this point there should be a bit of risk. What happens if you mine out a planet faster than it regenerates or if you have maximized miners on each plate? When things like this occur I fully expect the opening sequence to the Man of Steel movie to happen in which Krypton imploded due to the drilling of their core for resources. Planet catastrophes should happen! There should be a balancing factor here.

The territory mining bonuses apply to the "deep core miner". Meaning that being in friendly territory grants a x12 (or whatever is set on the server) bonus to the materials harvested.

There will come a point where I see mining bonuses not being so high as they are now. The reason for this is the infinite resources that are already available to us. When factions inevitably are forced to expand their territory due to changes in the game they will be finding more resources than ever. Sure there can still be a bonus for actually owning a territory. When it comes to planets it's looking like we can already multiply our intake based on the planet plates we planted a miner on. If those resources are infinitely regenerating, and we want to encourage exploration, wouldn't it make sense to start lowering those bonuses or removing them. I would rather grant a bonus for having a capital mining ship in a sector with your miners than passively letting you accumulate more resources because a faction block says so. When it comes to planets, perhaps there could be a way to designate which planet is getting a bonus. Say 1/10 planets is equipped with a "large mining yield" boost. It needs to be more in depth than what we have currently.

The miners must ABSOLUTELY keep on working even when the sector is unloaded.

Shipyards can do this. I bet planet miners could too.

Asteroids would become useless

Incorrect! As I stated above, things like Ammunition and fuel are possibilities. You would be mining an entirely new resource from planets. Flora and Fauna I believe will be tied to the crafting of astronaut resources iirc.

A single player could harvest multiple planets on his own, meaning that he'd have an extreme abundance of resources.

With this comes changes to faction points. Faction points can simply represent the resources of a faction that are spent on the upkeep of structures. This is hardly implemented. I suspect stations, planetary bases and even defenses of these structures will cost faction points. The points are accumulated by various actions of the faction as well as a base generation determined by the active players. It's all very up in the air. Factions unable to hold on to these assets loose them. Another faction can walk in and take it without firing a shot similar to abandoned stations.

Keep in mind I did not confirm or deny anything here. A lot of the various stuff that I mentioned are the things that the team members talk about. There are plans to improve all these areas of gameplay and these are some of the options. In the end we want planets to have purpose. We want them to have bases and resources of their own. We want to encourage exploration and territory acquisition. And overall there has to be some risk vs reward going on so that with these infinite resources, there is very much the chance that something wrong will happen on your end.

Bench might have more to say. But again, none of these areas of gameplay are exactly on our plate yet. It could be a bit before we are ready to discuss final solutions.

 

[Keptick]

Alright I read through the OP but did not go through the 8 pages already posted here. So I may have missed something big and you should respond if I have. Let me first explain that there will be a vast difference between the interactions of players/planets/asteroids now and when the game is finished. What that looks like we do not know. But it will be more complex and could certainly be just as in depth as the solutions Keptick outlined.


At this point I think it would be the best option. I do not know the source, but I believe it was stated before that planets would provide a different set of resources for different areas of gameplay.


This would need to be reversed to match the other areas of gameplay properly. The outer edges of the galaxy are supposed to be more dangerous to explore than the inner planets. With that comes risk versus reward. Are you willing to venture into hostile territories for more valuable planets/resources/loot? For example, bases in the center of the galaxy will be more easily protected against the weaker pirates than on the outer edges where hostiles are more powerful and come in greater numbers. This is a confirmed plan.


There are many ways to assign value to systems. Each type of planet could provide different resources for different things. To add to that, things like fuel and ammunition could be required for ships and therefore would require a planet base simply to function at all. It's best to assign things like fuel and ammo to a regenerating resource since all ships will undoubtedly need it.




At this point there should be a bit of risk. What happens if you mine out a planet faster than it regenerates or if you have maximized miners on each plate? When things like this occur I fully expect the opening sequence to the Man of Steel movie to happen in which Krypton imploded due to the drilling of their core for resources. Planet catastrophes should happen! There should be a balancing factor here.


