Dev Blog : June 12th 2015

[SkylordLuke]

that launcher...looks freaking amazing! AAA type stuff right there!

 

[DNervix]

I'm fairly new to the Starmade fanbase, but what I've seen from you. the Devs, is nothing but hard work, dedication, and a passion for creating a great game and inspiring a community of players to come together in something amazing. You guys are awesome. Keep up the good work!

 

[Agent_Bladelock]

I'm kinda worried about the hp update. Will a ship with warheads on the surface still be able to be destroyed by shooting a warhead? Will I still be able to disable or destroy part of a ship without destroying most of it's hull?

 

[Jananton]

Yes, we have already planned for no internet connections.

Good to hear, it's always these kind of little refinements that make the difference between a good thing and a great. :D

Greets,

Jan

 

[Magocrat]

I'm so glad to see the results of the extended dev team's work! Looks really neat, and now I'm absolutely confident the game is going to the right direction now that our favourite cat schema doesn't have to do everything alone any more. I'm excited!

P.S. I noticed the bug tracker's moving, but can't find where. Any help on that? Or was that intentional?

 

[Ithirahad]

Yes, we have already planned for no internet connections.

Yay, someone is actually paying attention to this sort of thing ahead of time! This is why I like SM.

...Anyway, this sounds great and I can't wait to see it live... While the current launcher is technically functional, it felt like something that belonged in a private pre-alpha testing release than a public Early Access game. It's great to see us transitioning to a really cool-looking launcher that ties together with the general SM web aesthetic.

 

[TitaniumFortress]

It's definitely close, it's mostly bug fixing and balancing at the moment, and little things like GUI updates to support showing new data for the player that wasn't there before, stuff you don't consider when you first think of the HP system. I'd wager you'll probably hear more about it in the next week or two.

Any chance on fixing the fact that the HP system cant tell the difference between combat and a person removing blocks while building? Constant reboots that get longer and longer to do are occuring on my end

 

[Lancake]

I sincerely hope that as per balancing, importance of no-hull blocks will be decreased in counting HP so people will prioritize thicker hulls. As of not long ago shield blocks between HP addition and shields themselves together with the fact said shields regenerate seem still somewhat more logical choice for the sake of defense.

I'm kinda worried about the hp update. Will a ship with warheads on the surface still be able to be destroyed by shooting a warhead? Will I still be able to disable or destroy part of a ship without destroying most of it's hull?

Functional blocks (systems, weapons, support tools, effect,...) add a large amount of structure HP to the ship, which is roughly 50-100 per block. Non functional blocks like terrain, decoration blocks and hull adds almost nothing, this is mostly 5 structure HP per block.

Hull adds to the armor HP: basic adds 50HP, standard adds 75 and advanced adds 100.

The mass of blocks is also changed: most decoration blocks are now 0.05 mass, a few very light blocks are 0.01 mass, system blocks are 0.1 mass.
For the hull blocks, we have 0.05 for basic, 0.15 for standard and 0.25 for advanced.

The latest dev runs our most up to date block config (and block behavior config) as far as I know so you can check that out if you want. In general the hull reinforces the armor HP, which in turn will absorb a portion of incoming damage (75% atm). This reinforces the inner structure as well. Once your armor HP is depleted, you'll receive a lot more damage. Since decoration and hull blocks don't really add too much to the SHP, you don't need to worry about destroying those blocks and you only need to focus on killing its systems.

What is very important to note is that the current ships we all use are outdated, meaning that they will most likely not be very effective in killing ships.
For most ships you would need to remove a (fairly large) portion of your shields, replace that with more power regen and weapon blocks.
It would also mean that you have to replace your advanced armor with something lighter (standard armor). I've seen it double my mass on my capital ships. You would most likely need to relocate your weapon computers to several spots to minimize the risk of losing them before you overheat.

The PD turrets received some bug fixes/rework too. They are now moving a lot faster and they also lead their missiles properly now. This should make missiles risky enough to consider using cannons/beams. Best thing you can do is mixing them though since missiles would be effective once you have killed enough PD turrets of your enemy.
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Any chance on fixing the fact that the HP system cant tell the difference between combat and a person removing blocks while building? Constant reboots that get longer and longer to do are occuring on my end

1 reboot should reset your max HP to your current HP, any block edits should not change this ratio. If the ship takes block damage and it is no longer at 100%HP, then you'll have to reboot in order to build on your ship again without destroying its HP.
There were some bugs with that in the early devs but the latest ones should not have any problem with that I believe. (and if there is a problem with it, please PM me about the details so we can check it out ^^)

 

[Ithirahad]

Functional blocks (systems, weapons, support tools, effect,...) add a large amount of structure HP to the ship, which is roughly 50-100 per block. Non functional blocks like terrain, decoration blocks and hull adds almost nothing, this is mostly 5 structure HP per block.

So, missiles are king now; nothing else can really destroy tons of systems blocks reliably unless the ship is, like, skinned.

Hull adds to the armor HP: basic adds 50HP, standard adds 75 and advanced adds 100.

