Beta Galaxy needs more than just Isanths

[MacThule]

I know this one has been around several times before, but with Beta Galaxy coming around soon-ish, I think it's time to revisit.

Idon't actually like starting players out with a ton of random components and $50k in their pockets. It's a hassle, but honestly it's no harder to survive than when one starts out with a ship BP in a custom server (so long as the starter ship isn't OP relative to pirates). It's not harder; just more tedious and more likely to derail noobs when - after navigating a half-dozen new engineering issues and their quirks for an hour - they manage to scrap together a ship that looks like crap and barely flies. Building ships is tougher than ever, and in a game like Minecraft you don't have to spend an hour doing primitive tech to create a pick before you can ever get mining.

I think there should be a community starter ship contest, things comparable in mass to Isanths, but focused on mining, not combat, and new players should just start with a random BP from the 3 or 5 best in their inventory, with all the other good, Schine-vetted, small-medium community ships and content winners included with the standard ship library so they can sell what they are in and buy something different after a little mining (in a ship that actually works out of the box); maybe trade in for a fighter or a better miner, or a fast-jumping trade and exploration ship.

Starting with $50K, astro gear, and a filled ship BP is less cluttered, less confusing, and will be ten times more engaging for new players. It should be the vanilla default, we have Isanths on every server by default, there is absolutely no valid reason why we can't have a dozen other vetted BPs on each server by default as well, and there are many reasons it would help. Instead of spawning in, trying to build, running out of money, tediously selling the unwanted components in your inventory so you can continue, eventually heading out on a micro-salvager, can't we just spawn in, jump in a ship, and start mining?

Custom servers can always remove default BPs and add a bunch of components if they want, but I really believe the vanilla default should be more noob-friendly.

Now more than ever with engineering ships being more complicated and specialized than before. New joins need immediate access to at least a small variety of functional ship models for mining and for combat rather than being forced to learn basic engineering system up front before even being able to mine. We should let new players just jump in (if they want to) and get to engineering a bit later (if they want to) once they are well hooked on what it's possible to build.

Because new-player retention.

 

[Valiant70]

The game really should NOT hit beta before it has a set of good-quality blueprints for non-builders to play with. This is because all play styles need to be facilitated in the beta release. Releasing it without good default blueprints would marginalize play styles other than Builder.

 

[Fays]

A starter/benchmark ship sounds like it'd be a fantastic way to help new players acclimate to starmade, in an applied manner.
[doublepost=1532722412,1532720518][/doublepost]

The game really should NOT hit beta before it has a set of good-quality blueprints for non-builders to play with. This is because all play styles need to be facilitated in the beta release. Releasing it without good default blueprints would marginalize play styles other than Builder.

If the role-specific ships were offered, the player would need to know what role they want to aim for... assuming they know that role's exist to begin with. Another interface would probably need to be added to both explain each role, and have the player decide at spawn which they like the most... before they've even placed a block. MMORPG's do this when you pick a class and race, and after getting 30-40 levels into something if you decide its not for you, your left starting from scratch with a new character (an extreme comparison perhaps but the point's there). Were you thinking that all role variations accessible at spawn arbitrarily should be the thing to do? I'd probably feel like things were made way too easy if I could spawn an armada made up of role-ships, break them apart and instantly have a pile of free resources.

Can you elaborate on 'good default blueprints', like how you expect them to be accessed? The provision of a complete ship blueprint at spawn assumes the replacement of starting with (the current) credits and random assortment of blocks, as far as I see.

 

[MacThule]

If the role-specific ships were offered, the player would need to know what role they want to aim for... assuming they know that role's exist to begin with. Another interface would probably need to be added to both explain each role, and have the player decide at spawn which they like the most... before they've even placed a block. MMORPG's do this when you pick a class and race, and after getting 30-40 levels into something if you decide its not for you, your left starting from scratch with a new character (an extreme comparison perhaps but the point's there). Were you thinking that all role variations accessible at spawn arbitrarily should be the thing to do? I'd probably feel like things were made way too easy if I could spawn an armada made up of role-ships, break them apart and instantly have a pile of free resources.

