Change to game systems scale.

[RabidBat]

I'd like to suggest a change to the games balance. Specifically some of the ship systems.
I'm finding the current set up is preventing me from building decent looking ships, or authentic ships if you prefer.

Case in point for ship systems. I have built a frigate from scratch based on the Paris/Charon models from the Halo games.

Here's how it should look when I originally built it: L:507m H:154m W: 189m Blocks 412831

And here is how it looks to get it at what I consider reasonable/to scale power and shields weapons etc, or to be competitive against other ships I meet online: L:507m H:154m W:189 Blocks 1722977

My suggestion is to increase system blocks stats maybe 10x, while increasing their costs to buy and manufacture 10x, and block mass, if possible, increased to 10x also to compensate and keep balance.

To claryfy, a single power reactor would have the same output as 10 reactor blocks currently, but be 10 times more expensive and heavy as if you still had the 10 blocks in place instead of one.

Just seems a tad ridiculous to have to fill 1/2 to 3/4 of your ship with blocks to achieve the required power etc. Leaving little room for anything else.

If I built power chargers and storage to 'scale' I'd not be able fire basic weapons let alone even move my ship.
Also means I have zero room for internal decoration as I fill every spare space with systems. Apart from the hangar bays, both ships internal space is essentially full. No crew quarters or galley here :p

If I build this ship or many others to a 1:1 scale, it ends up much weaker than a ship it's size should be in almost every aspect. (and both of these versions are still far from complete.)
Instead of having half my ship as power and shields it would make more sense to have a few smaller 'reactors' putting out the same power loads imho.

I think it would encourage better ship design also as my friends have similar dimensions on their ships, but they tend to be solid shapes with no real shape, essentially shoe boxes and cylinders with a few external details to make them look 'shippish' and to allow room for internal features like rooms and corridors.
Seems to be the case with most ships I encounter in game online. If a ship looks good it's usually weak and severely underpowered. If it has internal cosmetic design, looks good externally and has power to match then it's usually massive. Built to a much larger scale than it probably should be.
e.g my frigate here to be built to 'scale', while keeping it's power and thrust etc, would probably have to be at least 4 times the size it currently is.


Next is turret docks and not so much the ship docks.
Another problem with ship design, docking enhancers, they can take up a lot of space and affect a ships design, I'd suggest either scrapping the need for enhancers on turrets, or decrease the amount required to expand turret docks. Same problem as ship systems kind of, to get powerful turrets you end up needing a rather large docking area. This can also adversely affect ship design especially if basing the ship on an existing source.
This could in some way be sorted by by the original suggestion of expanding blocks powers 10x including weapons, so smaller, yet more powerful turrets could be built, to keep things looking pretty and to scale, without the need to have enhancers sticking out in places you really don't want them to be. like downwards into your ships hangar.
Again an example can be seen in the screenshots above, where I've had to replace my lower 'to scale' turrets with much bigger ones based on the derelict ETA station turret design for them to be effective, resulting in a enhancers that end up going into my hangar area and resulting in a lot of editing to move the turret base so it doesn't block hangar access.
I know there are settings to disable dock enhancers, but many servers I play on have them enabled.

Same for ship docks, it can be difficult at times to build external docks to a ship, especially to dock larger ships without ending up with huge out of place crosses on your ship. ( i for example am trying to dock 2 corvettes to my frigate, but the size of the docks end up much larger than they should be and look awful sticking out of my ship. reducing the needed docking enhancers required by about half would go a long way to fixing that.

Also in regards to turrets docking, I'd also suggest a default setting that allows some building under the core. maybe at least 2 layers, with the default and again as many servers have it set, you cannot build under a turrets core. This leaves them exposed and way to easy to kill in a fight and looks kind of ugly vs putting a 'pivot' underneath that both protects the core extending the fight time, andalso allows turrets to look like they are actually attached to the ship instead of hovering above it.
Turrets currently have a tendency to have their belly exposed when aiming at a target and it's super easy for heat seekers to get in under them and take them out instantly regardless of turret size, considering most turrets generally have little to no shielding compared to ships.

Any ways that's some of my ideas for making the game better. Would love to get my ship looking and acting how it should. 6-8 decent sized power plants at the back instead of huge added sections and every available space being filled.

