Change power all you like, it wont help us.

[Neon_42]

I think one of the issues that has been missed here ( Though I haven't read all the threads) was the one of AI. I think one of the issues they're working on is smarter AI for better battles. With ships having many systems, that require careful balancing of the power input, power draw, and power capacity I can see how this would get very complicated very fast. I think their goal is to reduce power to a single double value. Right now power is contained in two floats (capacity and regen). If the AI had only one value to use (schine used "heat" but that is a different discussion) it would simplify everything quite a bit. This is a fundamental limitation of the computer at this point, not really a gameplay decision. I'm fairly confident that they can come up with a simple system that works without breaking the game. Please correct me if i'm wrong Lancake Criss schema

 

[kulbolen]

nah neon weve bitched about ai a loooooot, but youre totally right

 

[Ghent96]

...
As i said before blocks can be destroyer, the other "real time" calculations go off...

Guys... stop arguing, please, and more explaining. I think what he's proposing is this, and it could actually be quite good to optimize the game:
- you build a ship and save it, or shipyard it, to "lock" or "weld" it.
- the ships stats become "static".
- in combat, the ship can lose blocks, armor blocks, system blocks, and the armor pool decreases and the system HP pool decreases, HOWEVER... instead, the ship's stats remain "static" without the calculations constantly updating every time a shield, regen, reactor, or cap block get blasted, every time a chain of reactors gets broken... of course that sounds ridiculously complex and probably needlessly. Realistic, sure. Good gameplay, sure, but ridiculous in terms of server calculations lagging everything down.
- ship stats should go down as the ship is blasted to bits, yes, so the system HP pool % becomes a simple multiplier on the ship stats. That's much easier to do than constant updates per block during combat. This is why "static" was in quotes above.

 

[Az14el]

It should sound/actually be much easier on performance the way he suggested (why almost every other game in existence wouldnt even consider running constant calculations on what is essentially the Atom in its own engines universe), but very much part of the essence of starmade is every block mattering. If you've ever played a space "sim" where you simply get hit until a number of bars reach Zero then go through a familiar explosion/crash & burn animation you've pretty much already played starmades combat without some measure of block for block simulation.

Which is why I make the argument, I have plenty of silky smooth pvp arcade games already that function that way, I'll take 10 fps in starmade over 120 on star conflict

Even then I assume that example has complicated hitboxes being constantly monitored and are different for each of the pre-fabbed ships just to be able to register when & by what you were hit.

 

[Deserea]

The problem if that happens = all ego big ship users are going to get angry.

You really, really, really, really, really, really really, must hate people who build ships bigger than you.

In my large ships at least, every single energy recharger over the cap is still in spaghetti lines. or straight ones, and not big cubes like that, because if one line somewhere gets damaged, then ill still have more to compensate for it.

Yes ill get angry as shit if they remove energy recharge over the *CURVE* cap, because my massive ship in my signature needs that power just to move very well because of the nerf thrusters got.

 

[kulbolen]

or you could just use aux lol

 

[Deserea]

or you could just use aux lol

No clue who that is aimed at.

 

[kulbolen]

intentional

 

[Deserea]

Deserea False, i have no problem on people that uses big ships. We've never been on the same server so you probably will not believe me.

My problem is that by making the gigantism lighter for loading a server, they end up breaking small ships [less than 50 meters] to pvp.
And yep, that image is part of the problem that is going to make this game change.

Edit with a fun fact:

Before that storm i was starting to work on a kuun-lan nearly half scale, and believe me that is big.[more than 900 metters]

Kinda hard to get me on a server atm anyways, my internet provider has all 4242 ports blocked.

To be fair, most of the people i know that do pvp, dont enjoy ships that size anyways because of the lack of functioning weapons at that size(Which honestly, i think they need to do something about that instead of power. but thats another thread.) And from my point of view, ships less than 50 meters arent very combat orientated anyways(I know they can be, this is just my POV), but its not a power issue, its a weapon damage issue. i remember seeing a thread on here a long time ago, where it took two players about an hour to finally end a duel between two fighters sized vessels(if i remember this was without missiles being allowed). I dunno about you but that sounds boring.

