Intro
Chapter 1: faction point system.
Like I mentioned before, I want FP to be a real resource, something that factions mainly use for large decisions that influence the flow of the game. Your storage is limited so you'll have to spend it wisely!
The 2 factions in the game, trading guild and the pirate one are like neutral/enemy mobs in a RTS game. Trading guild could be killed, persuaded, bribed, ... in order to do something to either help you or counter your enemy by cutting off resources etc. Pirates would target anyone, but they go for the target with the highest price on their head.
I'm pretty sure Schine has plans for FP but I have no clue in what form so I'll just guess what FP could be used for, maybe Calbiri could specify some of these plans a little bit?
Chapter 3: universe redesign
Don't get me wrong here, schine did a great job at remaking the old universe in what we have now but I feel that my suggestion above would require to either limit the current universe and re-balance it or redesign it completely(again).
I aim towards tweaking numbers and re-balancing it a bit without too much coding work.
So in general, make everything more rare and more spread out and it would create a more interesting map. Place down point of interests and focus will be drawn where factions would wage war on for months.
Any constructive feedback is appreciated, would love to hear some of your ideas!
Too long; Didn't read
Rework faction points (FP) so you gain them from structures, FP would be used like credits but aimed towards faction only decisions. It would be a resource that could be used to hire fleets, construct ships, boycott your enemy and help out your allies. The way you gain FP would create point of interests for your enemies, faction war or expansion would be encouraged.
Everything in the current universe would need to be more rare and also more focused certain area.
Hi! This is a large post so I don't blame you for not reading it completely, there's a TL;DR version at the bottom of this thread.
I have some suggestions to make the multiplayer part of starmade a lot more interesting and engaging. At this moment you kill/mine stuff and you build more stuff with that, right? Faction war does exist but it's in such a limited way that you do it just to keep yourself entertained. My idea is just to change 1 current mechanic and add features to it, and that mechanic is the Faction Point system.
The current system has the right idea, but just executes it in the wrong way.
Faction points (FP) were introduced to bring in variety in multiplayer, they would be the main currency of a faction and it should influence faction war by a large factor.
At this moment you can only get more FP/hour by getting more members, and expanding your influence/bases actually consumes FP. This way you get punished for expanding your base and members are just seen as unimportant assets that provide you with a little bit more FP.
I always thought FP would be something like a resource being used in a RTS game. You use buildings to generate it, you spend it on units/utilities (like artillery strikes) and research. Running out of resources would cripple your economy and allow your opponent to beat you if you didn't recover quickly enough. This would keep the flow of the game going, your units destroy theirs and vice versa, and you fight to secure a better resource income so you can expand further and defeat your opponent before he gets too powerfull.
I want this, but in starmade. I see 2 issues here:
Most RTS games only last for a couple of hours, and a world in starmade should last months or longer so balancing this out would be tricky. I don't want the game to end, ever!
The other issue would be that the weakest teams get eliminated fast, and in the end there will only be 2 big factions remaining. Any new player would either join one of those 2 remaining big factions, or get destroyed/annihilated fast. This is something I don't want but might be inevitable.
A very important note here, I want to get rid of the "kill pirates, loot them and expand". FP will enable you to focus on the big picture, and get rid of the tedious pirate searching or mining, loot will have a purpose of course but your main focus is to grow and expand, and if done well FP would be the resource that drives it the most.
I have some suggestions to make the multiplayer part of starmade a lot more interesting and engaging. At this moment you kill/mine stuff and you build more stuff with that, right? Faction war does exist but it's in such a limited way that you do it just to keep yourself entertained. My idea is just to change 1 current mechanic and add features to it, and that mechanic is the Faction Point system.
The current system has the right idea, but just executes it in the wrong way.
Faction points (FP) were introduced to bring in variety in multiplayer, they would be the main currency of a faction and it should influence faction war by a large factor.
At this moment you can only get more FP/hour by getting more members, and expanding your influence/bases actually consumes FP. This way you get punished for expanding your base and members are just seen as unimportant assets that provide you with a little bit more FP.