(p.s I know much of the game can be customised in settings and I can do a lot of this myself in SP, but I am keeping in mind playing online on servers that go with the defaults for ship and turret mechanics.)

 

[CyberTao]

Turret and docking are already being changed in the Dev build. Enchancers will still be used, but in a different way I believe. Honestly though, enhancers sticking through your hanger means that you do not quite understand how they work, as they are very easy to mold around interiors, or even be placed anywhere in the ship.

10x Block stats does not sound like a good idea to me, all in all. Assuming you do not increase the power cap, it will result in ships not needing as many blocks, but that does not mean that ships will end up better looking. Ships will just get smaller to some degree, depends on how weapon Docked reactors come into the scene, as ships might not even change all that much, just have ridiculously higher stats.

A solid ship and a RP ship are not comparable, and probably never will be. There are plans to change how things work so that such ships are not as 'penalized' as they are, like HP, Armour Migration, Thrust/turn changes, etc. A flat increase to block stats would probably result in minimal change to that, you need to find people who follow a similar build philosophy.

 

[RabidBat]

CyberTao

I'll experiment more with docks I guess, but just cannot seem to make them work how I would like them to. If I have luck I'll update the situation.

I do play with like minded people, problem is we have limited servers here in Australia and have to play by their rules, our main one and the most stable is very kick and ban happy over the smallest of infractions. And alas we cannot afford to host our own server, well one decent enough to run starmade let alone allow a large amount of players to play. (from what we've seen from available servers, you need a pretty damn powerful server to run the game with as few issues as possible and more than 10 players, and those seem to cost cost big bucks.)

As for RP vs design, I'm not talking about role playing, I'm talking about practical design, I'm not one to pretend he is luke skywalker playing from inside a cardboard box cockpit :p Why not form and function?
As I stated it seems unrealistic (as far as realistic can be in a game or sci fi) to require such large amounts of blocks. I mean half the reasons we play these games is for the visuals as well as gameplay. After all the game uses real world sizes, 1 block = 1 m, player is 2 blocks tall = 2m tall, so you need at least a 2 meter tall hole for him to walk through at the least, the player for me essentially set's the scale for the game, any game actually.

Kind of weird, for me at least, having a ship like a fighter or transport that looks too small for the pilot to fit in, the same as it is having a large ship that is 10 times too big.
It's also for the games aesthetics in general as I pointed out. When you keep meeting lots of plain and boring looking ships based around brute forcing systems into x amount of space instead of design. I've tried working around this myself as you can see in the after picture in OP, but still it's not the ship I wanted, but the ship I need if I want to stay competitive online against other players flying glorified bricks.
Just thinking of how it could make for a much better and richer in game universe. I'm not looking to recreate a picture perfect interior on my ship, just wanting to give it a little character.

I cannot see it being a negative myself, block counts are reduced, but as I made pretty clear in the OP, the costs both in resources, weight and credits would off set this 100%, Ships would still move, turn and behave as normal, A ship with 1000 blocks with my suggested changes in stats would still have exactly the same effect as the same ship with 10000 of the same blocks currently. And it would only affect some systems that require imho too much space. Like Power and Shields. But other blocks like Hull, computers, doors, thrusters, wouldpossibly see no changes. Be hard to abuse as well, as 1000 power reactors would cost exactly the same as buying 10000, if you don't have the resources to buy or make 10000 blocks now, you're still not going to have those resources if the block count was less, because well, everything cost wise is the same. If you can only get 20 million power on your ship and it weighs 200 tonnes now, you're still only going to get 20 million power on it and it will still weight 200 tonnes with my suggestions.

Currently Power Reactors cost what? Either 300 credits or 20 alloyed mesh. And say the weight is 1 mass point.
So 10000 reactors cost 3million credits or 200000 Alloyed mesh and add 10000mass points to you ship.
With my suggestions:
1000 reactors still costs 3 million credits, 200000 Alloyed Mesh and still adds 10000mass to your ship.
No real difference over all except more space on your ship to get creative.
I honestly cannot see how it would be a huge difference over how it is now, and would be a simple solution (I guess depends of ease of programming such a thing in, which I imagine is just swapping some numbers?) to how ships that are more aestheticlly designed are punished now as you pointed out. Again for me this is simply mechanics as well as gameplay, and nothing to do with RP.

