Brainstorming Thread for general Roleplay

[JinM]

So I will just post my general thoughts here, you can discuss them ofcourse but for me this is just an information dump. I don't want to make an extra text document that gets lost over time and never talk about it.

This time I thought about the very important rule that a homebase, even of a one man faction needs the following rule: No visitor vessels of over 10k allowed in the perimeter.

Reason: I often had this dudes that visit my base and don't say at least "hello". I know this is a regular behaviour, but why not incorporate it into some sort of roleplay?

Okay here are my notes, without any order or formatting:

this one man faction allows other factions to engage with it and wether or not you are ally is based on reputation points

rules (wihtout order)

• if you are not allied you get shot at after one warning if you are within weapons range of our stations and your ship exceeds 10k mass
• you are not allowed to remain for over 60 seconds in orbit of our station if you are not allied, visitors have to dock. after docking you are allowed to stay as long as you like and walk around on the station freely.
• wether or not we are allied is based on reputation points. if you fall below a treshold you get to neutral again
• you loose reputation points if you are online and dont assist my faction in a defensive war (that means if I get attacked in my own system)
• you gain rep if you assist my faction in an offensive war
• you loose rep if you dont build an embassy room within my station within 3 days daily, in such an amount that you are neutral again after 7 days
• asking for allied status gives you plus 7 rep
• if you are ally with less than 10 rep you are not allowed to visit our stations with ships bigger than 10k
• you can gain rep by placing ships on our trade platform, you get one slot with a maximum ship allowance of 20m on its longest axis. after selling at least 2 ships with a limit of 20m on its longest axis you are allowed to sell the next size class of a maximum of 50m.
• you gain rep by introducing new allies to me
• you loose rep if you are not interacting with my faction for a certain time (in an amount that a faction thats not engaging in any interaction for over 2 weeks looses the ally status again - but if you gained beforehand rep you stay ally for longer)

you can enable 4 different roles/ways within our relationship (you get additional missions): trade, diplomacy, war, creation

to enable one of the ways you have to do: trade: showcase one of your ships on our stations to sell it. diplomacy: build embassy room on our station. war: fleet maneuver against each other or enemy at least on 2 different days. creation: colaborate build, or build an addition to our homebase via a docked structure that we later on copy paste onto it.

all rules are brainstorming only and meant to change

biggest problem is allways to keep it simple stupid, so maybe I rather try to not overcomplicate it
and I mean in reality the servers are pretty empty and I am pretty sure I cant hold up with any rules myself with like 4 hours online playtime a week

 

[JinM]

okay so I got this idea - its just brainstorming - of building a station that is basically just a big hangar and fullfills all sorts of stuff that you can do right now in Starmade. (buy or sell ships, repair ships astrotech/shipyard, pvp fleet ready for use, parking spots for visitors, colaborte building). For each action there will be a seperate hangar and the main entrance hangar were visitors move in first will be 1km X 420m X 240m, with entrance doors of 160x160m and pipes that lead to the extra hangars for each action (shipyard, repair with astrotech, sell/buy ships, pvp fleet, parking spots) that are labelled in big letters. Those would be 110m wide and 70m high.
Thats my inspiration image: Thats where I am at right now:

 

[ObiShawnKenobi]

what are you doing

 

[JinM]

Okay I got an roleplay idea, just leaving it here quickly

Standardise ship sizes for sharing ship parts, for example ship size B has wing connection points of 13x5m, and for those different people design differently shaped wings
ship sizes: fighter, corvette, cruiser, battleship. Fighter: max 40m longest axis, corvette max 100m longest axis, cruiser max 150m, battleship max 250m.

wings, turrets, reactors, thrusters, walkways, cockpits, weapon hardpoints

Lets say we build 5 different turrets for ship size class corvette, and turret size is small. The connection mount would be standardised to a 3x3.
=)
Maybe you need to say some kind words to your ships

Medium turret size for corvettes is 5x5, large is 9x9.
I guess its a bad idea, but I liked it

Basically people could build parts of the ship on a core and then put that for example 15x5x5 wing into a freigther and ship it to an ally. The ally then copies the wing as template and uses it on his own ship.
But I think its too complicated to incorporate it into any faction roleplay related gameplay
But what if...
Lets say corvette thrusters: Medium size: 9x9x15.
Walkways...small: 2x2, medium 3x3, large: 5x4.
And for each we make Airlocks...
Man I am in this spiral where I desperately try to find some gameplay for Starmade where none exists.

