Planned Capital Ships and Motherships

[Blaza612]

In that case, there is no need to add any station-like systems to Capitals, only Motherships. If it's not a mobile base, just another mega-warship, that would not serve any purpose, as people in empire-like factions with multiple stations would still hop back to the nearest base where they can refine and manufacture stuff without any power, time and efficiency penalties, and if it's a warship, no one would waste precious mass and power on factory enhancers, or a shipyard. It's just a big-ass ship. We already have those.

"It's just a big-ass ship" that can do more than your average big-ass shootin' lootin' tootin' ship, such as manufacture ship. These Capital Components allow for a wider range of ships, ESPECIALLY in fleets.

Mobile base does not equal warship. Just like a present-day Supercarrier by itself has close to no combat potential and its onboard weapons only serve as point defense. Its power is in the planes it carries.

Are you suggesting either remove Capital turret mount from Supercarriers, or reduce damage, etc.?

And realistically speaking, as a survival and PvP player, I say NO ONE would EVER leave the core of a moving ship, especially not in a potentially hostile territory

That's a bit of a no shit situation, we have Build-Mode to manage stuff on ships, NPCs/crew which will be a thing, drones that can actually return to your ship, and of course, other players/ship NPCs. It's not like you go out alone in an Industrial Capital, and mine, that's stupid, you go out with a mining fleet and devour all the resources you see, all the while reprocessing them into useful components for construction of other things.

risk flying blind into an ambush

While risk does = reward, that's pretty much a no-brainer. You'd be quite simply stupid to mine in enemy territory, unless of course you do it properly and ninja-mine.

The moment they finish mining or whatever business they had at that location, they'd do nothing other than flying and charging jump drives until they are at the safety of their homebase

Not their homebase, no, the nearest station. But that's besides the point. :p

The point is, and? Seriously, I understand you're trying to render Capitals redundant, but you're a terrible job at it. Seriously, once you've done whatever, you return to the safety of the structures you own. With mining however, you are no longer finished after getting a full load of ore, now, you can reprocess the ore, and stay in space for longer, constantly mining and reprocessing, making it MUCH more efficient than station refining, especially when a Capital refinery refines more than that of a station refinery.

And if you have to be stationary to start processing anyway, then what wrong would come from HAVING TO stop in order to start processing?

The fact that you don't have to stop... ?

Seriously, have you actually read the suggestion, or are you generalizing off of the previous suggestion, and only now learning the details from this argument? If you have, I'd suggest reading it again, fully.

 

[Alphajim]

I agree with motherships and capitals, but :

-you don't really know SM's future, some of your content can be useless

-why limiting cap ships? Are standard ships limited ?! It's same that a big titan, and you can make a mining-fighting-docking-etc titan.

-as said, some things are ridiculously complicated (like cap props, armor...).
You can just do a normal ship with some (say less than 5) new blocks, like a mothership block allowing station's parts except WARPGates, etc...

It's my opinion, and there are just few points above to "adjust", this is a good idea

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

I've got really mixed feelings about this:

My initial reaction when I saw the sheer complexity and the detail was ''no, that's needlessly overcomplicated and makes what should be intuitive overly difficult''.
But reading into it, there are some merits to this idea. Clearly, devs seem to agree as well so I gave it a go and thought to read through more carefully.


I think this could be simplified a little bit. Also, I believe that ship ownership in StarMade needs to be improved for motherships to really ''work''.

Ship Ownership:
There needs to be a distinction between player built private ships and faction built ships.
Player built ships would only be regular ships - no perks, no base, nothing. Just regular ships, regardless of how small or large they are.

Faction built ships would have 2 sub-classes:
- Faction Fleet Ships - any ship of any size, fighters, drones, freighters, carriers, battleships or dropships... basically any ship owned by a faction that isn't a Mothership.
- Faction Motherships - mobile base for a faction, NOT a substitute to a station, rather an extension of a factions reach. Only limit to building motherships or stations should be their price. Cost of building a mothership with it's ''advanced AI'' (or rather an arbitrary tax on it's perks) would be at least 50% higher than that of building the same ship as a non-mothership without the perks.

This makes things simple:
Tagline a ship will come with will dictate what it can do.
If built as mothership, it can mount factories/shipyards, fleet support ships and anchor to claim unclaimed systems.
If built as fleet ship, it can be a support to a mothership or be used by individual members of the faction.
If built by a player and not by a faction it can't do any of those things but it can be used by a faction member or be refit to become a faction ship at a cost.

No specialist components required, all ships would be built with same blocks and their abilities and perks would be bound to their class. This means a lot less added complexity as there are no new blocks for players to understand and build with.
No arbitrary limits to size or numbers apart from a minimum size limit - motherships could be as small as medium size ships, whether it's a small refinery or a humongous mobile station, what you design and pay for will be your only limit. Motherships would not be invulnerable and could be captured, making it a trade off - do I want smaller, less powerful outposts across the galaxy or do I want a gigantic megaship?