So, missiles are king even more now - breaking through meaningful amounts of hull with other weapons is even harder. (Besides maybe stupid-looking waffle guns with Explosive effect, but who wants those if they can be avoided? I sure don't.) I really, really love this mechanic, and have been asking for it for a long time, but it brings up issues that need fixing.

The mass of blocks is also changed: most decoration blocks are now 0.05 mass, a few very light blocks are 0.01 mass, system blocks are 0.1 mass.
For the hull blocks, we have 0.05 for basic, 0.15 for standard and 0.25 for advanced.

Hm, this is actually really good news; I never really noticed the weight change with my ships somehow but it's good news. Only thing is, everyone who's using mass as a ship size determination has to switch to using blocks. :p

The latest dev runs our most up to date block config (and block behavior config) as far as I know so you can check that out if you want. In general the hull reinforces the armor HP, which in turn will absorb a portion of incoming damage (75% atm). This reinforces the inner structure as well. Once your armor HP is depleted, you'll receive a lot more damage. Since decoration and hull blocks don't really add too much to the SHP, you don't need to worry about destroying those blocks and you only need to focus on killing its systems.

Again, missiles are king... *yawn*

What is very important to note is that the current ships we all use are outdated, meaning that they will most likely not be very effective in killing ships.
For most ships you would need to remove a (fairly large) portion of your shields, replace that with more power regen and weapon blocks.
It would also mean that you have to replace your advanced armor with something lighter (standard armor). I've seen it double my mass on my capital ships. You would most likely need to relocate your weapon computers to several spots to minimize the risk of losing them before you overheat.

Uh, hm. Don't know what to say about this yet; haven't really gotten a chance to play with the mechanics.

The PD turrets received some bug fixes/rework too. They are now moving a lot faster and they also lead their missiles properly now. This should make missiles risky enough to consider using cannons/beams. Best thing you can do is mixing them though since missiles would be effective once you have killed enough PD turrets of your enemy.

Good news, I suppose, but people will still spam missiles... Point Defense will never catch all of them if you just spam missiles.

tl;dr: Missiles are op plz rework. And, preferably, please rework other weapons so they can compete.

I love the new mechanics; they make a lot more sense and don't have any of the issues of cores, but they worsen an already-present problem - Cannons and beams just do not, and cannot, be as effective as missiles unless they stop hitting only one block at a time. (And no, the Shotgun effect won't help; Shotgun weapons are a joke right now. Low reload, damage is split all over the place in an overly large cone, all of which make them essentially useless except maybe on a huge ship which has enough power to support a much more effective wafflecannon anyway.)

Piercing/Punch/whatever make them marginally good, I suppose, on a large enough ship to actually do meaningful damage using those effects, but still, that's just a line of damage compared to a large area of effect... I think we need two things to happen, now. There needs to be some way to create beams and cannon rounds larger than one block, and missiles/explosion code needs to be rewritten in a way that makes it less OP and borked.

 

[Reilly Reese]

So everyone is going to have to refit their ships....again?

 

[Lancake]

So, missiles are king now; nothing else can really destroy tons of systems blocks reliably unless the ship is, like, skinned.

So, missiles are king even more now - breaking through meaningful amounts of hull with other weapons is even harder. (Besides maybe stupid-looking waffle guns with Explosive effect, but who wants those if they can be avoided? I sure don't.) I really, really love this mechanic, and have been asking for it for a long time, but it brings up issues that need fixing.

Hm, this is actually really good news; I never really noticed the weight change with my ships somehow but it's good news. Only thing is, everyone who's using mass as a ship size determination has to switch to using blocks. :p

Again, missiles are king... *yawn*

Uh, hm. Don't know what to say about this yet; haven't really gotten a chance to play with the mechanics.

Good news, I suppose, but people will still spam missiles... Point Defense will never catch all of them if you just spam missiles.

tl;dr: Missiles are op plz rework. And, preferably, please rework other weapons so they can compete.

I love the new mechanics; they make a lot more sense and don't have any of the issues of cores, but they worsen an already-present problem - Cannons and beams just do not, and cannot, be as effective as missiles unless they stop hitting only one block at a time. (And no, the Shotgun effect won't help; Shotgun weapons are a joke right now. Low reload, damage is split all over the place in an overly large cone, all of which make them essentially useless except maybe on a huge ship which has enough power to support a much more effective wafflecannon anyway.)

Piercing/Punch/whatever make them marginally good, I suppose, on a large enough ship to actually do meaningful damage using those effects, but still, that's just a line of damage compared to a large area of effect... I think we need two things to happen, now. There needs to be some way to create beams and cannon rounds larger than one block, and missiles/explosion code needs to be rewritten in a way that makes it less OP and borked.

Missiles are not even more king now, in fact they became a lot less OP. PD turrets are really really effective now but you don't know that since you have yet to extensively test it out in the latest dev. Spamming missiles will not really help if your enemy has 10+ PD turrets, I fired 1500 heatseekers at 1KM range and all of them died by 15 PD turrets and that's in roughly 10 seconds. Heatseeker missiles are clustered though so that would explain why so many died at once. PD turets are capable of hitting 1000m/s missiles with pinpoint accuracy.