 

[JinM]

how big does my beam turret have to be
on my station
to hurt 100k mass pvp ships?
and what combo?
I mean beam module count
okay so a usual pvp ship has up to 50mill shields
Regen being at around 3mill s/s I guess

I don't want to actuall oneshot it, its enough if it can't stay in the perimeter for longer than 60 seconds.

Every module makes around 10 dmg/s
60*3mill+50mill =230mill
230mill/60= ~5mill
5mill/10=500k modules.

If I have 4 turrets on each side, each turret needs aroun 120k modules. That means a 60k+60k system.

Other calculation.
0.1 mass each module.
That means a 100k mass ship has around 1mill modules. That means to destroy this ship with its own weapons I need around 100k modules. That comes down to 4 turrets one each side at around 25k modules each. 12k+12k system.

I have no clue...

But I take the 12k+12k system count.

That means 30x40x10 times two, or 20x60x10 times two, or 22x50x10 times two.

 

[JinM]

RPG Logic

Its basically allready possible to make a sort of adventure in Starmade...
Lets say we make a room with objects like a table, a shelf and a fridge.
Each object is listed in a display module as object. It simply displays "The office room is filled with different furniture of all ages. The iron table, wodden shelf, and roaring fridge seem to be stolen from the 20th century". Or just a simple list like "Objects in office: table, shelf, fridge, chair, window, bin"If you tipe in table a second display displays you a message this table is an old rusty small iron plank sitting on a chest and a barell as his feet. on it you find some drawings of a mouse, an old lamp, a candle, a pencil.Then you type in "candle", and the message appears: As you inspect the candle you see a engraving on its bottom, it reads "Holy Spirit of Sambundina".

The other way of giving each object a mini button would make interacting kinda weird. Because you would press the button and then run back to the central display module. And then look around again.
---

You enter a room and the player can access the 3x2 big user interface in each room
He reads some stuff about the room, for example: "The janitor happily greets Dr. Freeman as he enter the lobby. As you approch his desk he nods and tells you that you should look into his computer as something is not working." Then the player types in "computer" and can see the next text. But he can also for example inspect another object in the room, for example he types in "shelf". And then he gets explained whats in the shelf and maybe he finds a hint. Lets say he finds a diary, hinting that the chef heard scratches in the ceiling of the kitchen. And because of the hint he goes to the kitchen, and types into the kitchens user interface "ceiling".

So we then have four ways of the player interacting and receiving hints: The text in the room dispay, the approable objects, hidden displays and hidden buttons.

The fun would then come by making cool and really big buildings. And finding hidden cool places in this buildings by advancing in the story.

So its just a more interesting way to deliver lore, but it only works if you build a building that actually has interesting lore in the first place.

It should somehow be possible to make a progression into the story. For example you can ofcourse cut off whole parts of the building with passwords. But that is not really cool. - It's more interesting to have different information, depending on how for you are into the story.

So there are two ways for making advancing: An ship wide progress system, and a key that stores your progress. If you come back again and enter the key, you can resume from where you left.

The second and easier way is, to just have you enter a special word when you enter the room, to get the next level of text thats aviable to your progress.

I rather like to use the second system, because a key storage system is way to complicated. But only the first system lets you have advanced interaction, where you enter the room at the start and nothing happens, and if you progressed to 90% you enter the room and it is destroyed.

 

[JinM]

So here I am again.

Let's get it straight if I play a roleplay faction on a server:

Neutral Factions get a standardised hail message when they approach my homebase:

A: "Permission denied to stay in the 2km perimeter of station Delta Samplename with ships bigger than 2k mass. Please dock your non-shuttle-sized vessel to the station immediatelly at docking bay E2 to galactic east of the station. Ignoring this command without explanation lead to defensive strikes."

B: "You are approaching station Samplename. It's 2km perimeter is protected. Please dock immediatelly at harbour bay E2 to the galactic east of the station. For moving around the station use our public shuttles. This is a direct order and ignoring it without explanation will be answered with force."

if the guest managed to dock propperly:

B-a: "Welcome to Samplename station. This is a roleplay faction whose playstyle is reputation based. If you like to join the roleplay collective we will be allied, and you can earn or loose reputation points towards each faction that plays with the collective's roleplay-rules."

B-a: "Welcome to Samplename station. Your current reputation with this faction is: Guest. As guest you can: 1. Trade blocks against blocks (max 10k/day), 2. request a free starter ship, 3. request a free parking lot with private factories, or 4. inquire about further roleplay details."


C: "You are approaching station Samplename. It's 2km perimeter is protected. Please dock immediatelly at harbour bay E2 to the galactic east of the station. For moving around the station use our free public shuttles. This is a direct order. Ignoring it without explanation leads to radio silence."