When anchored, they would claim systems that have not previously been claimed temporarily and receive a 100% (open to balance) boost to their shields. This would make them harder to capture or destroy but prevent them from becoming invincible fortresses and being OP. Because of their price and abilities, they would be more valuable to a faction and it's up to them to protect their investments better. Fleet booster is a good idea for fleeting support ships and any faction ships in the sector.

I am very much against giving any ship the ability to boost it's cargo storage or power production simply by being a mothership - designing a ship should be a challenge and all ships need to be bound by the same set of rules to keep them in line with each other.

However, I would say that we should bind the energy production soft cap to the mass of the ship, with larger ships being able to make more energy more efficiently - think about it, large ship, more space, better tech, more mass, bigger reactors - it would make sense for a larger ship to be slightly more energy efficient than a smaller one. This would incentivize making larger motherships and thus give factions a bigger incentive to owning them but also drive up their costs - in the end, it's all about the money and I don't think anyone should be punished for collecting enough to build something big. But that's a discussion for another thread.

As for faction size perks:
Factions would level up their strength through acquiring more members, more ships, more resources, money, land (or influence) and other things which in turn would boost the stats of their ships a small amount. So the larger you grow, the better you are. But there would need to be downsides and/or limitations to growing larger to prevent 1-man-factions from owning supercapitals or some factions from growing stupidly large and having OP bonuses. This is open for discussion.

TL:DR/Summary:
I believe that keeping this system as simple as it can be will be more beneficial in the long run and allow for much easier balancing adjustments while also not increasing complexity of the game and ship design any more. No specialist mothership components, thats an easy slippery slope to overcomplicating everything. With regards as to which faction can build motherships, I say that any faction should be allowed one as costs of building and fielding one will be the main limiting factors and motherships don't have to be capital sized omnivessels - but no mothership should be invulnerable.


Anyways, that's what I think, keep it simpler and don't add too many things. We have everything we need, just need to background system to go with it.

 

[Kilim]

I've got really mixed feelings about this:

My initial reaction when I saw the sheer complexity and the detail was ''no, that's needlessly overcomplicated and makes what should be intuitive overly difficult''.
But reading into it, there are some merits to this idea. Clearly, devs seem to agree as well so I gave it a go and thought to read through more carefully.


I think this could be simplified a little bit. Also, I believe that ship ownership in StarMade needs to be improved for motherships to really ''work''.

Ship Ownership:
There needs to be a distinction between player built private ships and faction built ships.
Player built ships would only be regular ships - no perks, no base, nothing. Just regular ships, regardless of how small or large they are.

Faction built ships would have 2 sub-classes:
- Faction Fleet Ships - any ship of any size, fighters, drones, freighters, carriers, battleships or dropships... basically any ship owned by a faction that isn't a Mothership.
- Faction Motherships - mobile base for a faction, NOT a substitute to a station, rather an extension of a factions reach. Only limit to building motherships or stations should be their price. Cost of building a mothership with it's ''advanced AI'' (or rather an arbitrary tax on it's perks) would be at least 50% higher than that of building the same ship as a non-mothership without the perks.

This makes things simple:
Tagline a ship will come with will dictate what it can do.
If built as mothership, it can mount factories/shipyards, fleet support ships and anchor to claim unclaimed systems.
If built as fleet ship, it can be a support to a mothership or be used by individual members of the faction.
If built by a player and not by a faction it can't do any of those things but it can be used by a faction member or be refit to become a faction ship at a cost.

No specialist components required, all ships would be built with same blocks and their abilities and perks would be bound to their class. This means a lot less added complexity as there are no new blocks for players to understand and build with.
No arbitrary limits to size or numbers apart from a minimum size limit - motherships could be as small as medium size ships, whether it's a small refinery or a humongous mobile station, what you design and pay for will be your only limit. Motherships would not be invulnerable and could be captured, making it a trade off - do I want smaller, less powerful outposts across the galaxy or do I want a gigantic megaship?

When anchored, they would claim systems that have not previously been claimed temporarily and receive a 100% (open to balance) boost to their shields. This would make them harder to capture or destroy but prevent them from becoming invincible fortresses and being OP. Because of their price and abilities, they would be more valuable to a faction and it's up to them to protect their investments better. Fleet booster is a good idea for fleeting support ships and any faction ships in the sector.

I am very much against giving any ship the ability to boost it's cargo storage or power production simply by being a mothership - designing a ship should be a challenge and all ships need to be bound by the same set of rules to keep them in line with each other.

However, I would say that we should bind the energy production soft cap to the mass of the ship, with larger ships being able to make more energy more efficiently - think about it, large ship, more space, better tech, more mass, bigger reactors - it would make sense for a larger ship to be slightly more energy efficient than a smaller one. This would incentivize making larger motherships and thus give factions a bigger incentive to owning them but also drive up their costs - in the end, it's all about the money and I don't think anyone should be punished for collecting enough to build something big. But that's a discussion for another thread.

