Dev Blog : February 13th 2016

[therimmer96]

Rimmer...

This is why you highlight everything you read.

uh huh

 

[Blakpik]

uh huh

See? Now it's visible.

 

[Reilly Reese]

uh huh

See? Now it's visible.

 

[Master_Artificer]

Someone noticed and thus, I have been spotted, if I am to hide, I must ensure that I do not continue to write any sentenced that might arise suspicion, such actions could be disastrous, wait, I see now how the previous person has actually spelt 'pursuit' wrong, thus continuing the battle of our own failures in communication with regards to the rules of the English language.

Arg you were so close! You spotted the error but you didn't continue the joke just pointed out the error and yeah...
Missed opportunity is missed.

 

[banks456]

1 - No idea. Probably something we will have to deal with down the line.

2 - AI factions will need to mine. It's probably not the first reason we want to incorporate fleets but I imagine you can designate some of them to mine while you are away sometime down the line.

3 - You will be able to protect territory with fleets, that is one of their purposes.

4 - There is no reason to think they shouldn't be able to use warpgates or other systems. We might not be seeing this physically at first. Depends on which end of fleets Schema wants to tackle first.

5 - See #4

6 - If the only requirement is a flagship, then the minimum is 1. I do not believe there will be a maximum to fleet size. None that we have discussed or that I know of. There may be a quasi cap on size based on the number of ships loaded in an area. If ships are lost in a fleet maybe more from that fleet can arrive as backup? We can't have an entire fleet of 100s of ships in the same place is all I'm saying.

No so I guess the dream of having a 500 ship fleet isn't going to happen? lol Just kidding

 

[Cheapskate]

​

We're back with another Dev Blog. It's been a little while since we had one but it's now the right time to have one.

Firstly the big question, no there's no new build release for this weekend. Why? We're entering into more complex features being added, brand new ones that require a lot more programming to implement and therefore a lot more testing to resolve bugs. In this case fleets is something completely brand new and it's taking time to implement.

Since we've just had the start of 2016, you may have been away for holidays, or you may be brand new to the game. Either way there's a couple things that you should probably be aware of and/or check out.

Firstly if you're new you'll want to take a look at our Development Direction, that describes a lot of our plans for the game, not in great detail, but just a taste. Along with that is what our focus is mostly on during this particular season. It's worth checking out if you haven't already.

Secondly you may have seen it, or not, but our long awaited new launcher has come into open beta. You can finally get your hands on with it, test it out, experience some of the features it has and more. There'll be bugs no doubt so make sure you let us know by reporting them here.

As developers we have to do a lot of stuff behind closed doors, but not everything. Our in-game assets team is constantly working on new ships and stations for you to encounter in-game. Criss streams a lot of the builds, as does Saber, so make sure to check them out on Twitch or on Twitter.

Finally you may have noticed that we now have a new council. Our player council is a group of seven community-elected players who help be a community voice to the developers, and also assist the developers in interacting with the community. They do this through a number of means. They read through all the suggestions that come through, discussing themselves the merits or answering to ones that are repeats of ones that have been previously suggested, and pass them on with summaries to the dev team to review. They also discuss balancing issues with our dev team, vote on badges to give to community members to acknowledge their hard work or creativity, organise Q&As and discussions and other ways to connect community with Schine. You need only jump into our suggestions forum to see how many threads they've read.

The council, specifically SkylordLuke, has setup one mega-thread where you can see a summary of all the suggestions that Schine has received and responded to over the years. This is a great resource for new and old players alike to help paint a picture of some of what may or may not make it into the game.

Fleets is the next update coming out, and it's taking a bit longer to implement as mentioned above. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't hear a couple details about it. StarMade is primarily a space game, with ships, and so it naturally falls that fleets be the progression from that. With the ease of being able to make ships, it should be fairly easily to make fleets. Creating a fleet is as easy as a click or two, and adding members to that fleet equally as so. Each fleet has what's called a flagship, this is the primary ship that the other ships in the fleet position around and follow. That's all for now, just a taste of what's to come. Needless to say it's exciting times.

Fleets is the first example that some features are going to take a bit longer to implement than just two-weeks, and that's a good thing, as it means that they're not only implemented more robustly but also that it's such a new experience and feature to the game that we all know and love that it makes exploring the new feature so much more intriguing.