If you ignore it, your action will cease communications.

D: "Hi there! Our Orangutan station gunner has ADHD. Dock now or prepare to play!"


Reputations: Guest, Pilot, Officer, Captain, Admiral.
Guest, Member, Offical, Captain, Admiral, Administrative.


The whole thing is a process. Starting on a server I neither can offer starter ships or public factories to any guest, or threaten to shoot anyone as I don't have any ressources.

There might not even be a big enough docking bay.

It's a growing station...In the case of my playstyle....
Requirements: Walkable floors.
Scaffolding Templates. - Used to outline future expansion.
Airlocks. Rail Based.

 

[JinM]

The basic problem are players that are not familliar with RP.

A solo player roleplay faction, that wants to share the roleplay with other factions, needs to make standards that other players can orient on. There must be a way that the new players dont need to visit the forum. But I guess its so much that a thread is required.

Let me give examples:

Recommended building specifications, so you have no troubles in participating:
Minimum hangar size for your ship: 81x51x51 meter (length, width, height). This allows you to fit in another ship or a platform with build templates on it.
Cargo container size: 11x11x19 meter.
Use USD compatible airlocks. (link to CC upload)

Trading blocks against blocks can be made with a pricelist. Exclude unvaluable blocks like grates, stones, stone capsules, and even exclude hulls! Only write about: shield modules, caps, chambers: ftl, recon, stealth, cannons, missiles, beams. For this you can write down what you trade for what in exchange. The cheapest block could be lets say one shield capazitor, worth (1) and you think ftl chambers are worth (20) and so on.

Have turrets on your base to defend yourself against the size class of ship that you want to fight against yourself. For example my biggest ship is 80m long, I only need 3 turrets of 20x10x10 dimensions to defend my station against such a corvette. It's unneccessary to overpower every possible threat on a server. The bigger your own guns, the bigger the enemies you attract.

Walkability: Its not required to make your station walking friendly with gravity chambers turned on. The main problem here is, that gravity is very bugged and unfriendly for visitors. Using the astronaut mode does not enhance the gameplay and provides no real addition to the experience, besides walking around "more immerse, like being in your Lego as person". It is however needed to provide shuttles so visitors have a way to get around easily on your station. And to provide parking spaces for those shuttles if your station is big enough. Making ways on your station so shuttles can dock and access important parts is neccessary, if the station is very big. If you say you want your visitors to walk, then its important to make every visitor walk "publicised" with public permission modules for each door and elevator and transporter.

The basic question is: How can solo factions or small groups of factions interact with roleplay? It needs to be roleplay beginner friendly, and it should not shy people away.


Okay lets try again:
What can we do in Starmade? It's basically space legos without any further gameplay. Even trading with credits does not work atm (servers tend to inflation).

Trading blocks against blocks.
Ship trading.
Template (building parts) trading.
Walking around in stuff and activating mechanics (just like in lego where you have the "action features" in some builds, example a castle wall that can collapse). Flying and docking with shuttles too.
Offering parking space.
Offering refineries and factories.
Offering living space, for example an aparment room that is docked to a station.
Limitted pvp.

 

[JinM]

In violation of our regulated perimeter laws a patrol craft has been sent over to board your ship and control your idendification. Please obey the commands of the patrol officer and no harm will be dealt. If your ship doesn't allow docking we want you to step out of your vessel and fly over into our ship in your astronaut suit.

 

[MilitantCollective]

Uhh, JinM what the hell are you doing? Is this like blog or some shit?

 

[JinM]

This is just some babbling of myself.

Todays thought: AFK roleplay faction rules.

It came to my attention, that a very low playerbase needs rules that basically let people interact if they are not online at the same time.

For example elaborated trade rules....

 

[Lord_Latterous]

It came to my attention, that a very low playerbase needs rules that basically let people interact if they are not online at the same time.

did you seriously just discover that sm is very ded?

 

[MeRobo]

This is just some babbling of myself.

Have you ever heard of the great invention known as text documents?

 

[JinM]

I think about to make a mentionable uploads post about these uploads maybe next week or this weekend.

https://starmadedock.net/content/industrial-stairs-pack.7865/
https://starmadedock.net/content/terrier.7710/
https://starmadedock.net/content/cornerian-retriever-class-fighter.7872/
https://starmadedock.net/content/furon-saucer.7885/
https://starmadedock.net/content/mrgs-pirate-station-01.7882/
https://starmadedock.net/content/petroflux-h56-refueling-repair-station.6934/
https://starmadedock.net/content/the-exilis-utility-craft-pack.6944/