Sure some people may make smaller ships possibly, but that's not going to be much use when Hull/Armour strength, mass, turn speed, thrust etc is still the same as before. Bring your smaller ship with same weapons and power as my larger one which has a tonne more armour/hull, my odds of winning are still greater so building a smaller ship would be just penalising yourself.

It's not about all systems being modified, just the ones that currently demand large amount of space, like I said, what good is building a great and practical ship if the power cannot make it function. I mean can you imagine sci fi movies and tv shows of the death star or Galactica was a giant balls and shoe boxes filled with a power source and main weapon, and only had room for a single pilot? lol
Would you play a star trek game if the Enterprise was a cylinder? (Yeah borgs have cubes but let's not go there.)
How boring would things be?

Still I think my idea would work and not impact the game negatively myself. Just my opinion and suggestion. Which is after all why this forum is here
[DOUBLEPOST=1430203944,1430203487][/DOUBLEPOST]actually the only issue I can really see here that anyone would have a problem with, is servers needing to be reset to prevent people abusing already existing ship and that it would require people rebuild their ships in SP to reupload, but hey, Alphas Betas, server wipes and resets are part and parcel of those. Majority of the game is building any ways. SO if anything it would be a plus for builders :p

 

[CyberTao]

(from what we've seen from available servers, you need a pretty damn powerful server to run the game with as few issues as possible and more than 10 players, and those seem to cost cost big bucks.)

The NFD Build server currently runs with a single gig of RAM. 2 Gigs is recommended for a small starting server with friends, 4 Gigs is probably fine unless you are going for a larger playerbase

the costs both in resources, weight and credits would off set this 100%

That is a misconception. You said that the player size sets the scale of the game, but it is the size of the pirates that set the scale of the ship. Pirates come with resources already attached, all you have to do is kill and harvest the corpse while scooping up the loot cloud. People who are just starting build their first ships based around the size and abilities of the Vanilla Isanth, until they move to the community or a server and get new comparisons and goals.

Increase the costs all you want, but most advanced players get their shields and systems from chewing up pirates, not crafting/shops. If blocks become more powerful, than pirates would either downsize, or become more powerful, and the average ship adapts to that first, and then there is an arms race afterwards.

Sure some people may make smaller ships possibly, but that's not going to be much use when Hull/Armour strength, mass, turn speed, thrust etc is still the same as before. Bring your smaller ship with same weapons and power as my larger one which has a tonne more armour/hull, my odds of winning are still greater so building a smaller ship would be just penalising yourself.

If you increase Damage of weapons, you increase their power costs. Unless you mess with the power cap, you will ultimately further limit the size and scale of weapons. However, that is the ONLY factor that would result in possibly smaller ships, if the power cap is increased, ships would not shrink or change in the slightest. You just piss off more people with a longer starting-grind.

actually the only issue I can really see here that anyone would have a problem is servers needing to be reset to prevent people abusing already existing ship and that it would require people rebuild their ships in SP to reupload, but hey, Alphas Betas, server wipes and resets are part and parcel of those.

There would be no abuse with old ships. If old ships would be considered "Abuse", then chances are the proposed system fixes nothing. Server wipes are optional by servers, and even the configs can be altered to undo simple block changes like this.


At the end of the day, it would increase the starting grind, but would eventually end up back where we are here. Same ships, 10x the stats, except Hull and Armour is now 10x more useless (Hull has a cap you know, it is not possible to increase the health past 255). Missile Waffleboards would be more rampant I guess, so that is a change I can see.

 

[BiGEdge]

You could test some of the written balance mods.
There are some good ones out there for making more RP ships possible.
Else you could set your thrusters in Serverconfig to
<UnitCalcStyle>LINEAR</UnitCalcStyle>
<!-- LINEAR, BOX_DIM_MULT, BOX_DIM_ADD -->
Box_dim_mult if you want to have more space in your ship.
And with the Turretproblem, that one should be solved with the
new upcoming Rail/Turretsystem.

 

[RabidBat]

The NFD Build server currently runs with a single gig of RAM. 2 Gigs is recommended for a small starting server with friends, 4 Gigs is probably fine unless you are going for a larger playerbase

Okay, well we have 2 main servers we play on, one has 8gb of ram and is choppy and laggy, the other has 32gb's and runs smooth as.
Must admit I cannot recall the CPU, HDD's etc, but I do remember the 32gb server has more grunt all around. And yeah player base is important, even on busy servers you can have little in the way of action or player interaction in such a huge amount of space.
Not that's what I was bringing up, it's all about the ships when online, not my desire to host a server.
Heck I get what I would call average performance for this type of game playing off line.