Can you elaborate on 'good default blueprints', like how you expect them to be accessed? The provision of a complete ship blueprint at spawn assumes the replacement of starting with (the current) credits and random assortment of blocks, as far as I see.

Good job digging into the complexity of the issue. Hard to know where to start!

The option of allowing players to select a role and then pick a starter ship from within that role is very MMORPG and would definitely be cool and intuitive, but does bring along with it the 'false start' issue you mention about making a decision with no data and then regretting it. It would also require additional coding overhead to create the new UI features and functions.


The most convenient situation (IMO) would be spawning in, shopping the ship list, buying something, going out to make money, coming back and selling your old ship to help buy an upgrade. Simple, intuitive, fun, addictive. Got dead? Respawn and buy a new ship to get right back in the action; if it's just as easy as QQ then might as well, right?

My preferred solution to reach a convenient situation for players would be market-based. Tie the spawn shop into the trade network and allow players/factions with shops (including NPCs) to buy/sell whole ships over the network. So the server would start with some basic ships from the NPC catalogues available and over time new starts would have more options; either buy default ships from the NPC lists, or once they've earned some credits maybe risk buying a ship for sale from one of the other players on server with a shop, a builder specialist. If this were the case you could sell whole ships as well, which would actually put players in that very convenient situation I mentioned. Setting up the market like this would present noobs with a set of default options and usually a ton of player-built ones on mature servers, it would also improve gameplay for players all the way through midgame until they have their own factories and shipyards and mining operations set up to give them easy independent access to ships, and even a player in late game stage would benefit by being able to sell off assets for cash, or manufacture a line of ships and sell them directly to the market.

That's a lot of code work though. No doubt. I think there are ways it can be done with a reasonable amount of work, but if it's too much so be it.

An easy way to make starting more noob-friendly is just start them with a tiny miner and the ability to buy blueprints under a certain mass (~500) or reactor level or credit value outright (using a conditional version of the existing "buy with credits" function). In large part because of the roles issue I think this works well, since even if you want to go fighter, at least you have the basic tool (a working miner) to run out and mine a little so you can come back and buy a (working) fighter in 15 minutes.

 

[Fays]

My preferred solution to reach a convenient situation for players would be market-based. Tie the spawn shop into the trade network and allow players/factions with shops (including NPCs) to buy/sell whole ships over the network. So the server would start with some basic ships from the NPC catalogues available and over time new starts would have more options; either buy default ships from the NPC lists, or once they've earned some credits maybe risk buying a ship for sale from one of the other players on server with a shop, a builder specialist. If this were the case you could sell whole ships as well, which would actually put players in that very convenient situation I mentioned. Setting up the market like this would present noobs with a set of default options and usually a ton of player-built ones on mature servers, it would also improve gameplay for players all the way through midgame until they have their own factories and shipyards and mining operations set up to give them easy independent access to ships, and even a player in late game stage would benefit by being able to sell off assets for cash, or manufacture a line of ships and sell them directly to the market.

"I have a bag of 'yes' here. I givith unto you the bag of 'yes'. It may even exhaust my supply of 'yes' for the month but I believe, the aforementioned thought, is worth all of them."

In all seriousness, that sounds like a valuable asset/mechanic/dynamic to have in-game. Universe update aside, and as the game stands. The only outstanding quandary I can see is; what the starting credits should be (value) (which couldn't really be determined without having the ship(s) in question; tangible) , what would constitute as an upgrade (step up - from former iteration) ~ based on reactor sizes maybe? and if the coding would cause some poor programmers brain to melt.

(also, I lol'd at QQ)

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I suggested this a while back. Do you think this would help?
https://starmadedock.net/threads/starter-play-for-starmade-single-play-and-multi-player.29846/

 

[Tsnonak]

Fully Agree, Blueprints are the cream... Builders are an Asset
A big Yes to and for New players!

