Dev Blog : March 14th 2015

[Criss]

Recently shielding got buffed. I didn't expect this to happen considering I heard there was a desired to emphasize armor over shields, espeically with the health update. Are there changes beyond just armor that will happen because of the health system.

I also want to ask if the devs are concerned about weapons currently. Right now we have ships that can be comprised or a massive amount of weapon systems with no drawbacks. Even with a health system, I feel like weapons are too easy to achieve an overpowered state. Do you guys have planned changes here or will there need to be more testing?

 

[Mered4]

Recently shielding got buffed. I didn't expect this to happen considering I heard there was a desired to emphasize armor over shields, espeically with the health update. Are there changes beyond just armor that will happen because of the health system.

I also want to ask if the devs are concerned about weapons currently. Right now we have ships that can be comprised or a massive amount of weapon systems with no drawbacks. Even with a health system, I feel like weapons are too easy to achieve an overpowered state. Do you guys have planned changes here or will there need to be more testing?

Easy solution is to give weapons a much larger dmg/power ration - instead of 1/10, increase it to 1/50 for example.

 

[Bench]

Is Schema finally going to make his version numbers into a decent system? "StarMade v0.189996" is not okay. :p

: aye, its going to be sematic versioning. http://semver.org/

Will that result in the possibility of easily adding custom logic blocks?

What do you mean by custom logic blocks?

I have some questions on the rail system... Sorry if these have been answered before...

-Will moving parts have some sort of a gap between them, like docked ships do currently? I hope not.
-How customizable the movement speed of the rotors/rails will be? Will you be able to set upper/lower rotational limit on rotating parts?
-Can you chain moving parts and still be able to control their motors from the mothership? For example, part 1 is attached to the ship, part 2 is attached to part 1. Can you move the part 2 from the ship?

We are planning to have no gap between them, not like there currently is with docking.
Movement speed will be dependent on how we go about implementing the system. Same with limits.
Chain moving parts is something we'd like to do, we'll have to see how it is made possible as we go forward.

And some less related questions I thought I'd throw in just for the heck of it.

-Are RC drones still planned? I mean, ones directly controlled from a distance by a player/crew member, not AI-driven.
-Any contests planned? I want to make up for that major screw-up I did on the last one...

: RC Drones are still a possibility.
There will probably be more contests planned.

Any chance of updating logic to have a single block with an interface that is like: https://www.scirra.com/construct2

If not any chance of creating a logic circuit block that is like the circuit board interface in little big planet?

It's been discussed before plans to at some point enable the ability for something programmable via LUA, this would probably be the only block capable of such a level of advanced logic in a single block.

Are you guys happy with the state of Starmade? With the state of the community? With sales?

: StarMade still is far from feature complete. We are happy with developments but always will try to grow and improve

Any plans to move to GLNext? If so, what improvements will that bring?

: StarMade currently is made in a way so it is compatible with older cards. New systems bring a lot more opportunities for better and faster graphics, but we will make sure it runs as fast as it can on a Opengl2.1 compatible card. After that special optimizations and graphics can be made for more modern cards

Bench, what's the idea behind rails?
Is there a guiding principle you could mention to give us an idea of what to expect?
Something besides "They're rails....sort of"

Is there any previous invention from either VR or the RW we could draw from to visualize the concept?

When will the 'rail' system be in a state where it is acceptable to release into a Dev build?
Has the Schine team started the overhaul work necessary for the system to work or is that still in the planning stage?

The idea behind rails is to be able to put together a framework that players can then build upon to achieve movement that previously has been impractical but desired. The principle we're going from is basically there's all these ideas of what sort of movement we want to achieve, and it's just about finding the easiest way to allow players to build off that, without shoe-horning us into a specific setup for it. The reason why Minecraft's rail system was great was its adaptability to become more than just a way of getting from Point A to Point B, and we want to build our system in a way that we'll get to see players coming up with uses that we haven't even imagined yet.