As for faction size perks:
Factions would level up their strength through acquiring more members, more ships, more resources, money, land (or influence) and other things which in turn would boost the stats of their ships a small amount. So the larger you grow, the better you are. But there would need to be downsides and/or limitations to growing larger to prevent 1-man-factions from owning supercapitals or some factions from growing stupidly large and having OP bonuses. This is open for discussion.

TL:DR/Summary:
I believe that keeping this system as simple as it can be will be more beneficial in the long run and allow for much easier balancing adjustments while also not increasing complexity of the game and ship design any more. No specialist mothership components, thats an easy slippery slope to overcomplicating everything. With regards as to which faction can build motherships, I say that any faction should be allowed one as costs of building and fielding one will be the main limiting factors and motherships don't have to be capital sized omnivessels - but no mothership should be invulnerable.


Anyways, that's what I think, keep it simpler and don't add too many things. We have everything we need, just need to background system to go with it.

groovie groove groove :D
that's long D:

 

[lighturfir]

dont know what class you would put my ships into but all i build is 600m plus ships an thats all i fly im currently building a 800m long ship an i build as i fly around dont really have a home base an just set up a small factory as needed in what ever system im in as the need for parts arises so even though this is a great idea im basically already doing this

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

I know it's long :P took a lot of explaining but it's a simple core concept - make motherships faction based, give them factories, shipyards and a small shield bonus when anchored and done. Don't add anything else, keep it simple. That's what I was trying to get across anyway :P

 

[Blaza612]

-you don't really know SM's future, some of your content can be useless

Erm, sorry to burst ye bubble, but yes I do. :p

Starmade Roadmap

Not only that, but devs have discussed many different things that they have planned for the game with the community, I've been around long enough to know Schine's plans for the games (at a more generalized level) and thus I'm capable of managing to wrap ideas around their plans, well, most of the time at least. :p

-why limiting cap ships? Are standard ships limited ?! It's same that a big titan, and you can make a mining-fighting-docking-etc titan.

The reason Capitals are limited, is because they can be far stronger than that titan. A Dreadnought would snot a titan, simply because of the Capital buffs from the components it can use.

-as said, some things are ridiculously complicated (like cap props, armor...).
You can just do a normal ship with some (say less than 5) new blocks, like a mothership block allowing station's parts except WARPGates, etc...

I've been over this, no, this reinforces homebase living. I'm not going to go into detail, but I'd suggest having a look at some previous replies, where I explain it in more detail, multiple times.

I know it's long :p took a lot of explaining but it's a simple core concept - make motherships faction based, give them factories, shipyards and a small shield bonus when anchored and done. Don't add anything else, keep it simple. That's what I was trying to get across anyway :p

There is a point where it's TOO simple, and doesn't allow for nearly as much as say what the original suggestion allows.

There needs to be a distinction between player built private ships and faction built ships.
Player built ships would only be regular ships - no perks, no base, nothing. Just regular ships, regardless of how small or large they are.

Yes, this is a brilliant idea, I'll add that to OP unless you want to make a separate suggestion for it. :p

- Faction Fleet Ships - any ship of any size, fighters, drones, freighters, carriers, battleships or dropships... basically any ship owned by a faction that isn't a Mothership.

My problem here is the use of the term 'Mothership', but I'll go into more detail later

- Faction Motherships - mobile base for a faction, NOT a substitute to a station, rather an extension of a factions reach. Only limit to building motherships or stations should be their price. Cost of building a mothership with it's ''advanced AI'' (or rather an arbitrary tax on it's perks) would be at least 50% higher than that of building the same ship as a non-mothership without the perks.

The components solve this, and increase the capabilities that a Capital could have. (Skip to bottom for more summarized version :p)

If built as mothership, it can mount factories/shipyards, fleet support ships and anchor to claim unclaimed systems.

Here is the biggest problem. You're cannibalizing the Capital that's meant for small factions as a means to live a nomadic style, and making it the one class universal Capital ship. No, this is simplifying it too much, to the point where we sacrifice many of the new possibilities that not only Motherships provided, but also Capitals.

If built as fleet ship, it can be a support to a mothership or be used by individual members of the faction.

So the Mothership basically becomes a poopin' lootin' shootin' factory? Again, too simple, pls no. :p

If built by a player and not by a faction it can't do any of those things but it can be used by a faction member or be refit to become a faction ship at a cost.

I'd say have a FP cost for converting private ships into faction. I would also like to point out, what happens if the faction is disbanded? Who gets what ships? I'd say the creator would have a sort of meta-ownership, where the ship would still recognize them as an owner, but will only do anything relative to that if it becomes private again.