Also the piercing effect blocks on cannons (and even beams) are extremely effective against armor. It shreds through the armor and armor HP of a ship.

You didn't mention pulse, and although it might seem like a joke to some, it's extremely effective against system blocks (pulse+beam) but maybe hard to hit, still. Considering that most ships became 1.5-2 times heavier, you'll most likely have no problem in catching your enemy.

Last but not least, everyone knows missiles and damage pulse are using an inaccurate and outdated explosion damage system, Schine knows it too so it's only a matter of time till we see a better system.
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So everyone is going to have to refit their ships....again?

You are not forced to refit them, but it's recommended unless you want to lose every PVP fight :P

 

[Ithirahad]

Missiles are not even more king now, in fact they became a lot less OP. PD turrets are really really effective now but you don't know that since you have yet to extensively test it out in the latest dev. Spamming missiles will not really help if your enemy has 10+ PD turrets, I fired 1500 heatseekers at 1KM range and all of them died by 15 PD turrets and that's in roughly 10 seconds. Heatseeker missiles are clustered though so that would explain why so many died at once. PD turets are capable of hitting 1000m/s missiles with pinpoint accuracy.

Well! I wasn't expecting that kind of increase in effectiveness. I suppose I should take point-defense more seriously now; I thought that even the AI fix wouldn't make them that good.

Also the piercing effect blocks on cannons (and even beams) are extremely effective against armor. It shreds through the armor and armor HP of a ship.

I'll have to see about this. Sounds good, though, if they do work that well.

You didn't mention pulse, and although it might seem like a joke to some, it's extremely effective against system blocks (pulse+beam) but maybe hard to hit, still. Considering that most ships became 1.5-2 times heavier, you'll most likely have no problem in catching your enemy.

Yeah, I didn't mention pulse because I still honestly don't know what to say about pulse. Sure, it can rip through systems if it actually hits, but how often will it actually hit? If it's not reliable then most people (me included) simply will not mount a pulse weapon on their ships.

Last but not least, everyone knows missiles and damage pulse are using an inaccurate and outdated explosion damage system, Schine knows it too so it's only a matter of time till we see a better system.

Yeah, I know, but I was just saying. With the new mechanics in place it would be good to see those changes fairly soon. However, if Point Defense is as effective as you say then missiles are still mostly a late-battle weapon and so there's not much of a problem anyway for the time being.

 

[linwe talion]

Just make sure the new launcher has a BIG GREEN BUTTON "Allocate more memory to Starmade". 80% newcomers are puzzled by out of memory sign they get, grow unrest, abandon the game forever, claiming it to be a "buggy shit, which needs more RAM then a $2000 laptop can support".

 

[Ithirahad]

Just make sure the new launcher has a BIG GREEN BUTTON "Allocate more memory to Starmade". 80% newcomers are puzzled by out of memory sign they get, grow unrest, abandon the game forever, claiming it to be a "buggy shit, which needs more RAM then a $2000 laptop can support".

This. I was having all kinds of silly issues until I increased to 2GB ram. Now there are no issues whatsoever.

 

[Lancake]

Just make sure the new launcher has a BIG GREEN BUTTON "Allocate more memory to Starmade". 80% newcomers are puzzled by out of memory sign they get, grow unrest, abandon the game forever, claiming it to be a "buggy shit, which needs more RAM then a $2000 laptop can support".

And also something next to it that shows your java version :P
If you're running a 64 bit OS with a 32 bit java, it should warn you about it. Else increasing memory isn't going to do any good.

 

[Reilly Reese]

And also something next to it that shows your java version :p
If you're running a 64 bit OS with a 32 bit java, it should warn you about it. Else increasing memory isn't going to do any good.

I really despise how Java wants to work on Win 8.1

Windows is only going to continue down their planned path so Oracle needs to get their shit together, drop their bundled extra BS and update properly.

 

[Jananton]

Well, Oracle and Micro$oft aren't two heads on one pillow, to state their relationship most mildly. :D

Greets,

Jan

 

[Megacrafter127]

I personally have given up on microsoft since they introduced 'microsoft-accounts'.
I somehow managed to acquire negative infinity faith in them after seeing how winderp 8 punishes you for not wanting to have one of those. (creating a local account took a brand new laptop longer, than it took to completely install linux from scratch on an 8 year old computer)

 

[Agent_Bladelock]

Thanks for elaborating on this update, but, er -- not sure how you answered my question. I'd really like to know whether a ship with a warhead on the surface could be destroyed by shooting the warhead, without destroying any other blocks.

 

[Reilly Reese]

I personally have given up on microsoft since they introduced 'microsoft-accounts'.
I somehow managed to acquire negative infinity faith in them after seeing how winderp 8 punishes you for not wanting to have one of those. (creating a local account took a brand new laptop longer, than it took to completely install linux from scratch on an 8 year old computer)

Well fortunately Win10 is very geared towards gaming since Halo and Xbox are their biggest sources of income. Those who have Win8 or Win7 can upgrade Win10 for free.