Most of the time, balancing a game is to make the numbers and functions rights so a mechanic seems fair and usable. For instance, a little mechanir that need balancing in Star-made (0.0934) is the looting system, 2000 L5 in a little pirate ship... not so balanced.
But it's okay! The game is still in alpha, and even there it's showing great potential. But now what is next apparently in the game?:
http://indiegamehq.com/starmade-minecraft-space-shooter/
«Soon, I will begin to start structuring the universe more. Not only will the universe be structured in sectors, it will have star systems with a star or another galactic entity in its center (maybe a black hole), and galaxies. This will be very useful when generating the world. For example, near a sun there will be certain minerals, or gas, that you won’t find far away from it, and vice-a-verse.»
-Galaxy
-Black hole
-Better mineral spawn
Seems cool! But now, for the ship itself. For now, the only goal seems to be, make money, buy tools and block and make the ship bigger and stronger. A player not caring about desing and only want to ''win'' the game will do a big ugly cube of power.
To make the game more challenging in the making of a space ship, we will need some creative mechanism that will force the player to think before building in a subtle way, make the player go in the mechanism of the game to go on.
Ship construction:
Building a ship is quite easy and leave the player with his imagination and no limits. But, it might be a bit too easy, so, why not add an utility to the Space station? We could add a new blocks «Construction docking block».
http://hpics.li/6925d13
It add a place where the player must defend himself and a struture, and so making a ship will come with something to do before. And for a new games, the ship could be build in space with no station with a maximum size.
(Keep in mind that, to say awesome as it is, the construction station must have the possibility to be as big as the player want without limitation.)
Farming:
http://hpics.li/24be162
There are plants and trees, why not use them and make fields inside the ship with an automatic farmer-robot! A king of salvage cannon that take the plants, put them in chests. That is only an idea of how to force the player to create a design. The player must go in his ship, and not only to go to the core, but other interesting thing like this that will create the inside of a ship (or sattion) more interesting.
Inventory:
http://hpics.li/d514b92
There are some things that need to be balances here. First, the chests are extremly over power. 40000 L5 heavy metal of awesomite, might be a bit big! So, why not create a kind of inventory to a ship that the capacity would work in the same way as the power tank? More it's big, more the cargo-ship can take more. All salvaged block could go directly in the ship's inventory instead of the player's. The player could have a stack limit, not too much to be annoying, but just enough so the player will feel the need to have a ship with a cargo.
And, an inventory computer. The inventory computer would be linked to the cargo, and when the ship dock to a station, the player would have the possibility to transphere the inventory or the cargo into the station, fast, efficient and nice!
Factory:
The factory (at least the Factory input) should have access to a chest or a cargo to take the ressources
And maybe a sorting machine to help the ressources management.
Let's mix all of those idea now:
-The station building the ship would have an inventory, it's with this inventory that the player will use to build the ship on the «construction docking module»
-The salvage going directly into the cargo of the ship and the fast transpher to the station would offer a faster way to give ressources to the factories
-The possibility to have a costum construction site for the ship could remove the abusive ressource duplicator strategy with the shop and give it to the station. So if a player want to use a blueprint, the ressources must be available, or it won't work.
-The fastest the ressources can be shared with other structure, the more the factories will find it's use in the game.
-The possibility to give a station ressources and easily managed could make sharing ressources with allies and the guild more easy
Tl;dr :
-To make big ships, the player will need a construction site
-The construction site is a nice place to defend (or set as home)
-Structure should have they own inventory to make it faster to use factories or empty a loot from long salvage run
-Docking a ship to a station could open the possibilities to share ressources
-The construction site could have the job to use blueprint and use the available ressources to avoid creating materia with credit without work
-factories should have access to inventory and chest
-Add a sorting machine to help heavy production
All those idea are mixed together, creating an armony of new mechanism to create new possibilities.