No arbitrary limits to size or numbers apart from a minimum size limit

I didn't even have a minimum size. :p

I am very much against giving any ship the ability to boost it's cargo storage or power production simply by being a mothership - designing a ship should be a challenge and all ships need to be bound by the same set of rules to keep them in line with each other.

That's why Cargo Space is limited?

However, I would say that we should bind the energy production soft cap to the mass of the ship, with larger ships being able to make more energy more efficiently - think about it, large ship, more space, better tech, more mass, bigger reactors - it would make sense for a larger ship to be slightly more energy efficient than a smaller one. This would incentivize making larger motherships and thus give factions a bigger incentive to owning them but also drive up their costs - in the end, it's all about the money and I don't think anyone should be punished for collecting enough to build something big. But that's a discussion for another thread.

I guess this could work, but need more opinions on the matter.

Factions would level up their strength through acquiring more members, more ships, more resources, money, land (or influence) and other things which in turn would boost the stats of their ships a small amount. So the larger you grow, the better you are. But there would need to be downsides and/or limitations to growing larger to prevent 1-man-factions from owning supercapitals or some factions from growing stupidly large and having OP bonuses. This is open for discussion.

This is kind of a thing, however, people will still be able to have one man factions with Supercarriers, except they will need to build up their empire. They may be the only HUMAN in the faction, but empires will be added, allowing players to build up their factions with NPCs and such.

Now for the more summarized part. :p

As I've said, you're trying to simplify it, but too much. By removing Capitals and cannabilizing Motherships to replace them, and only allowing the new Motherships to be used for a very finite number of things, you're removing a lot of the possible content and such that this suggestion could provide. As they are, Capitals can provide a large amount of possibilities for large factions, ranging from a Capital Industrial managing a mining fleet, or maybe even have it at the front-line, being a mobile shipyard/repair ship, which essentially acts as your Mothership, but is not limited to that.

Motherships open up an entirely new way to play for small 1-3 player factions, as they allow for a Nomadic Lifestyle, rather than being bound to having to make an empire and stick with stations. You're completely removing this new way to play, all for an overly simple Capital system.

TL;DR - Too simple, sacrifices many new options of gameplay/content to be simple.

dont know what class you would put my ships into but all i build is 600m plus ships an thats all i fly im currently building a 800m long ship an i build as i fly around dont really have a home base an just set up a small factory as needed in what ever system im in as the need for parts arises so even though this is a great idea im basically already doing this

I'd say a Mothership, so it'd be able to have all of the normal station stuff running inside of it. ^_^

 

[Lecic]

The reason Capitals are limited, is because they can be far stronger than that titan. A Dreadnought would snot a titan, simply because of the Capital buffs from the components it can use.

And THIS is the issue with this suggestion. Why should there be special blocks that allow this sort of thing?

I've been over this, no, this reinforces homebase living. I'm not going to go into detail, but I'd suggest having a look at some previous replies, where I explain it in more detail, multiple times.

What reinforces "homebase living" is the lack of need to claim anything but the system you've claimed your HB in, not being able to put factories on a ship.

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

Thanks for your reply, Blaza I appreciate you taking your time to read it. Feel free to add any of it to OP or use it however you want to.

My only issue is complexity - I don't want to see Star Made get too complicated. It's already complex enough as it is, with logic, several levels of armor blocks in all shapes and colors, a system block for everything etc. Adding special capital-only blocks would make things too complex.

Quickly: about faction fleet ship ownership - they are not owned by any specific player, no faction ship would be owned by a player. They would ALL be owned by the faction instead, with leaders being able to set permissions from within the faction control as to who can use what ships - say locking them to specific ranks within the faction, forcing people to work towards a better ship. Since they never buy it themselves, it would be a reward mechanism - ''we will buy you a battleship but you need to be a loyal enough member''. No drama, everyone knows what they can and can't fly, if a ship goes missing you know who had access to it as well But that's a BTW thing.

By making a capital ship into it's own class, you can build or refit an existing ship so that it becomes a Mothership. Also, I use the term ''Mothership'' and tried to refrain from calling them ''Capitals'' because capital seems to suggest a particular size, whereas a Mothership could be any ship that carries a fleet with it. It's not strictly a class, designation or classification, just a tag that specifies it's a ship with a different purpose. This means it can even be JUST a refinery, not strictly a ship that anyone will live on or use for fleeting.

This also allows you to specify the server-wide bonuses and limitations for the ''mothership class'' ships from within one config file. Do you want your server to have stronger or weaker motherships? Want to lock some features away? Maybe it's too small a server to allow motherships anyway? Do you want them to have impenetrable shields? All this and more could be set for all motherships if they become a specific class.
In turn, this allows us to dictate how systems behave on a Mothership, easily doing away with extra added complexity of extra blocks and instead simply swapping block values with a different set. Easy and doesn't make the process of design any more complex. This is the one thing we need to be careful of.

