Diversification of Resources

[Valiant70]

We currently have three types of resources: crystals, ores, and rocks. However, since they're obtained in the same quantities in the same ways, I shall consider them one type: mining products.

One type of resource has been plenty throughout most of alpha, but the resource and crafting systems are still little more than placeholders for something that could have far more depth and breadth. Here are some general ideas for different types of resources and their uses.

• Minerals
  • Yep, just like now.
  • Sources: Asteroids, planet plates, planet (and gas planet) cores
  • Uses: Mainly for hardware like ship and structure parts.
• Gasses
  • Collected via a ram-scoop or special collectors on stations
  • Sources:
    • Gas planets: Large quantities of common gasses.
    • Nebulae: Poor/slow source of common gasses. Chance to find rare gasses, but slow to collect a meaningful amount.
    • Planet atmospheres: Only traces of useful gasses. Slow to refine from atmosphere.
  • Uses: Buffs
    • Common: Ship system buffs, Atmosphere for ships/stations.
    • Uncommon: Ship weapon buffs
    • Rare: Personal weapon buffs, human buffs (space drugs)
• Plasma
  • Risky and challenging to collect, but useful.
  • Sources:
    • Nebulae: A common source of plasma, but very slow to collect due to low density.
    • Plasma planets: Incredibly rare and valuable planet, but it'll burn the @#$%^& out of you if you fly into it by accident.
    • Stars: Abundant source of common plasmas, but unprepared ships will be cooked before they get close enough to scoop up coronal mass ejections. Incredibly rare violet stars contain rare plasmas.
  • Uses:
    • Common types: jump drive fuel/buff, component in high-energy systems like shields, reactors
    • Uncommon types: High-end personal equipment and ammo
    • Rare: Risky but more powerful buffs for ships and weapons
• Organics
  • Biological stuff of all varieties
  • Sources: All on planets!
    • Wild plants, easily domesticated (common)
    • Wild plants, difficult/risky to grow (uncommon)
    • Wild plants, impossible to grow artificially (rare)
    • Docile, breedable animals (common)
    • Moderately aggressive, breedable animals (uncommon)
    • Freakin' monsters! (rare)
  • Uses:
    • Common items: food for crew, textiles for decoration/beds/chairs/whatever, basic personal equipment/clothes
    • Uncommon items: better food for crew, buff food for players, better equipment
    • Rare items: medicines, rare equipment

 

[Lone_Puppy]

One important gas use would be atmosphere for ships, stations and whatever space structure.

 

[Valiant70]

One important gas use would be atmosphere for ships, stations and whatever space structure.

Yeah, I hope Schine can actually figure out how to make that work. It'll always feel like something's missing otherwise. I'll edit the OP.

 

[PainNigouto]

Yeah, I hope Schine can actually figure out how to make that work. It'll always feel like something's missing otherwise. I'll edit the OP.

its not just figuring out how to make it work, its figuring out how to make it work without being too system-intensive... imagine having to check every room one by one to check for leeks, keeping sub-entities and open/closed doors in mind, several times per second... this can get VERY heavy if not engineered right

 

[Valiant70]

its not just figuring out how to make it work, its figuring out how to make it work without being too system-intensive... imagine having to check every room one by one to check for leeks, keeping sub-entities and open/closed doors in mind, several times per second... this can get VERY heavy if not engineered right

That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's probably the only reason we don't already have air.

 

[PainNigouto]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's probably the only reason we don't already have air.

its what i heard from schema. And that he has thought of such a system as well.. to me this seems like a system that would take at least a month to properly design and develop for use in starmade. also, keeping in mind the possible uptades we dont yet know the full details about (or anything at all), there might be planned features that could hamper with an existing gas-system so it has to be re-designed.

that being said; i, too, would like to see more survival-style and general astronaut features (Crew, breathing and food being my favorites on the list)

 

[IronDusk33]

its not just figuring out how to make it work, its figuring out how to make it work without being too system-intensive... imagine having to check every room one by one to check for leeks, keeping sub-entities and open/closed doors in mind, several times per second... this can get VERY heavy if not engineered right

It might be possible to rely on block changes and logic updates to detect breaches and doors opening/closing, then keep the update loop only to double check the detection from the block changes, so it only needs to run every few seconds.

 

[The Judge]

This would only add more time onto the already tedious amount of time it takes to gather PvP resources, and I'm the kind of person that wants a game that isn't 90% point-and-click. Remember back when you could buy ships with Credits? I'm probably wrong, but its pretty visible how the tedious mining operations have turned away many PvP players because almost nobody has the time and patience to manage such a monotonous and boring task. On the other hand if you were to increase the Resource yield then Titanmade would become ever more present and there will be a Server Genocide.

 

[GRHayes]

Actually the solution to creating atmosphere in ships that can leak out is relatively simple.
You don't need to go to the point of emulating fluid or gas dynamics to make it work.
That would be entirely over kill and would eat the heck out of CPU.
So I wonder what it is worth to Schine to have a simple fast solution and a way to increase performance on that even.

 

[Edymnion]

It might be possible to rely on block changes and logic updates to detect breaches and doors opening/closing, then keep the update loop only to double check the detection from the block changes, so it only needs to run every few seconds.

The real logistical problem I can see is rail doors. It would be very difficult to tell if a rail door was properly sealing an entrance or not seeing as how it is a separate entity.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I'll be a voice of dissent and state I don't think we need to simulate air pressure. I'm perfectly fine with everyone wearing a magical helmet that keeps them alive at all times. I think air pressure brings more issues than fun to the table. Ships will be harder to design, will be laggier in combat, and gathering/collecting oxygen will be grindy and annoying in the early game. All for the single pro of added realism.

