Dimensional Power Gen: The Bane of Starmade Ship Design

[Magrim]

Perhaps there is some misunderstanding going on here about my position on all of this. I mentioned this previously in the thread but didn't go into detail.

I would absolutely hate having a power system that was purely mass or block count based. Something like that would be completely devoid of any semblance of fun. The old power system had "support" mechanics in place that allowed it to be innovative, complex, fun… It had an interesting set of rules that worked very well together. Such as: Reactors needing to be contiguous, the xyz rules, the 2mil bonus power on top of base power you get from efficient reactor design, there are others but you get the point.

Without these mechanics, dimensional power would have been just as pitiful as pure mass or bc. I could be wrong but maybe some believe this is what I'm pushing for. I want to say that if starmade was dumbed down to that degree, it would be coffin nails for the game.

All I'm after is balance through mass or block count, where intended game mechanics reign, and with it comes more freedom of ship design (my opinion.) I do not have an answer as to what "support" mechanics could be implemented in order to make them innovative, complex, fun… Part of my hope for this thread was some discussion on what would make them interesting, but oh well, maybe next time.

 

[OfficialCoding]

If you want more power, build a gigantic ship and do efficient reactor placement on all surfaces. Thats what I'm doing on my gigantic ship right now.

 

[apelsinsaft]

Why punish players by making things more complex and time-consuming under the false premise of gameplay or complexity or depth? Just keep it simple and let us get back to what everyone unfailingly agrees on that's a love doing - design something shiny, mine other shinies to build it, and blow it up in dogfights with a peristent, dynamic RTS galaxy in the background!

Super controversial as this is, i ultimately have to agree with this. Haters will hate, complexers will have their complexity complex, but the game would be much more easy to keep balanced and aesthetic if the player had to do basically nothing to get a ship working. Whether or not it's more fun is completely subjective, but in my opinion 90% of the fun of making a ship in starmade is designing the aesthetic portion anyways.

Of course, that still leaves the issue of spaghetti ships. With no mechanics to encourage cohesive ships, there's no reason to not make a spaghetti ship if you want to win a fight. I mentioned somewhere else that i think the only way to truly get rid of minmaxed cheese builds is admin policing. If a server owner is particularly afraid of the world turning into the war of the noodles, then they can just enforce some rules for aesthetics and be done with it.

 

[Jojomo]

Whether or not it's more fun is completely subjective, but in my opinion 90% of the fun of making a ship in starmade is designing the aesthetic portion anyways.

Of course you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I strongly disagree. For me the entire ship is important.

 

[Ghent96]

...

You mentioned support mechanics... We,dont really need them. Just like we do not need systems anymore. Here's why:

Build your ship, a shiny beautiful shell however you want, or a noobcube... Whatever.

Schine needs to let us reposition cores for easier, better entry and nice cockpit views after the fact... Cuz... Designs change, yeah?

Schine needs to let us put down 1... ONE system block. Activate it, get a slider % dialogue box. You decide. No tedious system lines or connections or stabilizers or 15 different types of system blocks to lay down in tight places. One. You decide the trade off you want between energy cap vs regen, shield cap vs regen, what type of hardening or defense you want (overdrive, ion, explosive, momentum, etc), what type of thrust (top speed vs accelleration, or BOTH of your mass and power are under a sweet spot).

How do we give ships armor and HP then? We'll Schine has, finally, given us the full area tool. We will use it to area full all the now void internal area of your ship with ONE generic HP block. Better if Schine would make it automatic, but this let's players CHOOSE how much mass and HP to give their ship, up to the total # of blocks possible to fill in.

You want super hard armor? Fine, paint your ship externally with adv armor. Balance it with heavy mass. Lighten our basic hull. Deco blocks are all 0.01 or even 0.001 or just effing 0.

Guns can all change the same way. Trade-offs between range, speed, damage, accuracy, reload, power use, etc. Its so much simpler and easier to just use slider % instead of making us lay down 3 different types of,blocks plus computers and link it all together a certain way and then end up with bugs and ghosted links.... What a mess. There's a better way.

SM has snowballed out of control, now, with too much reliance on simply adding a new block to fix each issue that comes along, and sliders area a return to much better , simpler, happier place of shiny ships and fun combat.

 

[Ciggofwar]

Yea the slider for turrets was fun ~ simple.