Those poopin, shootin factories would still be quite scarce because it's much more cost effective and safer to build a station instead - hence why you could have many smaller motherships doing all kinds of different things and say one HUGE mobile base that does it all. Size doesn't matter and at the end of the day, people will only be able to build what they can pay for - and so we aren't likely to see ''Capitals'' everywhere. Also, as I said, ship factories need to be less efficient, forcing a trade off - do you want a good, affordable factory or a mediocre super-expensive one that you can move?

Note: I use the term ''Mothership'' separately to a ''Titan'' - a mothership is not necessarily a titan. You could still fleet a titan as a regular ship which would actually make more sense. It would be far cheaper to build a regular titan with much more firepower than a Mothership titan with extra features that no other ship has - again, balancing.

Finally, giving motherships too many benefits will make them go-to omnivessels, THE ship that factions would build. I think that could potentially be game-breaking, if they are given too many perks even with balancing. People have a knack for finding metas in StarMade, I just don't want to see this game wrecked by hordes of OP ships with extra privileges.

That is all for now, if you have any questions and comments I'm happy to have a chat. I appreciate your time

 

[MacThule]

Those poopin, shootin factories would still be quite scarce because it's much more cost effective and safer to build a station instead - hence why you could have many smaller motherships doing all kinds of different things and say one HUGE mobile base that does it all. Size doesn't matter and at the end of the day, people will only be able to build what they can pay for - and so we aren't likely to see ''Capitals'' everywhere.

This sounds great and like it balances the whole idea of creating a new uber-mega ship class because "hardly anyone will use them" but your premise is false. It's a fantasy, and fantasies don't balance anything. Currently many new players who have never even built a fighter come into a multiplayer server for the first time and invest weeks of grind to build a titan as their very first ship - regardless of cost - because the forums and videos reflect that such ships are OP and without one you won't be safe from those who have them.

You seriously think that the majority of players are too foolish to realize very quickly that capital ships are super OP because of "massive buff" blocks of OP-ness and go straight for those, regardless of cost? Especially since you can put ALL your resources into your OP omniship instead of needing to keep some invested in a station; the net cost increase will be nil since players will just recycle their stations into their capital ships once they reach that threshold.

Saying that this will somehow be balanced "because theories!" is total bull - it will be unmitigatedly OP and will be the only viable mode of play in time.

This will be implemented and in 6-12 months another munchkin who wants an even MORE uber ship type to dominate all the capitals is going to push some kind of suggestion for special "titan" class blocks that buff ships even more than the "massive" buffs capital blocks do and then that'll be the new benchmark.

Inflation is all this scheme will result in.

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

I have a feeling you haven't entirely understood my point. I said ''NO BUFFS''. No special components, no extra powers - just ability to field other ships or claim territories. Don't make them OP and make them stupidly expensive. People will do what they want, but the idea is that no single player should ever be able to have a mothership on his own and if so they should have no power benefit over a standard titan. Also a ''Mothership'' class is not an uber-class - just a tag for any ship that is a ''mother'' to other ships or a mobile faction base, not an uber-ship of destruction.

If anything, a mothership should receive penalties to combat - to make them even less viable as fighting ships and force focus on their other abilities. Think about it, no power benefits and huge inflation in price for basically a few small abilities that hinder other systems on your ship anyways because of power consumption, mass, size or other factors? If you want a fighting ship, get a fighting ship. If you want a mobile base, pay a huge premium and end up forced to buy a fighting ship or a fleet of ships to support it because it's A) a priority target that if captured will help other factions grow and B) a very expensive asset to lose.

As for people building huge omniships anyway - if a faction is big enough to afford a mothership and can pay extra to make it as good as or better than an equivalent titan, why should they not be able to have an omniship then? If you can buy it, have it. Saying that it's somehow wrong to be able to afford to buy an omniship is like saying ''So you've earned all that money and gained all the resources, now give up and start over because there is nothing more for you here and it's unfair for others that you've worked hard to get big''

Eitherway, I'm only arguing the fact that the overall system should be simple and easy to navigate and should not add any extra complexity layer to the game that is already very complex to fully understand and that Motherships should have limited purpose as opposed to becoming another meta with extra buffed parts.

On the side:
What do you want to do? What do you want to build? Personally, my second ship ever was a 636m battleship and I felt pretty secure piloting it when my point defence could take on a fleet of pirate ships with 0 damage taken. It was only ever used as a glorified yacht but was good enough as a deterrent - basically untouchable. And I like that, I like that feeling of total freedom, domination and security in one. And let's be honest, who doesn't want to fly big ships? They are fun and cool and you feel very important when commanding a large vessel like that. Deep down we all want to be in charge. In reality, we end up employed by other people or make a go of our own small ventures but in games we have the ability to become captain and generals, be in charge and satisfy the age old power fantasy. There is nothing wrong with titans, gigantism and omniships - but they should all come at a cost and you need to be willing to work for it to get it. That is where I stand.