Plus, most ships in scifi universes are larger than 50 meters to begin with, they have to be, to contain all the stuff on them. Fighters are usually smaller than that obviously, and if we are using real life ships to scale, which is a bad idea to begin with. there would be a massive size difference between terrestrial and extra terrestrial ships(i think i used that right?)

The titan is an oddity in pvp anyways, from what i see and can understand from talking to a few people on pvp servers because of the resources invested. Nobody wants to lost one in a battle...(I dunno, ive never used mine, but just the idea of loosing it in combat terrifies me after the amount of time i spent making it.)

 

[MrGrey1]

I feel you guys seriously need some input from an 'outsider' so here goes.
I'm 2 months into this game. A noob. I haven't built any ships over a couple hundred meters and nothing that has reached 2mill yet so I have zero experience with docked reactors or auxiliary power systems. Having said that, I just want to say that what first hooked me into this game was trying to build a twisted power core. What I believe is called a knot by the pros around here. Also trying to figure out the optimum power layout for various cube sizes. I spent days mucking around with pure power core designs trying to optimize things and thoroughly enjoyed myself with the puzzle that is the current power system.

Now geographically I'm in an isolated city that has only a couple of servers in ping range and they're not very active, I'm basically stuck in survival single player with the exception of my kids and an occasional friend dropping by. My problem now is that I have ships and have started to explore the 'rest' of the game and am finding I've got not much to do but blow up Isanths (shiza, can't you guys get some more ships in the game by default? /grumble,) and destroy or capture stations... it's getting old pretty quickly. Now I can occupy myself for years just building things and thats ok for me, but this game really needs something built into it to do other then build if you want to attract more players. It needs some built in opposition BADLY! (And I thought zombies and creepers were 'barely there,' as opposition.) Some challenge beyond retarded bots circling around and around add infinitum. Hell, they don't even prioritize and change targets!
The current power system and building ships around it is the only worth while part of the game for me at the moment, (other then the logic system, which is magic by the way, well done.) To rip that down and start again seems to me to be completely counterproductive as the power system basically 'is the game' for me.

From where I'm sitting the noise about the problems with the power system seems to come from the top end of the player base, the dedicated hardcores, with massive ships who push the game to it's limits. You guys need to shift your perspective to that of a new player if you want to expand this game too new players! If you destroy what you've built every time a new idea pops into your collective heads without ever finishing anything you've started then you're already doomed. Focus on the game beyond building. The power system at the moment, to me as a new player is fun! A great puzzle worth spending time unraveling. It was, literally, the hook for me into this game. Leave the power system be and give some attention to your AI and game content beyond building.
Just my 2c as a new player with only the basics under his belt.

 

[Raisinbat]

Explaining with more words you are arguing that unbalaced stuff is acceptable because everyone uses it.

He is saying that starmade should be designed to not favor designs that aren't mechanically feasible, instead of just labelling those ships "evil". Playing a game = finding the best options, the game should not have best options that the engine can't handle, and trying to police it with community is a terrible idea instead of fixing it.

Is it an exploit using fire magic on ice monsters too? If no, what if the fire magic lags the game?

But if you can't simply build bigger, oh look! You'll have to learn to build efficient, and be creative or just smart about placing your systems and interior rooms. And finally, battles would be decided by building and piloting skill instead of who's got the bigger di... I mean ship.

Why is it every time people complain about big ships the solution always has to be some limit on what you can build? How about stop feeding players millions of resources and stuff to spend them on that isn't a huge titan, and get rid of permanent invulnerability so people have a resource loss?

Seriously, no matter what limits you place people are spoonfed resources on every server i've seen and you never lose anything so everyone is constantly growing in net worth. What can you spend that networth on other than titans? That's the problem you should be addressing.

I think one of the issues that has been missed here ( Though I haven't read all the threads) was the one of AI. I think one of the issues they're working on is smarter AI for better battles. With ships having many systems, that require careful balancing of the power input, power draw, and power capacity I can see how this would get very complicated very fast. I think their goal is to reduce power to a single double value. Right now power is contained in two floats (capacity and regen). If the AI had only one value to use (schine used "heat" but that is a different discussion) it would simplify everything quite a bit. This is a fundamental limitation of the computer at this point, not really a gameplay decision. I'm fairly confident that they can come up with a simple system that works without breaking the game. Please correct me if i'm wrong Lancake Criss schema

This sounds like madness, Game should be designed for players, not for ai. Besides, capacity and regen still exists in new system, they just relabelled it.