 

[Edymnion]

I'll be a voice of dissent and state I don't think we need to simulate air pressure. I'm perfectly fine with everyone wearing a magical helmet that keeps them alive at all times. I think air pressure brings more issues than fun to the table. Ships will be harder to design, will be laggier in combat, and gathering/collecting oxygen will be grindy and annoying in the early game. All for the single pro of added realism.

Meh, it could end up being as simple as having "Atmospheric Generator" blocks that produce air, and you needing X amount of air based on how many NPCs you have to support. And then you simply need air as one of the crafting components.

Don't need to go full on "Is the room sealed, how much air pressure do we have, etc".

 

[Nickizzy]

This would only add more time onto the already tedious amount of time it takes to gather PvP resources, and I'm the kind of person that wants a game that isn't 90% point-and-click. Remember back when you could buy ships with Credits? I'm probably wrong, but its pretty visible how the tedious mining operations have turned away many PvP players because almost nobody has the time and patience to manage such a monotonous and boring task. On the other hand if you were to increase the Resource yield then Titanmade would become ever more present and there will be a Server Genocide.

Look at, say, X3 Terran conflict. I wish fleet mechanics worked like that! Besides, if all you care about is the fight then you might as well go to some gladiator server with creative mode on. PvP is competitive playing, which involves all aspects of the game. Some people just don't use them all.

[Edit]I get your point, actually, but if we every get a decent economy then you should be able to buy and sell all the goods you want, and not have to gather anything.

 

[Valiant70]

This would only add more time onto the already tedious amount of time it takes to gather PvP resources, and I'm the kind of person that wants a game that isn't 90% point-and-click. Remember back when you could buy ships with Credits? I'm probably wrong, but its pretty visible how the tedious mining operations have turned away many PvP players because almost nobody has the time and patience to manage such a monotonous and boring task. On the other hand if you were to increase the Resource yield then Titanmade would become ever more present and there will be a Server Genocide.

If this suggestion were implemented nearly as-is, you could play just as you do now provided Schine left out the part about needing plasma for some systems. The difference would be that others who find a lot of rare plasma would have an advantage.

Besides, all PVP really needs is a souped up build'n'battle mode.

 

[Lecic]

But plasma is just really hot gas...

I think buffs are a terrible idea. It's a pain to balance them and they only benefit established players, who already have a large advantage anyway.

 

[spocklin]

I would prefer for the resources to go to regular names myself. I can see how confusing it can be for new players coming in and seeing these crazy resources names and not knowing what to do. The regular names would give a standard progression so that people might have an easier time starting out.

 

[Lecic]

I would prefer for the resources to go to regular names myself. I can see how confusing it can be for new players coming in and seeing these crazy resources names and not knowing what to do. The regular names would give a standard progression so that people might have an easier time starting out.

Using real world resource names is a terrible idea. It limits what the devs can do and makes people mad when the resource doesn't match its real life counterpart enough.

 

[jayman38]

Meh, it could end up being as simple as having "Atmospheric Generator" blocks that produce air, and you needing X amount of air based on how many NPCs you have to support. And then you simply need air as one of the crafting components.

Don't need to go full on "Is the room sealed, how much air pressure do we have, etc".

I had an idea for a generator-type block, but I cannot remember where that post went to. Anyway, my argument was since shields and forcefields are already an established technology in the Starmade metaverse, it would be a simple new block that created an atmosphere "bubble" around it. No need to do additional calculations other than relative location. Exception: Plants and other generator blocks already located inside the bubble (or if a generator was slaved to the primary atmosphere generator?) could expand the bubble size. By expanding the bubble size, you could have a huge arboretum filled with air, using just one generator and some nearby plants. (Bonus: Plants become more useful!)

Another idea I had was to pre-calculate sealed "rooms" in a ship during building, when there is less calculations being done with the ship, and then if there was any damage at all to any blocks in that "room" (I came up with this when there was an idea to define a "room" as a rectangular prism between two opposite corner selections) would cause the room to be no longer considered air-tight and therefore completely vented to the void.

I did not yet have a solution for rooms sealed off with rail-doors, but I imagine the rail entity could be linked to the "room", and if the rail door received any damage, the whole room would again be considered vented to the void. Similarly, opened plex, blast, or glass doors would also vent the room. (Unless the door linked this "room" to another airtight "room"?

However, when you start talking about multiple, linked, air-tight rooms, then you get a lot of calculations as many connected rooms with the doors left open are checked to make sure each and every one is on the list for air-tight rooms, especially when one is damaged, and all the rest have to be checked against open connection to that room for venting; it's not quite fluid-dynamic calculation-heavy, but it's still significant.

Game-y workaround: you could handwave the door opening by saying that all undamaged doors have a built-in air-tight forcefield that lets other (larger, faster, denser) matter through, in which case, undamaged doorways, even when wide open, are considered air-tight, and do not incur any extra calculations when opened or closed.

 

[Lecic]

This atmosphere talk should probably be in another thread.

 

[GRHayes]

The real logistical problem I can see is rail doors. It would be very difficult to tell if a rail door was properly sealing an entrance or not seeing as how it is a separate entity.

The rail doors isn't a problem. If you think about it a bit more you will realize why.
The solution to this type of issue has been posted to my tutorial site under the blog section.