There will come a point where I see mining bonuses not being so high as they are now. The reason for this is the infinite resources that are already available to us. When factions inevitably are forced to expand their territory due to changes in the game they will be finding more resources than ever. Sure there can still be a bonus for actually owning a territory. When it comes to planets it's looking like we can already multiply our intake based on the planet plates we planted a miner on. If those resources are infinitely regenerating, and we want to encourage exploration, wouldn't it make sense to start lowering those bonuses or removing them. I would rather grant a bonus for having a capital mining ship in a sector with your miners than passively letting you accumulate more resources because a faction block says so. When it comes to planets, perhaps there could be a way to designate which planet is getting a bonus. Say 1/10 planets is equipped with a "large mining yield" boost. It needs to be more in depth than what we have currently.


Shipyards can do this. I bet planet miners could too.


Incorrect! As I stated above, things like Ammunition and fuel are possibilities. You would be mining an entirely new resource from planets. Flora and Fauna I believe will be tied to the crafting of astronaut resources iirc.


With this comes changes to faction points. Faction points can simply represent the resources of a faction that are spent on the upkeep of structures. This is hardly implemented. I suspect stations, planetary bases and even defenses of these structures will cost faction points. The points are accumulated by various actions of the faction as well as a base generation determined by the active players. It's all very up in the air. Factions unable to hold on to these assets loose them. Another faction can walk in and take it without firing a shot similar to abandoned stations.

Keep in mind I did not confirm or deny anything here. A lot of the various stuff that I mentioned are the things that the team members talk about. There are plans to improve all these areas of gameplay and these are some of the options. In the end we want planets to have purpose. We want them to have bases and resources of their own. We want to encourage exploration and territory acquisition. And overall there has to be some risk vs reward going on so that with these infinite resources, there is very much the chance that something wrong will happen on your end.

Bench might have more to say. But again, none of these areas of gameplay are exactly on our plate yet. It could be a bit before we are ready to discuss final solutions.

Thanks tons for the response! I agree with you on everything here. The only thing I'd like to point out is that the last two things you quoted were possible concerns I was adressing, so as you said asteroid providing either different ressources or more direct ressource gain, and the requirement to actually defend planets from pirates or other players which limits over-expansion.

 

[Bench]

I feel a bit like Beetlejuice, say my name enough times and I appear.

Planets is something that has recently been on my mind as they're a large part of the game but at the moment through things like performance issues on servers, they're not all that viable. Needless to say we're aware of some of the issues, but there's a lot on the agenda to be looked at more thoroughly.

At the moment this conversation of gathering resources ties in with a larger conversation that covers everything from how factions work, interactions with other alien races, shops, economy, the recruitment of NPC crew beyond what's currently in the game, questing, bounties, and more.

So expect if we do change the gameplay experience during this current period, we'll end up changing it again as we balance all these other aspects of the game as they're added in. We have a lot of plans and a lot of gameplay features we want to see in the game, and we want to give you a number of ways you can play the game, through exploration, resource gathering, and more. One of my motivations is to do what I can to make StarMade into a game that at the end of it all, is a game I love to play and can do all I wish I could do in such a game. And I'd say most of us are motivated as such.

I know it can feel a bit repetitive us saying this is planned, that is planned, but then you don't get to see much movement. We're working hard. Thanks for your patience.

 

[Lecic]

interactions with other alien races

Any information you'd be willing to share on that?

 

[ZaneyHD]

First i was like" what??" then i kept reading... this is a really good idea!

