Ares mod

[Jeryia]

Ares mod


What is the Ares mod?

Ares is intended to offer a battleground where 2 factions fight over control points for resources, and in the end destroy their opponent's base. This battleground only lasts for a short period of time (basically as long as it takes for one faction to win); once one faction is victorious, the game is reset, and all ships/resources are reset to start a new game.




How do you play?

Spoiler

Preparing to join
Due to the cost in time of building ships during the Ares game, it is recommended that you build some blueprints outside before joining. Some blueprints do come with Ares just in case players don't have any blueprints. However, those blueprints are intentionally nerfed to promote players to build their own blueprints outside and bring them in.

In a nutshell
Each faction has at least one base, and usually the map will also contain control points. You will be assigned to one of the factions (by default Alpha or Beta Squadron). Your primary objective is to destroy all of your opponent's bases. Secondarily, you also gain credits by owning control points.

Bases
Each faction will have at least one base. Bases that are not destroyed will provide players with some credits just by being there. Bases cannot generally be captured, only destroyed. If your faction runs out of bases, your faction loses the game. You can check the status and location of all bases by using the `!status base` command.

Control Points
Control points are points that provide resources simply by being owned. You capture a control point by destroying all enemies in it's sector, and remaining in that sector for about 30 seconds. You can also check the status and location of all control points with the `!status control` command.

Note: Some maps have pirates defending the control points

Getting Credits
The game relies primarily on credits to buy ships. So the server allows the purchase of ships with only credits. Once the game starts, credits are given to players every few seconds, and the amount is based on the number of control points and bases your faction has divided amongst the players in the faction.

```
c : credits given to a given player
v : Total value of all stations owned by player's faction (generally Bases are worth 1, and control points are worth .5)
m : credit multiplier (set in ares.cfg)
p : Total number of players in the player's faction
a : number of players in the game
c = (v * m)/p * a
```

What does this offer?

• * The victory of a faction is no longer at least in part determined by how long a faction has been on the server (As each faction will start out fresh each game, and games shouldn't last more than a few hours)
• A pvp environment where you don't need to worry about pissing people off by attacking them.
• There is more use for smaller warships as you won't be able to afford your biggest baddest 2.5m block death machine at the start of the game.
• Low cost of defeat. Since everyone gets reset to the same thing on each game, one crushing defeat isn't something that costs you in your faction's power.
• Great way to test new ship designs. Not sure if your latest death machine is up to snuff with other players? Give it a try in an Ares game and see how well it performs without fear of 'losing it'.
• Strategy. Want pvp where it's more than 2 ships blasting each other to pieces? Where you need to work together with your faction members and have a plan or you're dead?

Status

Currently Ares is in alpha. Features are mostly implemented. The main standing ones on the list to add are as follows:
* Integration with a survival server




Server Requirements:

Currently Ares and StarD should function on any Linux based server. We plan to release a standalone version that should function in any UNIX based environment (ie Max OS X). Though as this is a server side only mod, there's no reason Windows users cannot play on the server this is running on.



Installation Instructions:
Installation · Jeryia/StarD-Ares Wiki · GitHub


Source Code
https://github.com/Jeryia/StarD-Ares

Ares is free (as in you don't need to pay for it), and open source. Feel free to make any modifications to it and distribute.

Thanks To
Ships/Station blueprints - Tekcor17

Alpha Testers
Aceface
ASM
Hazarufus
HolyCookie
Lecic
Matt_Bradock
Nighthawk_77
Occarina
Pese3
S3PH1RoTH
StormWing0
Tekcor17
Uriank
zorozeenee


THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

 

[therimmer96]

So, is this a mod, or a wrapper like most of the other server side stuff?

Looks interesting.

 

[Jeryia]

More or less a wrapper.
More specifically, a mod for a wrapper (StarD). StarD is a wrapper for starmade.

A thread on StarD will pop up once the Alpha is released.

 

[Reilly Reese]

So this shuts down normal Starmade functions for an exclusive PvP Battlemode that resets after certain combat conditions are met? Interesting... Are you also going to make structures to go with the mod or let servers build them themselves?

 

[Jeryia]

Howdy Thadius,
Thank you for your interest. That's a pretty accurate description.

Currently Ares works off of map files, that you can select per game. Similar to how many strategy games work (ie starcraft).
The map file contains all the objects to spawn (control points, bases, other stuff), the sector to spawn them in, their name, and the name of the blueprint to use to spawn them.
Blueprints will be provided for the map that comes with the mod, but server admins will be free to create their own map files, and blueprints to go along with them.

The mod is coded to provide customization in most areas.

Secondarily, we plan to provide some ship blueprints that server admins may wish to make available to players for the purpose of providing those who haven't built their own ships yet to play(like people who are new to starmade). We've found the Isanths to be woefully underpowered to go toe to toe with other players' ships.