That is a misconception. You said that the player size sets the scale of the game, but it is the size of the pirates that set the scale of the ship. Pirates come with resources already attached, all you have to do is kill and harvest the corpse while scooping up the loot cloud. People who are just starting build their first ships based around the size and abilities of the Vanilla Isanth, until they move to the community or a server and get new comparisons and goals.

Increase the costs all you want, but most advanced players get their shields and systems from chewing up pirates, not crafting/shops. If blocks become more powerful, than pirates would either downsize, or become more powerful, and the average ship adapts to that first, and then there is an arms race afterwards.

Not sure how this is would be a problem? Devs (or server admins in the case of custom pirate ships) go in and edit them to match the changes..... I think this would fall under common sense, the same as players would edit their own ships to match the changes in block amounts. 10x less power or shield blocks required then remove suitable amount of blocks on vanilla vehicles and stations. Problem solved, balance restored. I mean how hard would that be to do?

I mean pirate ships can be any size imaginable, if they set the scale, then set them at the scale they should be in comparison to the player model. I mean what is our astronaut? A dwarf or a giant? Game has measurements. 2 meters is 2 meters and about right for a 6 foot guy yes?
In a game where everything is scalable depending on your perspective this shouldn't be a real issue for a developer I'd think. If I can swap out ships myself and therefore set the scale, surely Schema and Co. can.......

If you increase Damage of weapons, you increase their power costs. Unless you mess with the power cap, you will ultimately further limit the size and scale of weapons. However, that is the ONLY factor that would result in possibly smaller ships, if the power cap is increased, ships would not shrink or change in the slightest. You just piss off more people with a longer starting-grind.

Not sure how this is relevant to what I am saying. Costs remain the same in my suggestion. It's just the block count that changes. I didn't really get into weapons systems. But again, if shields and power and other in game items and systems can have their damage to power ratios and other numbers edited, once again how would this be an issue?
I am not sure you're understanding what it is I am actually suggesting.
The devs seem perfectly capable of changing the stats on items any other time, why would it be any different now? The games items have had their ratios changed quite a bit over it's development. After the last major update, that changed not only the graphics optimisations, but also increased shields quantities etc, I think it was punch through and piercing that also had balance changes. So I would think changing such things further would not be that hard.
Just seems like putting up hurdles where there are none.

There would be no abuse with old ships. If old ships would be considered "Abuse", then chances are the proposed system fixes nothing. Server wipes are optional by servers, and even the configs can be altered to undo simple block changes like this.

Sorry thought that was part of your point. That it would be unfair, especially to newer players. Instead of 20 million shields from X amount of blocks an existing ship has, the 10x scale now means that ship has 200million shields in the same space. And a new player now has to essentially pay 10x what an established player did for the same results. A server wipe would be necessary. Again, it's something that happens quite often with games still in development. Heck there have been updates to StarMade that have forced new universes on servers. This would be no different. I have a tonne of Early Access that forces such things on me, because well it's early access and this is the point of it in development and why we have suggestions and feedback.
And well sure it's optional to individual servers if they reset or not. same as it's up to them to make rules on how you play on or what mods they use. I am talking about the default base game here. Aside from some minor tweaks to things like system sizes many servers I play on stick to the default mechanics essentially.

At the end of the day, it would increase the starting grind, but would eventually end up back where we are here. Same ships, 10x the stats, except Hull and Armour is now 10x more useless (Hull has a cap you know, it is not possible to increase the health past 255). Missile Waffleboards would be more rampant I guess, so that is a change I can see.

Again I don't think you get what I am saying at all. same ships 10x the stats???? that is NOTHING like my suggestion AT ALL.

SAME ships, SAME stats, SAME costs, SAME resources, just 10X LESS blocks on SOME systems. BUT SAME COSTS/RESOURCES
I mean it's pretty simple concept, but you seem to have gotten it all upside down, inside out and back to front.

I am not sure how to write it any simpler or clearer than I already have.
Sorry, just your responses are either the opposite of my suggestions or your counters to what I suggest makes no logical sense.