 

[Ithirahad]

There will come a point where I see mining bonuses not being so high as they are now. The reason for this is the infinite resources that are already available to us. When factions inevitably are forced to expand their territory due to changes in the game they will be finding more resources than ever. Sure there can still be a bonus for actually owning a territory. When it comes to planets it's looking like we can already multiply our intake based on the planet plates we planted a miner on. If those resources are infinitely regenerating, and we want to encourage exploration, wouldn't it make sense to start lowering those bonuses or removing them. I would rather grant a bonus for having a capital mining ship in a sector with your miners than passively letting you accumulate more resources because a faction block says so. When it comes to planets, perhaps there could be a way to designate which planet is getting a bonus. Say 1/10 planets is equipped with a "large mining yield" boost. It needs to be more in depth than what we have currently.

Eh, I honestly prefer Keptick's suggestions regarding this. You would not be "passively accumulating more resources because a faction block says so," you would be passively accumulating more resources because you have machine mining out the massive amounts of resources inside a planet's core and transferring them to a secure faction facility for transport to the homeworld/homebase. As for mining bonuses, can we please not? Current default mining configurations make the game really really boring unless you mine out planets, which for the good of servers I never do... Regenerating or not regenerating, playing this game shouldn't be "mine all day or exploit newbies to do it for you."

 

[Valck]

playing this game shouldn't be "mine all day or exploit newbies to do it for you."

Unless of course you enjoy mining all day. Not so sure about exploiting newbies though... ; )

Anyway, should the default mining factors get changed, there's always server.cfg

 

[Nomad525]

Love the idea Keptick.

One thing I want to add is the ability to make a planet resource barren.

One of my fears is that a large faction could become to static. They would control a large section of core space, are well established/well defended, and gather more resources then they could ever use.

What if to counter act this problem you make planets have a Cap resource on top of refresh rate. This Cap could be extremely high but this way over the course of months or even longer factions would have to change. Factions would need to set up and defend new colony/mining worlds. New trade routes to and from those colonies would form.

New trade routes and frontier worlds would also give smaller factions and pirates more opportunities to strike at the larger faction.

Over all I think the ability to make a planet barren would only add to make a more dynamic universe. Anyway those are my musings.

 

[Ithirahad]

Love the idea Keptick.

One thing I want to add is the ability to make a planet resource barren.

One of my fears is that a large faction could become to static. They would control a large section of core space, are well established/well defended, and gather more resources then they could ever use.

What if to counter act this problem you make planets have a Cap resource on top of refresh rate. This Cap could be extremely high but this way over the course of months or even longer factions would have to change. Factions would need to set up and defend new colony/mining worlds. New trade routes to and from those colonies would form.

New trade routes and frontier worlds would also give smaller factions and pirates more opportunities to strike at the larger faction.

Over all I think the ability to make a planet barren would only add to make a more dynamic universe. Anyway those are my musings.

Nothing wrong with a large faction becoming static, IMO. Under a well-designed faction systems, a static faction like that might become a target for other factions, who would be able to take their immense amount of resources.

 

[Nickizzy]

Nothing wrong with a large faction becoming static, IMO. Under a well-designed faction systems, a static faction like that might become a target for other factions, who would be able to take their immense amount of resources.

And as long as the static faction isnt hoarding in their homebase or spitting out ships at random if you could find their loot piles it'd be quite the reward.

Imagine if some ninja snuck into their storage room with a torch gun and broke their storage:D.

 

[StarWars1981]

Here's a few ideas to go in with all this:
Limited station/planetary/starship storage:
You can only put so much crap in one location before you hit a HARD cap. This prevents homebase camping.
Looting:
Blow up a ship/station, storage stays put and intact. Storage blocks can form some kind of crate pile in space/on surface when the base is "overheated" or "destroyed". But storage blocks, though not invulnerable, become MUCH tougher to accidentally annihilate. Now there's a POINT to looting bases.
Planetary resource cap:
As above in the previous posts. Asteroid belts only respawn X times, as well.

The End Result:
Coruscant. The center of the SW galaxy - but why? It has no resources, trillions of people stacked on top of each other, and yet it does nothing but consume.
The answer? Government. It CONTROLS the Republic/Empire/New Republic. In SM, it would be a massive shipyard - a cored-out, fauna-dead planet built over with command-and-control setups, training, barracks, shipyards, storage blocks -- it's your capital, your homebase.