I always thought FP would be something like a resource being used in a RTS game. You use buildings to generate it, you spend it on units/utilities (like artillery strikes) and research. Running out of resources would cripple your economy and allow your opponent to beat you if you didn't recover quickly enough. This would keep the flow of the game going, your units destroy theirs and vice versa, and you fight to secure a better resource income so you can expand further and defeat your opponent before he gets too powerfull.
I want this, but in starmade. I see 2 issues here:
Most RTS games only last for a couple of hours, and a world in starmade should last months or longer so balancing this out would be tricky. I don't want the game to end, ever!
The other issue would be that the weakest teams get eliminated fast, and in the end there will only be 2 big factions remaining. Any new player would either join one of those 2 remaining big factions, or get destroyed/annihilated fast. This is something I don't want but might be inevitable.
Chapter 1: faction point system.
So this is chapter explains the different possibilities to gain FP, chapter 2 talks more in what to spend them on.
First of all, the total storage of faction points per faction would be limited. This would be limited by a physical block (like power tank storage but for FP on only your homebase), or by the number of bases you have, or just be a completely fixed number that never expands.
It has to be limited to prevent the big factions from storing too much resources and to make sure spending FP on something at the wrong time can have a devastating result. The bigger the storage, the more room for error, this would be something adjustable in the config and I feel this should be low.
Now that there's a limit, how would you gain them?
For that I have several ideas, possibly all of them can be combined but that's something that could be open for discussion and who says you guys don't have better ideas! Please post them here so we can discuss about them ^^
I do get rid of the "member count X fixed amount = total FP/hour". That only encourages one thing and that's getting more members in your faction.
A homebase would always generate the same FP per hour, no matter the size or shape. It would be the equivalent of your headquarters, but this one is invulnerable to a certain point (could be set in the config again). Not exactly where to drawn that point yet but I'm sure something can be found.
First of all, the total storage of faction points per faction would be limited. This would be limited by a physical block (like power tank storage but for FP on only your homebase), or by the number of bases you have, or just be a completely fixed number that never expands.
It has to be limited to prevent the big factions from storing too much resources and to make sure spending FP on something at the wrong time can have a devastating result. The bigger the storage, the more room for error, this would be something adjustable in the config and I feel this should be low.
Now that there's a limit, how would you gain them?
For that I have several ideas, possibly all of them can be combined but that's something that could be open for discussion and who says you guys don't have better ideas! Please post them here so we can discuss about them ^^
I do get rid of the "member count X fixed amount = total FP/hour". That only encourages one thing and that's getting more members in your faction.
A homebase would always generate the same FP per hour, no matter the size or shape. It would be the equivalent of your headquarters, but this one is invulnerable to a certain point (could be set in the config again). Not exactly where to drawn that point yet but I'm sure something can be found.
- The first idea in order to get more FP is to make outposts, these would just be new stations that claim a system. Note, you have to pay a fixed FP fee to make a station an outpost that can generate FP.
- In order to make them produce FP, they would need to contain X % of their blocks as functional ones (power/shields/etc) and their size would need to be for example a minimum 10 000 blocks. After they reach this quota it would take a certain period before they actually generated an income. The amount of income would be something like Y/sqrt(player bases in that system). This would encourage you to go for multiple systems, but also make it harder to defend them since they are further away. You can always cluster them closely in 1 system but this does mean your FP gain per station will be considerably lower, it would however be a great choice to start with since it's easy to defend all of them.
- The second idea expands on this but divides outposts into types, including planet outposts.
- Atm I have several different types: Factory outpost, Mining outpost, Fire base, Colony and maybe Shipyard and/or Research outpost
- Factory outpost: for every 100 credits worth of block constructed, you get Y FP. This would be great for the ones that prefer building above fighting.
- Mining outpost: for every X ores mined in that system, you get Y FP. This would be the most effective with both a factory and mining outpost in the same system.
- Fire base: for every enemy ship destroyed (overheating), it will take the remaining mass of that ship at the time of overheating and give you FP for it depending on size.
- Colony: this can only be made on planets, they would generate at first not a lot of FP but the longer it is there, the more you get from it. There would be a limit, depending on the size of the planet but ideally this one, at its max income it would be more than several outposts combined. These planets could even give you additional normal credits and resource blocks per hour. That could be determined by sub-types like "Industry focused" or "Colony expansion".