I would say, for simplicity, a descent, yet simple Miner for the start, for all.
Something to fly until you get your own ship completed (good ships take time).
Blueprint variety on the server and anyone can choose which ship for the next step (implementation debate here*).
IMO... up-to-date Blueprints, ingame, is currently one of the biggest "Missing Links".
Some don't want to have to build "everything" either (good building takes time).

I Would also extend this to Stations as well.

Main problem currently is unrefined/unbalanced Systems.
In its current state it's hard to build anything that works "solid", and who knows if it will still work after the next Update.

In its current state it's not feasable to ship anything "extra" with the package, the existing ships/stations are not even fully functional.

I would not expect anything from the Dev side until it gets closer to Beta, they already have a bunch todo.

It is currently up to Server Admins to build and or work with builders to gap this void.
This is currently a Goal on the Let's Kautsch Spacenation server!
Spawn Station has a Public Factory and a Lift to play with!
Starter miner and a few re-builds are already implemented!

Two Thumbs up for this Thread*!

Update - If anything is to be expected, I would guess...
A new contest to replace the existing assets.*

 

[Vyor]

I Would also extend this to Stations as well.

Poor stations.

Anyway, a requirement for a beginner ship is that it at least needs to survive an encounter with Isanths. Sometimes those bastards can be a mere sector away from spawn and running into them too early ends a character(if you don't see any roids until you hit that area, and you'd already used and spent everything, then you can die with no way to recover).

 

[Tsnonak]

Poor stations.

Anyway, a requirement for a beginner ship is that it at least needs to survive an encounter with Isanths. Sometimes those bastards can be a mere sector away from spawn and running into them too early ends a character(if you don't see any roids until you hit that area, and you'd already used and spent everything, then you can die with no way to recover).

can anything survive the "New and Improved" Beam-Isanths? ... löl ö.Ö

on a serious Note, yes, very good point!

 

[Vyor]

can anything survive the "New and Improved" Beam-Isanths? ... löl ö.Ö

Really big ships.

 

[MacThule]

Poor stations.

Anyway, a requirement for a beginner ship is that it at least needs to survive an encounter with Isanths. Sometimes those bastards can be a mere sector away from spawn and running into them too early ends a character(if you don't see any roids until you hit that area, and you'd already used and spent everything, then you can die with no way to recover).

If the beginner ship can already handle the top predators in the game there isn't much to aspire to.

I fear that if everyone started with ships invulnerable to the universe's best threat, the stream of complaints about how lame Isanths are and demands for tougher pirates would be absolutely without end.

Maybe a larger safe zone around spawn, instead? A lot of people have asked for that anyway. Eve Online is pretty unforgiving and even they have substantial area where players start that are very safe.

 

[Vyor]

universe's best threat,

You mean only threat.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Make pirates actually fearsome, but make them not quite so everpresent, then give players some good, but rather small ships so they need to work their way up.

And make the game a little less silly with starting out with the crazy amount of ores to mine and the uselessness of planets and such.

 

[Kraengis]

Agreed, it would be also nice to have new competitions, even small ones. Having a small competitions every month where 2-3 ships are picked will not only make the community more active but also help populate the universe and starter BP with about 24-36 new ships a year.

A game like starmade without prefabs and total creativity should have at least 100 differents default ships distributed between NPC factions, pirates and starter BP.

And it's not like having loads of BP is problematic space wise. The game only do 824 MB for now, just pushing it to 1GB, with an average of 200Kb per BP, will already require a thousand BP.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Now more than ever with engineering ships being more complicated and specialized than before. New joins need immediate access to at least a small variety of functional ship models for mining and for combat rather than being forced to learn basic engineering system up front before even being able to mine. We should let new players just jump in (if they want to) and get to engineering a bit later (if they want to) once they are well hooked on what it's possible to build.

That's a good start.