Overhaul hasn't started just yet, it's still in planning stage while chat system has been getting finalised.

Would it be possible to get a rough timeline of what additional features you currently intend (or hope) to implement? Perhaps not a timeline but more of a ranked order of features? (Some people will probably complain if you list an actual time and then slip.)

: the 3 main features to come are shipyards, rail system, and creatures. Also there is a big update in how ships work planned. I can't say any order as each of the system already has some work done. Depending on what takes longer the systems hopefully will come in quick succession

Pursuant to giving players a reason to explore, I'd like for server admins to be able to create (and hide on planets/stations, etc.) 'alien artifacts' that can be used to upgrade ships in a way that exceeds the capacities of ships simply built with regular blocks (moderate bonuses that would be trivial for titans). Will such functionality ever exist in the game (something that can simply add capacities to a ship core)?

: Definitely. These kind of things will surely come.

I understand that alien fauna is planned for some point. (Any idea when?) Will it ever be possible for modders to create their own such fauna, and just as importantly, will it be possible for such modders to write code to customize their AI?

Fauna is planned and is one of the 3 main features planned as mentioned above. Beyond that we'll have to see.

Is there an eventual plan to develop the First Person experience of the game? I realise StarMade is primarily about building and flying spaceships, but enhancing the FP interactions on space-stations and planetary environments (other than just mining them from orbit) would greatly increase drive for exploration and improve immersion, not to mention widening the audience of potential gamers.

I never know whether to suggest ideas along these lines or not because I don't know if this is even something the Devs want StarMade to be about.

: The current first person features are pretty much just a framework. There will of course be a lot more in that regard

Having a good First Person Experience would also make bases on planets more useful...
(off-topic question: ) Are there any plans to make a faction module only claim one side of a planet unless you own the star system?

: originally that was the case (it would always claim just one side), but it wasn't really liked with players who tested it on the test server

Recently shielding got buffed. I didn't expect this to happen considering I heard there was a desired to emphasize armor over shields, espeically with the health update. Are there changes beyond just armor that will happen because of the health system.

: There are significant changes to ship armor/health/shield planned. I can't tell too much though, but its not very far from being tested

I also want to ask if the devs are concerned about weapons currently. Right now we have ships that can be comprised or a massive amount of weapon systems with no drawbacks. Even with a health system, I feel like weapons are too easy to achieve an overpowered state. Do you guys have planned changes here or will there need to be more testing?

: This is also addressed in the changes mentioned in the last answer. The new systems will give weapons more complexity and will create a new dynamic.

 

[Master1398]

So we have that faction exclusive blueprint system for stations already. When will we get to see it for ships? It would be very neat to have different pirate and trading guild ships.

If it is coming soon™ will there be a contest for default ships?

 

[Snk]

HE LIVES!

 

[Megacrafter127]

What do you mean by custom logic blocks?

Modding in a new block, that uses a custom algorithm to determine weither or not it shall output high or low depending on the input.
What immedeatly came to my mind would be an XML tag referring to a class, which has a method to determine weither or not the block should emit a high or low signal. For the method, I'm thinking along the line of this:

public boolean getNewStatus(int highInputs, int totalInputs, boolean oldState);
/* I am excluding the order of the inputs on purpose, as using the order of the different inputs
 * would definetly overcomplicate logic
 * it is also intended, that the method is not static, to allow it being put in an interface,
 * to ease filtering out bad tags leading to classes, which don't implement the method.
 */

 

[jstenholt]

So we have that faction exclusive blueprint system for stations already. When will we get to see it for ships? It would be very neat to have different pirate and trading guild ships.

If it is coming soon™ will there be a contest for default ships?

This is easily one of the most important QOL updates we can get, the ability to customize wave spawning behavior and set different ships for trading guild and pirates.

 

[BDLS]

Will entities docked to rails (and moving) & turret docks still be able to clip through other entities?

 

[Bench]

Will entities docked to rails (and moving) & turret docks still be able to clip through other entities?