- Shipyard: every ship constructed gives you FP depending on mass. In theory, from start to finish a Mining outpost + Factory outpost + Shipyard that transform raw resources in a ship would in total give the same FP/hour as a colony at max efficiency of a green planet, radius 300. (used a random number here)
- Research outpost: This would consume FP and give a temporary boost in ore yield, or make stuff in general cheaper to make or manufacture.
- I also intend to have every outpost have a passive and active mode, the ones described above are mostly passive (they generate FP), active mode would consume FP instead but give you other stuff like more shields/weapon damage on fire bases, hourly income of resources/blocks for other outposts,... This however would be harder to balance since there's already so much to spend FP in (see chapter 2).
- My third idea focuses on resource nodes or colonies, mainly planet focused and is inspired by an idea of Calbiri. Stations would mostly not generate FP, at least not in a passive way.
- Every planet that is claimed would generate a fixed amount of FP/hour depending on size, type and current HP. (Earth, huge planets would give the most). In total I see 2 ways to get FP out of a planet.
- Just claim it and let it generate a fixed amount/hour. This fixed amount would be low for most planets though, only the more rare ones would give a relatively large amount.
- Core drilling, basically you would deal "damage" to the planet HP by setting up drills. HP would eventually generate but at a very slow rate, and it would never get past 50% of its HP. It would probably take weeks or so depending on size to get from 1% to 50%. If you core drill you won't get the fixed amount, but you would be able to disable the drill and get a permanent decreased fixed amount, and if you drilled too much the decrease HP will also influence this a lot. However, the upside is that you get 2/3/4 times more FP/hour while drilling although constructing a drill is probably not going to be free either. Possibly, besides getting this bonus, you would receive an hourly income of planet ores.
- Planets have a natural shield, the atmosphere would protect from most damage, size of "shield" depends on size and type again. This shield could disable salvagers working at all tbh, not sure if that should be removed just yet though but if drills could generate a nice income per hour, why not?
I like this idea a lot since it gives planets a purpose but I'm unsure how battles would turn out. Planets are vulnerable and hard to defend with 12 planet parts. It could also get very frustrated if a planet keeps getting poked so its FP gain stays minimal.
Chapter 2: Gameplay changes!
Like I mentioned before, I want FP to be a real resource, something that factions mainly use for large decisions that influence the flow of the game. Your storage is limited so you'll have to spend it wisely!
The 2 factions in the game, trading guild and the pirate one are like neutral/enemy mobs in a RTS game. Trading guild could be killed, persuaded, bribed, ... in order to do something to either help you or counter your enemy by cutting off resources etc. Pirates would target anyone, but they go for the target with the highest price on their head.
I'm pretty sure Schine has plans for FP but I have no clue in what form so I'll just guess what FP could be used for, maybe Calbiri could specify some of these plans a little bit?
- Bounties: By spending FP you would place a bounty on a faction, or individual players. FP cost for a whole faction would be more expensive than X members * fixed amount. By placing a Bounty on them players they would have a bigger chance of pirate mobs spawning on them and trying to kill them, I'm talking about big mobs here and they would not spawn, or go, near a homebase.
Same thing goes for players, players with bounties would be visible by right clicking them in chat, FP translates into credits/rare loot/FP as reward, depending on the bounty contract.
- Mercenaries: FP would be used to hire NPC "fleets", you could give them a few types of blueprints (or they would use server mob blueprints only, maybe that's better) and depending on the amount of FP you want to spent daily on them a certain amount of them will be spawned in a fleet you can command. These won't be cheap but you should be able to run a small fleet even with not a huge income. You'll most likely assign them to protect your bases when you're not online.
They would be able to track down guys that enter your system if that system has an outpost with scanners for example, the amount of scanners would determine how fast they would do it. Escort, Patrol, Hold & Defend, Search & Destroy,...
Even 1 man factions should be able to control a portion on the map this way.
- Ship construction & Shipyards: You can't pilot mercenaries, and if you shoot them too much they will turn on you or just warp away and take a large FP fee. Making your own fleet, with its own AI that doesn't cost hourly FP would also be possible.