So too answer your question. Both, there are structures that go with the mod, but server admins are free to build their own structures and maps, if they choose to do so.

 

[Reilly Reese]

This mystical map file sounds very interesting. Sounds like it could have a host of applications.

 

[Jeryia]

I honestly hadn't thought about that,
I could easily create a second mod with only that functionality. For the time being, my main focus is getting the Ares mod tested, and ready for release. After release of the Ares mod, if you still want it, I'll release a secondary mod only containing this functionality.

 

[Jeryia]

Howdy,
Both StarD and Ares have reached a point where I believe they are almost ready for release. Last test needed is a stress test. I need to determine how well StarD and ares perform under more load.

I would like to extend an invitation to anyone who wants to give the Ares mod a try to join XXXXX:XXX next week Sunday (Sep 27) from 10am MST to 9pm MST.

The game will have several ships available for players to use. However, I recommend bringing your own vessels (between 4m and 100m credits) to duke it out . Note that the game won't start until there are at least 4 players online, though the server will limit itself to 10 players (to not overwhelm my poor little server :p).

I've attached an image of the map (for logistics) so people have something to look at before joining.

Spoiler: map image

I will be online observing the game, and monitoring the server itself to see how well it's holding up. However, I will not directly participate. If you run into an issue, definitely feel free to message me in-game.

edit: fixed linked image

 

[Matt_Bradock]

OK guys let's bump this post to the heavenly heights. I'll certainly try to be there and I think I just have the ship I'll need for that :P

 

[shadowcrusnik]

 

[Jeryia]

I think it would be best if I avoided accepting donations until something is at least released. But your enthusiasm is appreciated!

Plus I'm not certain the starmade TOS allows for it.

 

[SkylordLuke]

This is awesome! Cant wait to see it ! :D

 

[Jeryia]

Just a reminder,
Server will be available in about 49 minutes.

I have a confession that faction switching has been disabled due to a bug that I need to track down. Everything else should be working.
[DOUBLEPOST=1443369566,1443366720][/DOUBLEPOST]Server is now open.

host: XXXXX:XXXX

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Oh boy. If testing something is always this much fun, I wanna be a tester. (of course I know it usually isn't.)

This mod... has some great potential. Practically, you just re-defined Battle Mode, Jeryia

 

[Reilly Reese]

I noticed that something caused my missiles to be able to fire while reloading which would cause another reload blue square to go over the one already there. Not sure if it's your mod or the finicky systems of that stealth cruiser.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

I noticed that something caused my missiles to be able to fire while reloading which would cause another reload blue square to go over the one already there. Not sure if it's your mod or the finicky systems of that stealth cruiser.

You cannot fire all missiles out of one power charge, so you fire the rest once your power recharges. And the different groups start their reload times when they fire, hence the overlapping.
[DOUBLEPOST=1443396372,1443393767][/DOUBLEPOST]Jeryia I just had an idea. If you could manage to add a feature to this mod/wrapper that it doesn't automatically sort people (or can be set to do so) but you join with a command, servers could run it WHILE other people tend to their other stuff. Thus you wouldn't need a dedicated battle server, it could be an ongoing event on any survival server.

 

[Jeryia]

Howdy Matt,
It's not a bad idea. Though there is one issue.
Right now to stop players from stashing ships somewhere to use for games is that that mod will clean up the entire server of player ships after each game.
With what you suggested, It may be possible for players of the game to get ships close enough to the combat area to be able to pick up later.
I don't have a good solution to solve that as deleting all ships in the sectors one at a time that are near the combat area would take a considerable amount of time(not something that you would want to do before every game).

Definitely feel free to keep throwing ideas at me though. This will in the end be owned by the community, and I hope to tailor it as much as possible to what this community wants.

I am curious though. Do you think the Bases have too much shielding? You guys seemed to have great difficulty taking one down.

 

[Jeryia]

Testing has ended.
Thank you everyone for youe help!

 

[Reilly Reese]

You could have the script send players into some form of the soon coming virtual sectors that are going to be used for shipyards?

 

[Matt_Bradock]

I see. So, it is right now best suited for dedicated battle servers where you only do this. Gotcha.

The base shields are incredibly tough, yes. Between the defending players it's hard to get through them, we only managed to score a win by torching down the faction module - but at least that encourages boarding, which isn't necessarily bad.

If you don't want the base to be so tough to bring down, you can either decrease shielding or buff the money flow so it is possible to bring in the heavies in the endgame that stand a better chance at getting rid of those shields. Throughout the entire testing we only managed to get the base shields as low as 85% and we did that using 15K mass total of ships all designed for full-on combat.