 

[Blaza612]

And THIS is the issue with this suggestion. Why should there be special blocks that allow this sort of thing?

Why not? Why can't we make Capitals that can be much more powerful than any one ship? And if you're just going to buff standard blocks, then how are you going to drive up the costs of the Capitals? It's mega-buff without the major balancing factor.

What reinforces "homebase living" is the lack of need to claim anything but the system you've claimed your HB in, not being able to put factories on a ship.

AND an omni-ship.

My only issue is complexity - I don't want to see Star Made get too complicated. It's already complex enough as it is, with logic, several levels of armor blocks in all shapes and colors, a system block for everything etc. Adding special capital-only blocks would make things too complex.

I don't see how new blocks are too complex for Capitals. If anything, Capitals should be a tad bit more complex, with new ways of setting up systems (Cap armour and thrust min block counts). Again, you're making it too simple, if we just use the standard station stuff, then omni-ship, if we use standard systems for class-defining and buff them, then confusion and the lack of a way to drive costs up, but if we use new blocks that VERY OBVIOUSLY scream "I'm a powerful system for Capitals!" then we can solve all of those. No omni-ships, no confusion, and the costs get driven up to better represent their power.

Quickly: about faction fleet ship ownership - they are not owned by any specific player, no faction ship would be owned by a player. They would ALL be owned by the faction instead, with leaders being able to set permissions from within the faction control as to who can use what ships - say locking them to specific ranks within the faction, forcing people to work towards a better ship. Since they never buy it themselves, it would be a reward mechanism - ''we will buy you a battleship but you need to be a loyal enough member''. No drama, everyone knows what they can and can't fly, if a ship goes missing you know who had access to it as well But that's a BTW thing.

The reason I made that suggestion is in case a faction disbands. It wont show the original owner or anything in the actual ship info, but it will still store it, in case either A) A faction decides to remove ownership of said ships and B) If a faction disbands. This will make a smoother transition into doing either of those, and will be more efficient, instead of having to go back and try to figure out who first owned it, and in general would be simple.

Also, I use the term ''Mothership'' and tried to refrain from calling them ''Capitals'' because capital seems to suggest a particular size, whereas a Mothership could be any ship that carries a fleet with it. It's not strictly a class, designation or classification, just a tag that specifies it's a ship with a different purpose. This means it can even be JUST a refinery, not strictly a ship that anyone will live on or use for fleeting.

The problem, is that I see Motherships in the way that Homeworld presents them, literal MOTHERships. They are the mother of a fleet, where everything happens, and so, I made them exactly that, except not giving everyone an omni-ship. I made it that they're used for a nomadic life-style, and act as an actual Mothership for the small factions to possibly use, which Capitals says exactly what they're meant to be, big, powerful, and chunky.

This also allows you to specify the server-wide bonuses and limitations for the ''mothership class'' ships from within one config file. Do you want your server to have stronger or weaker motherships? Want to lock some features away? Maybe it's too small a server to allow motherships anyway? Do you want them to have impenetrable shields? All this and more could be set for all motherships if they become a specific class.
In turn, this allows us to dictate how systems behave on a Mothership, easily doing away with extra added complexity of extra blocks and instead simply swapping block values with a different set. Easy and doesn't make the process of design any more complex. This is the one thing we need to be careful of.

B-but, WHY? You are creating an omni-ship, and then allowing servers to reduce it's capabilities, this will result in NO BENEFITS TO BEING A MOTHERSHIP. Why? Because they're already omni-ships, and hence OP, thus, servers would most likely not want to use them.

Those poopin, shootin factories would still be quite scarce because it's much more cost effective and safer to build a station instead - hence why you could have many smaller motherships doing all kinds of different things and say one HUGE mobile base that does it all. Size doesn't matter and at the end of the day, people will only be able to build what they can pay for - and so we aren't likely to see ''Capitals'' everywhere. Also, as I said, ship factories need to be less efficient, forcing a trade off - do you want a good, affordable factory or a mediocre super-expensive one that you can move?

In theory, no, and practice, no. Essentially, what MacThule said. :p

Note: I use the term ''Mothership'' separately to a ''Titan'' - a mothership is not necessarily a titan. You could still fleet a titan as a regular ship which would actually make more sense. It would be far cheaper to build a regular titan with much more firepower than a Mothership titan with extra features that no other ship has - again, balancing.

We could kind of guess that, but consider this. A Capital, has the same possibilities as your Mothership, HOWEVER, we're adding MORE possibilites for standard fleet work, for example, dreadnoughts. Now, they can't become omni-ships for balance reasons, but all of a sudden, Capitals have SO much more versatility than Motherships, and aren't as OP as your Mothership.

Finally, giving motherships too many benefits will make them go-to omnivessels, THE ship that factions would build. I think that could potentially be game-breaking, if they are given too many perks even with balancing. People have a knack for finding metas in StarMade, I just don't want to see this game wrecked by hordes of OP ships with extra privileges.