Be patient, and know what we have in store is good. We look forward to being able to share it with you and all our plans as they come to fruition.


- Bench & The Schine Team

I've been waiting for Fleet Controls since I first started playing StarMade years ago... Since before I even knew they were going to be a function in game. Ever since that day, I've been stocking my catalog and reupdating ships to the latest version of SM with the latest blocks and functions. Years I've spent planning, scheming, waiting for the day I can finally command more than one ships at a time...

...That being said, waiting a few weeks more won't hurt! Take your time getting the new release out. :D I'm sure I have a few battleships that still need updating in the mean time... and an external ship editor that needs coding.

 

[StormWing0]

hmm well first test drone for the fleet update done just have to wait for it to hit so I can see what I've got to change. The main question is how are mining drones going to offload resources if they don't dock on their own? Just wondering since I'm sure a lot of us don't feel like manually docking them to unload cargo. Hopefully AI docking will come out not long after the fleet update first hits. XD

 

[Blakpik]

Arg you were so close! You spotted the error but you didn't continue the joke just pointed out the error and yeah...
Missed opportunity is missed.

Argh! I am slain!

 

[Master_Artificer]

Argh! I am slain!

Egad! My quest for humor has killed a man!

How do I explain this to Blakpik 's next of kin!

 

[CaptainTaz]

WOOT! Now I can go and attack everyone else on the server without dy- *looks at shipyard filled with half-started ships*

...... I uh..... I should probably go buy some Izanths....

 

[Reilly Reese]

WOOT! Now I can go and attack everyone else on the server without dy- *looks at shipyard filled with half-started ships*

...... I uh..... I should probably go buy some Izanths....

Tsk tsk tsk Isanths are pathetic some can't even shoot since power has since been nerfed.

 

[starhaiden]

Time to build some small vampire ships.

 

[Criss]

500 ship fleet isn't going to happen

For the moment however, I suppose if you wanted to create 500 ships and put them in a fleet they will all try and act as a fleet.. I am pretty sure there is no cap on that right just yet.

 

[MacThule]

6 - If the only requirement is a flagship, then the minimum is 1. I do not believe there will be a maximum to fleet size. None that we have discussed or that I know of. There may be a quasi cap on size based on the number of ships loaded in an area. If ships are lost in a fleet maybe more from that fleet can arrive as backup? We can't have an entire fleet of 100s of ships in the same place is all I'm saying.

I hope there's something in place to prevent players from using lag as a super-weapon... players actively do this you know. Because turrets and drones can function even while players' clients are paralyzed by lag from a mega fleet jumping onto them.

 

[StormWing0]

Well technically there is a limit on AI simulations going on at one time so maybe making it so if there are too many AI controlled things in an area exceeding the current simulation cap the additional AI just stop functioning?

 

[Reilly Reese]

Well technically there is a limit on AI simulations going on at one time so maybe making it so if there are too many AI controlled things in an area exceeding the current simulation cap the additional AI just stop functioning?

That already happens...

 

[Ithirahad]

Oh, speaking of jumping fleets, how will fleets and FTL be handled? Hell, will they be handled? Because if not then fleets will be an almost purely defensive measure... Which ruins about 3/4 of what excites me about the update.

 

[Kirosha]

Oh, speaking of jumping fleets, how will fleets and FTL be handled? Hell, will they be handled?

• AI Using Warpgates?

• AI Using Jump Drives?

4 - There is no reason to think they shouldn't be able to use warpgates or other systems. We might not be seeing this physically at first. Depends on which end of fleets Schema wants to tackle first.

5 - See #4

Assume that it will be able to use Jumpdrives.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

The actual question is how they would use them, since jump drives charge at different speeds and you want to try to keep the fleet together. Maybe a system where every ship jumps at the same time after the last ship has charged?

 

[CaptainTaz]

The actual question is how they would use them, since jump drives charge at different speeds and you want to try to keep the fleet together. Maybe a system where every ship jumps at the same time after the last ship has charged?

I'd bet this is how they'd do it.

You prolly set the destination in a GUI and then press a button that tells your ships to charge their jumps. once all of them are charged then they can activate when yours does.

Thats my guess anyway.