You can only have one homebase, and it can only hold so much stored crap. Docking cargo vessels would have to be somehow affected - perhaps a timer, followed by stored resource degeneration? A timer of hours, which cannot be instantly reset by dock/undock, before the overload on board the ship (only ships aligned to the faction count) begins to degenerate.
Now you HAVE to hold bases, HAVE to expand, CANNOT stay put forever - but you can do it for months. And then ... when it's all over ... you have burned-out planets in your wake in a ring surrounding your capital, stations whose only functions are trade and defense now that their sectors are barren.

In a less storylike format...
You now have a dynamic game, where things change. You're not FORCED out, but you can wreck things, and you can end a base's utility.
Just don't get trapped in that base, now. It won't provide the materials to break their Titans.

 

[Ithirahad]

In SM, there's no reason you have to have a static homeworld; it's not like SW or real life where it takes a lot of effort to move everyone around. It'd be a lot more convenient to just move your invincible homebase location as you cut a swath through space, leaving behind useless sectors and empty space. Besides, something like that just doesn't sound very fun. IMO, regenerating resource mechanics should allow for hunkering down somewhere indefinitely; you should just have to maintain some outposts for harvesting or whatever, and get some materials from elsewhere that you won't be able to find near your own territory.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

Instead of generating tangible resources (crystals and ore) from mining stations on planets, what if it was a more abstract economy? Like "trade depots" that slowly accumulate credits that go straight into a faction bank account, or are otherwise split up among faction members based on some kind of percentage? Then these depots' income could be inhibited by the presence of enemy jump drive inhibitors which would prevent trade ships from entering or leaving.

 

[Ithirahad]

Instead of generating tangible resources (crystals and ore) from mining stations on planets, what if it was a more abstract economy? Like "trade depots" that slowly accumulate credits that go straight into a faction bank account, or are otherwise split up among faction members based on some kind of percentage? Then these depots' income could be inhibited by the presence of enemy jump drive inhibitors which would prevent trade ships from entering or leaving.

Boring... Unnecessarily abstracted. This isn't an RTS; we have the opportunity to make things more involved and immersive than those, and we should take it. Besides, credits are already of very little worth once you get beyond the starting-up phase of the game, and further inflating an abstract 'resource' by making it regenerative is not a good idea anyway seeing as they aren't ever really destroyed.

 

[Benevolent27]

This is an analysis of the current situation of faction interactions and general game economics, as well as a suggestion to fix to a LOT of issues that currently plague the game. This is a long one, but I strongly suggest that you read it. And yes, I know that the current game is incomplete, but I'd still like to get this out. Lets start with the facts:

Facts:

1. Planets are the best source of resources. They can provide many asteroids worth of resources with a single plate. Combined with the fact that they respawn (harvest one completely, kill it and reload the sector) this makes them the ideal source of resources for all factions and players out there.
2. Mining planets causes extreme server lag. (From personal experience, starting to mine a planet raises my ping, along with everyone else's, from 14 to a couple of hundreds on Elwyn Eternity, a very beefy server.)
3. Incentives for factions and/or players to interact are practically null. Why would I go fight this other faction when there's absolutely no benefit to do so? Especially when I risk loosing a ship that I worked very hard to produce?
4. Assumption: Mining is the equivalent to an MMO grind in that it is a very basic, repetitive and boring thing to do. Mining is NOT fun, a game should be played for fun.
5. Capturing and extending a territory has practically no use. Even an entire faction would have a hard time depleting the asteroid belts of an entire system before they respawn.
6. There is currently no fp penalty for loosing territory.

Conclusion from the above points:

Factions have absolutely no incentive to interact and combat due to the 100% loss of assets and no gain for any of the factions (except if they want to harvest the other faction's ships, which would just cause said faction to not show up at the next fight). Capturing more systems currently serves no purpose other than bragging rights as there is nothing to do with these extra systems. In addition, defending captured systems (that aren't the home system) serves no purpose since there is absolutely no penalty to loosing it. Simply waiting for the aggressor to leave and recapturing it with a 5 block outpost is the best way to go (which is very bad game-play-wise).