I think I'll make up some diagrams, the generally make these things easier especially across different languages and peoples ability for context in written form.
I dunno, just something is getting lost here between what I am writing and what you seem to be reading.

 

[iceman6491]

In principal I agree, but in practice I think people would take the same size ship and fill it with more systems, bump up the thrust to negate some of the mass effects etc and end up with a ship that is visually smaller but 10X more survivable (read 10x more un-killable ). But at the end of the day you never know 'till you try. If you do get your hands on a server for you and your mates, I'm sure you could play with the cfg's and adapt the blocks to match this and see what effect it has? Nothing proves or disproves an argument like evidence

 

[AtraUnam]

From what I've read you want to increase everything's stats and cost by 10x. If you change the value of everything by the same amount then their relative value stays the same with a net effect of nothing.

 

[Crusade]

Increasing block stats and weapon power will not change the scale people build at. It's as simple as that.

 

[NeonSturm]

If you increase:

1. Weight
2. Efficiency, Power-Cost
3. Build-Cost
4. OF EVERYTHING except hull

Then you are going to effectively reduce all this for hulls.

No costs would stop players from using as much blocks as now if you can generate thrust for all of it.

Ships may be build most out of thrusters?

Thus, who do you want to limit the amount of thrusters?

Sure, you can do it with power, but then peoples build more thrusters AND more power.

​

Thus, what we need is not any increase in stats.

WHAT we REALLY needs is a SoftCap for Blocks based on mass (compared to your ship) similar to effect modules.

E.g: You need 5% thrusters for 100% efficiency. Every % above will yield continuously less advantage.

This only works if you can't evade the ratio with docked entities (while docked they count to the main ship, their mass too).​

 

[Edymnion]

And here is how it looks to get it at what I consider reasonable/to scale power and shields weapons etc, or to be competitive against other ships I meet online: L:507m H:154m W:189 Blocks 1722977

My suggestion is to increase system blocks stats maybe 10x, while increasing their costs to buy and manufacture 10x, and block mass, if possible, increased to 10x also to compensate and keep balance.

Congratulations, you've increased the power of a ship ten fold. You also increased the power of their ships ten fold as well.

You haven't solved the problem you faced, you've only inflated numbers for no reason. You said you built your ship the way you wanted, then saw what other people were building and felt compelled to beef yours up to match theirs. That will still happen under your system, only the numbers will be higher, the ratio between you and them will remain the same. You will still have to girth up your design to add enough space to keep up with the Jones's.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I think power systems need to be more powerful, or we need more options for power generating. I'm working on a little frigate/destroyer (sorry, I don't know classifications) and the thing is like 95% reactors and power capacitors just to power the main gun!

 

[Tobie]

then your main gun is too big, is using secondaries/effects that have power multipliers, or you have too many groups hooked up to the same computer (iirc each group causes 10% increased power consumption for the whole system).

 

[CyberTao]

Not sure how this is would be a problem? Devs (or server admins in the case of custom pirate ships) go in and edit them to match the changes..... I think this would fall under common sense, the same as players would edit their own ships to match the changes in block amounts. 10x less power or shield blocks required then remove suitable amount of blocks on vanilla vehicles and stations. Problem solved, balance restored. I mean how hard would that be to do?

Servers have grown their playerbases. Start out with small and easy pirates and when players start to get settled, increasing the pirate size and strength over time. Servers don't just set pirates once and then forget about them, they adapt them to fix the player base's needs over time.

SAME ships, SAME stats, SAME costs, SAME resources, just 10X LESS blocks on SOME systems. BUT SAME COSTS/RESOURCES
I mean it's pretty simple concept, but you seem to have gotten it all upside down, inside out and back to front.

If you need 10x less blocks to get the same stats, then there is 10x more room to get 10x more systems, which people will fill at the end of the day. Same ships, higher stats, greater difference between your ship and the Combat block.

 

[Edymnion]

I think power systems need to be more powerful, or we need more options for power generating. I'm working on a little frigate/destroyer (sorry, I don't know classifications) and the thing is like 95% reactors and power capacitors just to power the main gun!

Well, are you just dropping blocks in solid groups, or are you using efficient power design principles? If so, then you can always make internal docked power reactors.