They are already omni-ships.

This sounds great and like it balances the whole idea of creating a new uber-mega ship class because "hardly anyone will use them" but your premise is false. It's a fantasy, and fantasies don't balance anything. Currently many new players who have never even built a fighter come into a multiplayer server for the first time and invest weeks of grind to build a titan as their very first ship - regardless of cost - because the forums and videos reflect that such ships are OP and without one you won't be safe from those who have them.

You seriously think that the majority of players are too foolish to realize very quickly that capital ships are super OP because of "massive buff" blocks of OP-ness and go straight for those, regardless of cost? Especially since you can put ALL your resources into your OP omniship instead of needing to keep some invested in a station; the net cost increase will be nil since players will just recycle their stations into their capital ships once they reach that threshold.

Saying that this will somehow be balanced "because theories!" is total bull - it will be unmitigatedly OP and will be the only viable mode of play in time.

This will be implemented and in 6-12 months another munchkin who wants an even MORE uber ship type to dominate all the capitals is going to push some kind of suggestion for special "titan" class blocks that buff ships even more than the "massive" buffs capital blocks do and then that'll be the new benchmark.

Inflation is all this scheme will result in.

Yeah pretty much, however, I designed mine around the ideas of a proper economy and empire building, which should be coming in the somewhat near future, so it does have a way to prevent players from immediately getting say a Dreadnought or Supercarrier.

I have a feeling you haven't entirely understood my point. I said ''NO BUFFS''. No special components, no extra powers - just ability to field other ships or claim territories.

Still OP. :p

Don't make them OP and make them stupidly expensive.

You've already made them OP, but without the costs.

As for people building huge omniships anyway - if a faction is big enough to afford a mothership and can pay extra to make it as good as or better than an equivalent titan, why should they not be able to have an omniship then? If you can buy it, have it. Saying that it's somehow wrong to be able to afford to buy an omniship is like saying ''So you've earned all that money and gained all the resources, now give up and start over because there is nothing more for you here and it's unfair for others that you've worked hard to get big''

Errrrm, it breaks everything?

Eitherway, I'm only arguing the fact that the overall system should be simple and easy to navigate and should not add any extra complexity layer to the game that is already very complex to fully understand and that Motherships should have limited purpose as opposed to becoming another meta with extra buffed parts.

It IS simple though, the extra layer of complexity is in my eyes a good idea because of the late-game large faction/empire nature of them, as you progress, complexity should get greater, not be the same overall.

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

I guess everyone will have their own way of interpreting this system. I saw Motherships that could be as small as a simple commanding vessel or a platform.

I suppose another way to get around the issue is to simply allow factories/shipyards etc. on any ship and simply letting the players decide what they want to do with them, leaving motherships etc to their own designation.

My main concern was with complexity added by introducing a ton of new blocks and systems. I guess you are right in saying they should be more complex. Just be careful of making them too complicated is all I'm gonna say.

Anyways, it'll be interesting to see how this pans out in the long run.

 

[Blaza612]

I suppose another way to get around the issue is to simply allow factories/shipyards etc. on any ship and simply letting the players decide what they want to do with them, leaving motherships etc to their own designation.

No, that's even worse. :p

My main concern was with complexity added by introducing a ton of new blocks and systems. I guess you are right in saying they should be more complex. Just be careful of making them too complicated is all I'm gonna say.

Dun worry, they wont be getting more complex than this, unless the need arises. :p

Anyways, it'll be interesting to see how this pans out in the long run.

Ja

 

[Lecic]

Why not? Why can't we make Capitals that can be much more powerful than any one ship? And if you're just going to buff standard blocks, then how are you going to drive up the costs of the Capitals? It's mega-buff without the major balancing factor.

Because the game is attempting to move away from supertitans, and we shouldn't be encouraging that with super powered capital weapons.

 

[MacThule]

Blaza,

OK - I must acknowledge that if properly implemented in the context of a fleet-oriented, more strategic & economically stable world, capital ships could be balanced. They simply don't have any place currently.

Even in-context though, I don't think there should be special buffs for any one ship over another regardless of cost. It would only damage the FPS aspect of this game. If anything, I think Capital Ships should have stats like any other ship of similar size and composition but provide bonuses to friendly ships/fleets in the sector, not receive buffs that make it uber itself.

The whole point of a capital ship is not that it's a tank, it's a command center. Good command and control improves the value of any fighting force, so I could see capitals buffing friendly fleets and players. But capital ships in fiction/games aren't super tough because they have magic powers, it's because strategically it usually makes sense to elect your strongest ship as the capital for a fleet. That's where the commanders are and any observers, that's where the electronic warfare center will be, that's where special equipment will be - you don't put that stuff on a frigate. You put that stuff on a battle-cruiser (at least) and then you add extra armor and additional top-of-the-line turrets and set the fleet's orders to protect the nerve center. That's why capital ships are hard to take down as I see it.