So, here's all my ideas for now. Maybe later, i would like to see a bit more about the GUI and design. This game can offer a kind of big factory simulator, but for this, the interface must be more efficient (Even if the design is pretty nice right now)
I did a bit of programming in my life, but not enough to be sure if those idea are easely possible, or a mess to code. I let the professional on this
So! Now i wanna know your opinion about all this! Because all of you play Star-made and have an idea of how could work the game. And maybe if the tread get popular, we could see those ideas being reality!
edit:Thanks to Calbiri:
«Limited inventories are planned»
«improved plant system is planned, but likely a long way off»
«Improved factorie system is planned»
But it's okay! The game is still in alpha, and even there it's showing great potential. But now what is next apparently in the game?:
http://indiegamehq.com/starmade-minecraft-space-shooter/
«Soon, I will begin to start structuring the universe more. Not only will the universe be structured in sectors, it will have star systems with a star or another galactic entity in its center (maybe a black hole), and galaxies. This will be very useful when generating the world. For example, near a sun there will be certain minerals, or gas, that you won’t find far away from it, and vice-a-verse.»
-Galaxy
-Black hole
-Better mineral spawn
Seems cool! But now, for the ship itself. For now, the only goal seems to be, make money, buy tools and block and make the ship bigger and stronger. A player not caring about desing and only want to ''win'' the game will do a big ugly cube of power.
To make the game more challenging in the making of a space ship, we will need some creative mechanism that will force the player to think before building in a subtle way, make the player go in the mechanism of the game to go on.
Ship construction:
Building a ship is quite easy and leave the player with his imagination and no limits. But, it might be a bit too easy, so, why not add an utility to the Space station? We could add a new blocks «Construction docking block».
http://hpics.li/6925d13
It add a place where the player must defend himself and a struture, and so making a ship will come with something to do before. And for a new games, the ship could be build in space with no station with a maximum size.
(Keep in mind that, to say awesome as it is, the construction station must have the possibility to be as big as the player want without limitation.)
Farming:
http://hpics.li/24be162
There are plants and trees, why not use them and make fields inside the ship with an automatic farmer-robot! A king of salvage cannon that take the plants, put them in chests. That is only an idea of how to force the player to create a design. The player must go in his ship, and not only to go to the core, but other interesting thing like this that will create the inside of a ship (or sattion) more interesting.
Inventory:
http://hpics.li/d514b92
There are some things that need to be balances here. First, the chests are extremly over power. 40000 L5 heavy metal of awesomite, might be a bit big! So, why not create a kind of inventory to a ship that the capacity would work in the same way as the power tank? More it's big, more the cargo-ship can take more. All salvaged block could go directly in the ship's inventory instead of the player's. The player could have a stack limit, not too much to be annoying, but just enough so the player will feel the need to have a ship with a cargo.
And, an inventory computer. The inventory computer would be linked to the cargo, and when the ship dock to a station, the player would have the possibility to transphere the inventory or the cargo into the station, fast, efficient and nice!
Factory:
The factory (at least the Factory input) should have access to a chest or a cargo to take the ressources
And maybe a sorting machine to help the ressources management.
Let's mix all of those idea now:
-The station building the ship would have an inventory, it's with this inventory that the player will use to build the ship on the «construction docking module»
-The salvage going directly into the cargo of the ship and the fast transpher to the station would offer a faster way to give ressources to the factories
-The possibility to have a costum construction site for the ship could remove the abusive ressource duplicator strategy with the shop and give it to the station. So if a player want to use a blueprint, the ressources must be available, or it won't work.
-The fastest the ressources can be shared with other structure, the more the factories will find it's use in the game.
-The possibility to give a station ressources and easily managed could make sharing ressources with allies and the guild more easy
Tl;dr :
-To make big ships, the player will need a construction site
-The construction site is a nice place to defend (or set as home)
-Structure should have they own inventory to make it faster to use factories or empty a loot from long salvage run
-Docking a ship to a station could open the possibilities to share ressources
-The construction site could have the job to use blueprint and use the available ressources to avoid creating materia with credit without work
-factories should have access to inventory and chest
-Add a sorting machine to help heavy production
All those idea are mixed together, creating an armony of new mechanism to create new possibilities.
So, here's all my ideas for now. Maybe later, i would like to see a bit more about the GUI and design. This game can offer a kind of big factory simulator, but for this, the interface must be more efficient (Even if the design is pretty nice right now)
I did a bit of programming in my life, but not enough to be sure if those idea are easely possible, or a mess to code. I let the professional on this
So! Now i wanna know your opinion about all this! Because all of you play Star-made and have an idea of how could work the game. And maybe if the tread get popular, we could see those ideas being reality!
edit:Thanks to Calbiri:
«Limited inventories are planned»
«improved plant system is planned, but likely a long way off»
«Improved factorie system is planned»