 

[Ithirahad]

You could test some of the written balance mods.
There are some good ones out there for making more RP ships possible.
Else you could set your thrusters in Serverconfig to
<UnitCalcStyle>LINEAR</UnitCalcStyle>
<!-- LINEAR, BOX_DIM_MULT, BOX_DIM_ADD -->
Box_dim_mult if you want to have more space in your ship.

*facepalm*

"There's a mod for that" doesn't offer a solution to a suggestion at all. Ever. So don't say that. The guy has a point (Even if I don't necessarily agree with the solution he offers - it would probably be counterproductive, but more on this later), and balance mods only work if the server you're playing on installs them.

aaaanyway. I do agree that there are issues with systems taking up too much space, but just buffing things and making them more valuable will not help at all. It doesn't make it any harder to build gigantic ships necessarily, it'll just widen the gap between the new guys and established players and create even more stupid grind - which this game needs less of, not more. What we need is for massive amounts of systems to not give you so much reward... Stuff needs to get diminishing returns as it scales up; linear scaling makes titanic spacecubes far, far too much better than smaller craft, without even having to put much more thought into the design. Game mechanics shouldn't make titans non-viable, it should just require putting some more thought into their design than smaller ships (Capital-ship systems should be unique and have challenging (not just space-wasting) build mechanics) and they should have meaningful disadvantages in battle unless accompanied by support ships.

In short, giant ships should just be another type of ship, with their own unique strengths and weaknesses, not some kind of "endgame ship" or single viable option for combat in the presence of other huge ships.

 

[NeonSturm]

Maybe Super-Capitals should be more defensively. Fortresses behind which offensive vessels can hide.

1. Buff shields and nerf guns equally for ships, the larger they are - or give incentive to do build this way.
2. Make it easier for small ships to escape from large ones (turning rate may be critical here)
3. Finally buff the big ships in some way as they lost initiative and need compensation for that.

Why? I think you should kill the escorts for this super-capital before attempting to kill it. Thus make it more defensive compared to average.

Perhaps give it shield supply to synergize with escort ships (but stop supplying if shield is required for itself - needs logic support).
Prolong combat (even between offensives) to give shield suppliers and other support tools time to do work.​

Then give shields faces.

1. Add shield directions or shield plates or something alike.
2. Let ship builders decide whether to transfer all defensive and offensive power to things in front or balance it equally on all sides.
3. Add a mechanism to disable a ship being both "Frontal Assault" and "Balanced".

Maybe requires :
> 1. Big turrets turn/accellerate slower than a small craft can evade their line of fire.
> 2. Small turrets being ineffective against Stations
> 3. Combat lasts long enough to give the big turrets time to aim at larger targets.​

 

[Lidren]

What fits in your ships shell determines its capabilities. Is about system balance. If you modify the hull you are overloading the original specs. With all other basis for comparison being even, downsize all your systems and resize to fit, then you have your ship. What you propose with 10x might be fun, but it wouldn't change anything but the scale.

 

[NeonSturm]

What fits in your ships shell determines its capabilities. Is about system balance.

A bad way to balance.

IRL, thruster power supports armour and other heavyweight components like fuel tank size.
IRL, Life support and decoratives supports crew size and thus the peoples moral - which should count, shouldn't it?
...​

The problem is, if you only put systems in 1/10 of your ship, you can't escape a planet's gravity.

You are FORCED to fill your whole ship with systems.​

Imagine all of {thrusters, reactors, powertanks, shield, rechargers, weapons, effects, ...} may only occupy 1/6 of your ship without getting a penalty of 50..75%efficiency for the excess.

 

[Edymnion]

A bad way to balance.

IRL, thruster power supports armour and other heavyweight components like fuel tank size.
IRL, Life support and decoratives supports crew size and thus the peoples moral - which should count, shouldn't it?
...​

The problem is, if you only put systems in 1/10 of your ship, you can't escape a planet's gravity.

You are FORCED to fill your whole ship with systems.​

Imagine all of {thrusters, reactors, powertanks, shield, rechargers, weapons, effects, ...} may only occupy 1/6 of your ship without getting a penalty of 50..75%efficiency for the excess.

Have you seen how much empty space is in say the International Space Station? Or in a submarine?

Real life, people build ships around the systems they are supposed to hold, they don't build a hull and then try to fill them.