I'm fine with putting factories on ships... but in that case there will need to be major additional functionality brought to stations and ship-borne crafting facilities would have to be substantially inferior - basically something to re-supply ships in the field rather than a replacement for a proper planet or station. I don't even see them as necessarily tied to a capital ship - in fact I think they're be more appropriate to a large mining vessel serving as a mobile refinery, fuel depot and supply platform.

 

[RODLON]

Something I really like of starmade is the freedom to build what you want, what you need, with the resources/parts you can get. No limits besides the parts available to build. There are a lot of games that limit the ships features to a few types, based on what you pay. You can play eve online for example.

Right now the game is self-balanced. What you can build depends only on the resources you can get and their properties.
If you want a powerful mothership to cause destruction, make it big and sacrifice defenses for weapons. If you want a capital ship to command your fleet, make it huge and fill it with shilds.
It's that simple, no need to categorize ship types and add features based on arbitrary values.

This has more "Blody awful!" votes than possitive votes and it's planned. Let's hope they don't implement something like this :S

 

[Blaza612]

Because the game is attempting to move away from supertitans, and we shouldn't be encouraging that with super powered capital weapons.

When I say obscenely expensive, I mean OBSCENELY expensive, like, a large faction would only be able to build 1 or two, without mining out a few systems. I understand where ye coming from, but there should always be at least 1 or 2 mega-ships, that aren't omni of course. :p

Even in-context though, I don't think there should be special buffs for any one ship over another regardless of cost. It would only damage the FPS aspect of this game. If anything, I think Capital Ships should have stats like any other ship of similar size and composition but provide bonuses to friendly ships/fleets in the sector, not receive buffs that make it uber itself.

I do agree, however, I'm not sure how we can implement such a thing, since i don't want to have to limit factions to having to build a Capital just to control their fleet, maybe we could tone down the raw buffs a bit and maybe provide some extra buffs for fleet stuff, rather than just the fleet booster? (Which, BTW, is universal, all Caps can use it, regardless of type)

The whole point of a capital ship is not that it's a tank, it's a command center. Good command and control improves the value of any fighting force, so I could see capitals buffing friendly fleets and players. But capital ships in fiction/games aren't super tough because they have magic powers, it's because strategically it usually makes sense to elect your strongest ship as the capital for a fleet. That's where the commanders are and any observers, that's where the electronic warfare center will be, that's where special equipment will be - you don't put that stuff on a frigate. You put that stuff on a battle-cruiser (at least) and then you add extra armor and additional top-of-the-line turrets and set the fleet's orders to protect the nerve center. That's why capital ships are hard to take down as I see it.

I do agree, but again, I'm not entirely sure how we can do that. At the moment, they general cost would create an incentive to use them in a fleet, since they're so expensive, you DO NOT want to lose them, ever, no matter, etc. :p

I'm fine with putting factories on ships... but in that case there will need to be major additional functionality brought to stations and ship-borne crafting facilities would have to be substantially inferior - basically something to re-supply ships in the field rather than a replacement for a proper planet or station. I don't even see them as necessarily tied to a capital ship - in fact I think they're be more appropriate to a large mining vessel serving as a mobile refinery, fuel depot and supply platform.

Stations are already going to be getting many more buffs in future updates, IIRC.

Something I really like of starmade is the freedom to build what you want, what you need, with the resources/parts you can get. No limits besides the parts available to build. There are a lot of games that limit the ships features to a few types, based on what you pay. You can play eve online for example.

We've been over this. It causes problems.

Right now the game is self-balanced. What you can build depends only on the resources you can get and their properties.
If you want a powerful mothership to cause destruction, make it big and sacrifice defenses for weapons. If you want a capital ship to command your fleet, make it huge and fill it with shilds.
It's that simple, no need to categorize ship types and add features based on arbitrary values.

Slight problem, omni-ships happen, and they fuck up everything.

This has more "Blody awful!" votes than possitive votes and it's planned. Let's hope they don't implement something like this :S

Tough luck kid.

 

[RODLON]

We've been over this. It causes problems.

Yes, just that it doesn't... Or maybe yes, if you don't like sandbox games.

Slight problem, omni-ships happen, and they fuck up everything.

Omni-ships are natural evolution of smaller ships. What they cause should be a gameplay feature.

Tough luck kid

Looking forward for the mod api, so we can clean up the possible upcoming capital ships mess. I already have a name for a mod, the "Meta-Magic Disabler" (from "meta-data", more or less the only thing that will difference a capital ship from the exact same ship without the capital flag in the metadata).

Anyway I was just talking about this suggestion. I trust the developers. I like how they made the thrusters system, cargo system, etc. Althrough the awful suggestions you can find in the forums.

 

[Lecic]

I'm almost certain that the only "planned" part of this is the title.