A good follow up would be, if their free ship taught them something about building their own;

-Right now, you can receive the best ship there is, and it won't make you any better at the game. Maybe you'll think about dissecting it, but what exactly will you see? Maybe you just ripped a crucial system in half, and will never figure out how it was supposed to work.
At some point you might even lose your free ship, and you're back to flying a spacestick.

-Some kind of diagnostic screen with a wireframe layout of the ship and it's systems (display of each group can be toggled on / off), with some stats and explanation text could help to understand WHY those blocks are where they are, and what is achieved by building them in such a way.

 

[MacThule]

That's a good start.

A good follow up would be, if their free ship taught them something about building their own;

-Right now, you can receive the best ship there is, and it won't make you any better at the game. Maybe you'll think about dissecting it, but what exactly will you see? Maybe you just ripped a crucial system in half, and will never figure out how it was supposed to work.
At some point you might even lose your free ship, and you're back to flying a spacestick.

-Some kind of diagnostic screen with a wireframe layout of the ship and it's systems (display of each group can be toggled on / off), with some stats and explanation text could help to understand WHY those blocks are where they are, and what is achieved by building them in such a way.

Brilliant consideration. Yes - a starter ship cum tutorial model would be perfect.

Keeping it simple but elegant, all of the core dynamics of power engineering - including chamber dynamics - could be demonstrated, as well as salvage system linkage, which is a good place for new players to get their feet wet with the same dynamics weapon systems use.

Maybe once a standardized initial start ship is picked, it can have a page dedicated to it in the wiki so players can learn about it. Schematics, diagrams and discussion about how its parts work together could be included.

It's very tempting to go as far as to say the spawn ship should use a lot of interior space so that each constituent system is physically accessible within the ship and has screens with notes and tips - something for new players to physically explore and learn about by looking directly at systems while they study them, but I would hesitate to set a precedent for new players; to indicate to them that ships must have copious interior space around all their systems (although that practice actually does have some protective value, it really isn't always necessary). Having a starter ship with interior space would be ideal for many new players though, and would definitely aid in direct learning.

EDIT: Maybe we should just start with the giant dong ship from Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssy, for fun? Is there a shell of that around here anywhere?

 

[Snowbione]

Brilliant consideration. Yes - a starter ship cum tutorial model would be perfect.

Keeping it simple but elegant, all of the core dynamics of power engineering - including chamber dynamics - could be demonstrated, as well as salvage system linkage, which is a good place for new players to get their feet wet with the same dynamics weapon systems use.

Maybe once a standardized initial start ship is picked, it can have a page dedicated to it in the wiki so players can learn about it. Schematics, diagrams and discussion about how its parts work together could be included.

It's very tempting to go as far as to say the spawn ship should use a lot of interior space so that each constituent system is physically accessible within the ship and has screens with notes and tips - something for new players to physically explore and learn about by looking directly at systems while they study them, but I would hesitate to set a precedent for new players; to indicate to them that ships must have copious interior space around all their systems (although that practice actually does have some protective value, it really isn't always necessary). Having a starter ship with interior space would be ideal for many new players though, and would definitely aid in direct learning.

You could have it so the player starts of with a basic mining ship, but there is a "shell with basic uncomplete systems" of a slightly larger ship near by, let's call this one the tutorial ship, it could be a basic freighter with a turret but no power system and no weapons (but space for basic ones) and use that with a guide to help new players learn how to get the basic systems up and running,Power, weapons types and turrets, just to get started. Thats just the starter Ship....Now say if there are multiple "Tutorial" ships, each one showing a more advanced set up like "Set up Jumpo chambers and reactors" or (Kinda like a reward system get from a to b kill this, mine that, gather enough resources etc and you would be rewarded with a location of the next ship) so start them small and work up, there should be enough time between each one so the player can get a handle on things and also give the option once the Ship is functional you should be allowed to scrap it/Sell or keep it (some would see it as an upgrade to what they have)