I don't know about turrets at this point, but I know we're reworking how collisions are handled due to the requirements for the rail system

 

[aceface]

3rd person view pls? jk :p

 

[Bench]

3rd person view pls? jk :p

Lol, umm, scroll wheel. Cool, next.

 

[Mered4]

Lol, umm, scroll wheel. Cool, next.

YOU KNOW WHAT WE MEAN DAMMIT


[DOUBLEPOST=1426376204,1426375616][/DOUBLEPOST]

Lol, umm, scroll wheel. Cool, next.

Will we still have docking modules/turret modules after the rail change?

Will docking be based around rails, or will rails be supplemental?

 

[jstenholt]

I think we can all possibly dial the questions about rails back a bit. They have made it very apparent that the system isn't even fully conceptualized yet, so perhaps let us allow them enough time to do so.

 

[Ithirahad]

Whatever happened to pressing the R key on personal computers to bring up the Mail interface? I like that idea a lot better than pressing F4, and Kupu said we'd get it while ago... Where'd it go?

 

[jstenholt]

I have literally made all of my decorative computers and stations with PCs just to eventually add some minor function.

 

[Ithirahad]

I have literally made all of my decorative computers and stations with PCs just to eventually add some minor function.

Same here, the crew quarters on my cruiser and corvette (And on my frigate when I revamp it) all have the blue Personal Computers in them somewhere. Not just because of consistency, but because of that feature that Kupu said would be in a few updates ago.

 

[UndeadPotato]

I have two questions.

1. Is there a plan to allow players to enter a turret without having to use its core? I feel that this is one of the reasons that ships don't usually have multiple players stationed on them, and this would be a nice feature to go along with the "rails" update.
2. Are shipyards still going to be a thing? If so, what progress has been made on them? I'm quite interested to see how they could affect player interactions, and whether they would allow factions to finally secure this niche on servers.

 

[Megacrafter127]

Are shipyards still going to be a thing?

Yes, they were confirmed in an earlier newspost, and regarding progress: having to fill in blueprints before spawning them was one of the steps towards shipyards.

 

[serge1944]

starmade for me only went up at least 10 to 20 fps on a giant planet that can land capital ships,but when i do collisitons with objects the game becomes very slow, and when i warp the game camera only goes and i cant see the ship going,blueprint dont fully load and i cant overight them,sometimes blocks are infinite,i cant see lasers behind windows,ai crew doesnt want to use gravity , day on planets to see the color of day you need to be on the good height ,doors take time to see when you close,gravity on planet is above atsmosphere,turrets dont want too shoot but sometimes if i said if they got shot they will attack but not all the time,ai has bad pathfinding.OTHERWISE THE GAME IS GREAT BUT WITH PROBLEMS THAT DONT OCCUR ON EVRY PC.
[DOUBLEPOST=1426425450,1426425352][/DOUBLEPOST]O AND I HAD AN IDEA ,SHIP DOCKS ON PLANETS FOR CAPITAL SHIPS LIKE ON STAR WARS EPISODE 3.

 

[Bench]

starmade for me only went up at least 10 to 20 fps on a giant planet that can land capital ships,but when i do collisitons with objects the game becomes very slow, and when i warp the game camera only goes and i cant see the ship going,blueprint dont fully load and i cant overight them,sometimes blocks are infinite,i cant see lasers behind windows,ai crew doesnt want to use gravity , day on planets to see the color of day you need to be on the good height ,doors take time to see when you close,gravity on planet is above atsmosphere,turrets dont want too shoot but sometimes if i said if they got shot they will attack but not all the time,ai has bad pathfinding.OTHERWISE THE GAME IS GREAT BUT WITH PROBLEMS THAT DONT OCCUR ON EVRY PC.
[DOUBLEPOST=1426425450,1426425352][/DOUBLEPOST]O AND I HAD AN IDEA ,SHIP DOCKS ON PLANETS FOR CAPITAL SHIPS LIKE ON STAR WARS EPISODE 3.

So, umm, what's your question?