The solution below is something that I think would solve all this. However, even if it's rejected by the devs, the above points will still stand.

The solution™:

Notice: Please read this completely as it wouldn't work if a single point is missing. Do not argue or comment if you haven't read and understood every point and what they entail.

1. Make planets invulnerable against mining beams (impossible to mine).
2. Each planet in the universe has the same resource regeneration rate (in minutes or seconds, depending what's better for performance).
3. The base regeneration rate of a planet can be influenced (increased/decreased) by multiple factors:
   • The radius of a planet. A planet with greater radius has a higher regeneration rate.
   • The distance from the center of a galaxy. The center having the richest planets and the external systems having the poorest ones. For example, a 200m radius planet located at the center of the galaxy would have a greater regeneration rate than an identical planet located at the tip of a galactic arm.
   • (optional) The more planets in a system the richer they are. The reason I say this is optional is because, while not being essential, it would encourage people to fight over rich planetary systems even more.
   • (optional) Show the sovereignty of planets on the star map. This is just a quality of life feature and isn't essential.
4. (optional) Completely depleting a planet's resources before it can regenerate makes the planet blow up, so incorrectly setting up a deep core mining operation could have devastating consequences.

Ok, so that's the planetary part of things. Now, you might be asking: "what the hell is he on about". The juicy part comes next:

1. Implement a new block, called the "deep core miner". This block could be placed on planets and would essentially harvest (produce) minerals that are contained in the plate it's on. This could be linked to plex storages and would deposit the minerals there (just like mining beams). The materials being harvested aren't actually taken from the planet's blocks. As in, it doesn't actually mine the blocks out of a planet. Instead, it kinda poofs them into existence (more on that latter, for those concerned about realism).
2. The "deep core miner" would have a base harvest rate (per second or minute, as with planet regen rate). This rate could be increased with the use of harvest enhancers. Every enhancer block would add a set amount of "harvest speed" to the "deep core miner". However, don't forget that the planet has a resource regeneration speed. Having your harvest rate go over the regen rate would be a waste of extender blocks.
3. Each plate has it's own "deep core miner". Meaning that if you want to completely exploit a planet you need a "deep core miner" on every single plate. Quite some work to set up, but very rewarding.
4. The territory mining bonuses apply to the "deep core miner". Meaning that being in friendly territory grants a x12 (or whatever is set on the server) bonus to the materials harvested.
5. The miners must ABSOLUTELY keep on working even when the sector is unloaded.

Addressing concerns:

• Asteroids would become useless
  • not really. Asteroids are the only source of colored rock (such as larimar), which is required to make colored hull. Besides, it's not like a player could set up harvesters right off the bat. Some asteroid mining would be required to craft these harvesters. In addition, planetary mining is already much more time efficient than asteroid mining. Optional: Giving asteroids a higher ore density, or/and adjusting planetary regeneration rate could make it so that asteroids mining is a better resource acquisition method, time wise. "Deep core miners taking too long? Need those resources NOW? Go mine some roids'!"
• Infinite resources = really bad for economy
  • When you think about it, resources are already infinite. Planets DO respawn, providing an infinite source of easy to obtain minerals (even if they don't, moving to the next planet is simple enough). My suggestion would eliminate the server crippling lag, provide players with materials in a non-boring way (one would still need to set-up harvesters. Depending on their cost it might not be easy to do). More combat would also mean more resources disappearing, thus, balance is achieved.
• A single player could harvest multiple planets on his own, meaning that he'd have an extreme abundance of resources.
  • While this is true, remember that only the home base is invincible. If you don't like the fact that a player captured 15 solar systems then simply attack the planets and make them your own! First of all, a single person would never be able to defend a massive planetary array. Secondly, a player could never faction 15 systems because of the fp cost. So, while it would be possible for a single player to become insanely rich, it is extremely unlikely. Setting up harvesters dozens of planets alone would also be a massive undertaking. Remember, it is a lot harder to defend than to attack. If a player manages to defend 15 planets on his own then all powers to him, he deserves to keep them. Also don't forget that he'd have to go to each harvester one at a time to get the stuff they produced, just that alone would take a fairly big effort.