Shipyards (NPC only!) will have different levels, you have the slow lvl 1 ones that can't make anything bigger than X/Y/Z and with a mass of A, but these are all over the place. You would have larger Shipyards like lvl 3-5 that are able to handle bigger constructions (and work at a faster speed) but these are rare. The big shipyards would be near invulnerable (200 mil shield HP, lots of big turrets + large fleets that jump in to help) but the smaller ones could potentially be destroyed to boycott your enemy.
So yeah, the shipyards will require you to have around 25-50% of the blocks needed for the blueprint, you could order the rest by spending credits or by spending FP. The actual construction also costs a FP amount so it's easy to lose too much FP by constructing your own fleet too fast. These ships could be docked at your homebase though, unlike mercenaries.
- Trading guild interaction: FP could be used to request resource packages (a way to turn FP in blocks), or let them tow in more ores in a certain system, hire trading convoys that if succeeded would give you more FP back than you spent in them or they would give you credits for it (a way to turn FP in Credits).
- Public warp gates: These would cost FP to use too. Warp gates go from 1 fixed point to another fixed one, just like shipyards, gates could be destroyed.
Don't get me wrong here, schine did a great job at remaking the old universe in what we have now but I feel that my suggestion above would require to either limit the current universe and re-balance it or redesign it completely(again).
I aim towards tweaking numbers and re-balancing it a bit without too much coding work.
- There would only be a small amount of galaxies, I think 2 or 3 is a good number. Either 2 big ones or 1 big one and 2 smaller ones. <---> or apply bonuses for not spreading out too much to keep the core faction war centered in the first or neighboring galaxy, allowing to stay infinite but going too far from a populated zone would not be ideal.
- Galaxies would be slightly smaller than they are now.
- New players can choose a series of fixed spawnpoints (4-6 spawn shops close to each other but each in another system), to force a more distributed player map and to minimize spawn camping.
- Void space, systems that are not in the galaxy systems are almost completely empty, maybe 1 abandoned station or a relic per system.
- Amount of shops would be lower, something like 5 per system max but they would be visible on the map and near planets. Cash reserves for shops are shared in each system.
- Amount of generated stations would be lower, I think around 10 max per system.
- Amount of planets would maybe need to decrease a little bit but mostly their size would need to change, the current normal distribution graph means that around 10-15% of them are always near 30 radius which is too small to work with.
- Not every galaxy system would have a star (including planets/shops/stations), they would either be void space or have some sort of large asteroid belt of a few particular ore types. This would mix the map up a bit and create points of interests.
- Stars need to be a lot deadlier, getting 1 sector away from one should burn your ship(s) at a very fast rate, this would make a star interesting to have on the battlefield, could get near a star, burn away but scare of your attacker or both die horribly ^^
- Ores...yeah this one is a difficult one, I would certainly keep some types more rare than others but maybe leveling the field a bit would not hurt. They would also not respawn immediately and could take a few days or so to regenerate/respawn. I would also make them more concentrated on a particular spot, so more dense clouds instead of rings. A system could have 3-5 concentrated clouds that would make it easier to predict where a miner is.
- Black holes/wormholes are weird, I have no idea what to do with them atm, they could be "mined" in some way maybe but if you have any suggestions what to do with them, please post it, having them damage your ships would be fun ^^
- Travel between galaxies is impossible with just a jumpdrive, the center of each galaxy has a huge black hole that binds itself to another galaxy. It would jump to a nearby one where your nav point is set in, else it's random. This would focus most guys around the center of a galaxy and keep the game spread out on at least 2 galaxies.
So in general, make everything more rare and more spread out and it would create a more interesting map. Place down point of interests and focus will be drawn where factions would wage war on for months.
Any constructive feedback is appreciated, would love to hear some of your ideas!
Too long; Didn't read
Rework faction points (FP) so you gain them from structures, FP would be used like credits but aimed towards faction only decisions. It would be a resource that could be used to hire fleets, construct ships, boycott your enemy and help out your allies. The way you gain FP would create point of interests for your enemies, faction war or expansion would be encouraged.
Everything in the current universe would need to be more rare and also more focused certain area.
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