 

[FlyingDebris]

I think there is a lack of understanding of human nature here. Make it harder to build big ships all you want, it won't stop them from being built. That's just how people are in a game where building is /literally/ an arms race to whoever can build the biggest, baddest ship, efficiency be damned. People will always want to be the top dog, and as a result they will always build the most powerful thing possible. And single, massive ships are just the best choice in the game right now if you don't have a bunch of buddies to fly with them.

Trying to discourage gigantism through resource scarcity will not work. It will just turn the game into a grindfest and deter people who don't enjoy mining.

Trying to discourage gigantism through ship limitations imposed limits on building, which deters people who enjoy creativity or replicas.

Trying to discourage gigantism through making smaller ships better will just make everyone build the smaller (read: cheaper) option and then suddenly we have the same issue on a different scale, leading to more of the above in a self-defeating cycle.

 

[Mered4]

Going back to the OP's topic:

Yeap. Nail on the head.
And, the thing that has sealed the deal for me and made me seriously consider removing my Starmade BP folder from my computer for good? Avorion. It has a better build system than starmade, and it has the gameplay to boot. So long as the devs keep with their promises, we'll be good there.

As for the crazy discussion about efficiency and gigantism:

FFS people. MrGrey1 just mentioned the basic problem and everyone ignored him. The issue isn't that balance is or is not screwed up (every game has those problems). The issue is that the game is literally a really pretty box that you can fly in circles and show off to your friends. There's nothing IN the box, but it sure is pretty.

 

[vindicator]

Completely agree. Make the game fun. Stop releasing new, pretty damn blocks and put all of your efforts into the gameplay. I'm sick of sitting on a server where nobody does anything but sit in their own sector and build stuff that's never used.

 

[Gasboy]

Completely agree. Make the game fun. Stop releasing new, pretty damn blocks and put all of your efforts into the gameplay. I'm sick of sitting on a server where nobody does anything but sit in their own sector and build stuff that's never used.

The thing is, artists aren't necessarily coders and coders aren't necessarily artists. By releasing stuff in a regular cycle, Schine keeps the interest in the game up while they work on the harder bits (usually): the code.

Artists can create new blocks without interfering with the coders, and vice versa.

As for people sitting in their own sector and building stuff that's never used, perhaps you should find a PvP server? That issue can be solved by server admin who are interested in having combat between players be a regular thing. May I suggest the Light Vs Dark server?

 

[kupu]

Artists can create new blocks without interfering with the coders, and vice versa.

Exactly, thanks.

 

[Gasboy]

Exactly, thanks.

You're welcome. The argument presented above applies to any company that develops games, the pressures are almost exactly the same. And players often make the same statement, "Devs should stop making new X until these major bugs/gameplay issues are fixed."

You can do things that many people will consider right, and someone's always going to say you're wrong.

 

[Gasboy]

Like interiors, combat needs a purpose.

You can do all "pew pew time" you want, but if that has no purpose there comes a time when it does not make sense to do it.
[I will not re-release the topics that have already been written by the forum to give a purpose to pvp]

And at the moment outside of "clutter" that some hosters do, we do not have an authentic purpose for pvp.

Really out of building and maximizing ships there is nothing else to do. If there is no "drama" in between.

So what's an authentic purpose for PvP, then?

I mean, I've always thought the purpose of PvP was to beat the other guy/team. Like any other multiplayer PvP game.

 

[Mered4]

Is not a discussion, is the cause that Schine is going to "waste" time into redo the "bones of the game".

The amazing thing is that as long as they do not put a cap at max block numbers people will always build as big as they can, as FlyingDebris said, getting the same problem as now.

You are talking about balance changes that have literally nothing to do with the rest of starmade that hasn't been developed yet. Many variables will change before we get to a playable starmade, and thus balance changes should be the last on the list (especially major ones)

 

[FlyingDebris]

Is not a discussion, is the cause that Schine is going to "waste" time into redo the "bones of the game".

The amazing thing is that as long as they do not put a cap at max block numbers people will always build as big as they can, as FlyingDebris said, getting the same problem as now.

No, that's not what I said. In fact, that's something I directly advised against.