In conclusion:

While this may seem overly complicated at first it's actually a fairly simple system. The benefits is that factions would have a concrete incentive to expand and attack/defend their territory. Imagine an 8 planet system located close to the galactic core. Everyone and their mother would try to get their hands on it's planets to set up very profitable harvesters. In my opinion, having to fight over resources would revive the flame of factions in a very fun way! It's also much better than getting bored while lagging the server to death (aka: the current resource acquisition system). This could also bring players together. Factions could band up and defend their territory together (since planet plates are independent you could have multiple factions harvesting a single planet). It could also potentially pave the way for ground combat (since capturing stuff is easier than having to rebuild everything).


Thanks for reading this, if you have any comments or concerns that I didn't cover then please let me know so that I can demolish address them . Just kidding, if you have anything positive or negative to say don't be shy and say it ^_^ (as long as it's constructive, please).

Edit: changed the name from harvester to deep core miner. Credit goes to Crimson-Artist for the idea

Edit 2: Adding in Ithirahad 's suggestion http://starmadedock.net/threads/une...-and-density-getting-the-wheels-turning.6425/ would make things even better when combined with my suggestion.

I like this idea a lot. I have some thoughts on this.

First, I think it should be called a "Deep Core Driller." I'll explain why in a bit.

I think planets should also be mineable, so long as they are not claimed by any faction. If you want a lot of resources quickly (and need planet terrain or fauna), then mine the planet. IF you want to go for the long haul, set up a deep core driller.

I also see a big problem here, where everyone would want to make a planet a home base. This is bad for two reasons:
1. It would discourage players from joining factions, since factions could only home-base one planet.
2. It creates lag on servers when a lot of planets are loaded.
So, there needs to be a way to discourage home basing a planet. This lead to me an idea I just posted here. This idea is basically to allow any base to have invulnerability protection, but it would need to be within a faction's "home system" and it would cost faction points. The amount of faction points needed would depend on the size of the base/planet. So, the bigger the base, the more faction points it would take. It would make it so protecting a planet would cost an ENORMOUS amount of faction points. This would prevent single-man factions from claiming a planet as their home-base.

Also, I think it'd be good if these "deep core miner" rigs had randomized problems and some limits. Maybe a fire breaks out. Maybe it uses an actual drill to dig down into the lava of a planet before it can start mining and this drill wears out after a while, needing replacement. To control such things as fires, you'd need to have NPC crew members there to put out the fires and to keep the drill going. If a drill wears out, then crew members can replace the giant drill. You would assign them to be able to use a storage, and they will automatically remove drills from it to use for replacement.

Another mechanic I would like to see in StarMade is where you actually create machines that serve a purpose. For example, you would actually have to build the core drill. It would be an entity docked to a rail rotator. The drill bit block would go on the end, and it would need to spin. This spinning entity would then need to be lowered, where it would break planet blocks and keep lowering till it hit the lava of the planet. When that happened, it would start gathering ores, as you suggest. If the drill computer is not attached to a storage, or that storage is full, then it would just spit out items onto the ground. As suggested above, this drill bit would wear out after a while and require replacement. For a crew member to replace it, the crew member could be "taught" how to lift it up, and to be told which block to replace. (this would, in itself require a system to be able to teach crew members actions)

 

[Honytawk]

To initiate battles between factions, we could use the mechanic of loot crates from Rust.

Have a small lightly armored transport vessel with tons of resources randomly spawn somewhere.
And show a message or something to players in close by systems with the coordinates.

The players would be more inclined to battle because there is a lot to gain.