Do not make this game die

[Dr. Whammy]

Challenge accepted... I find it highly ironic that my ship is called "ASC Challenger"... This 100 meter long ship can carry 48 torpedoes when armed with my 16x burst launchers or 75 torpedoes when armed with my 25x semi-auto Launchers. You'll run out of red shirts before I run out of ammo.

 

[Lecic]

ok blame the players not the game if the meta is unbalanced and lead people to do stupid stuff?
any game with broken meta will be used badly by many people, not a user idioty problem

The meta ISN'T unbalanced. The game favors people who spend less per ship, use fleets of ships, and design well. The problem is that people are morons who, instead of building disposable fleets, put all their eggs in one basket and then never fight.

 

[Madman198237]

Until HB protection is changed, or unless you change on a server that messes with HB protection, there will be cowards that camp.

And after HBs are changed, there will be cowards who hide in nebulae, wormholes, planets, heavily defended space stations, the depths of the third galaxy away from spawn, in stars, next to stars, dangerously near stars, seriously, the list of possible places to hide in a galaxy is astronomical (See what I did there?), and the big-ship-using cowards will find all those places.

It's player choices that make this happen, the game can only try to improve players' choices through things like consumables or FP/HB rebalancing, etc.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

What you're suggesting is that we change the game to make it easy to wipe people off the map. That will definitely kill this game.

Regarding what you call cowardice; the things you mention above are all unavoidable if you don't want the get your base wrecked and plundered when you log off.

You need a safe place to park your stuff when you log off otherwise, you'll see people rage quitting after being ripped off or flying off 5 galaxies away just to keep their stuff from being stolen/destroyed while they sleep. That's not good for PVP or any kind of in-game social interaction. Let's not forget about random NPC pirate invasions. On the server I play on, I occasionally get attacked by 4 or more missile spamming NPC pirates with 1 million shields along with several smaller craft. How long do you think a starting player would last against attacks like that with no home base protection?

 

[Nickizzy]

What you're suggesting is that we change the game to make it easy to wipe people off the map. That will definitely kill this game.

Regarding what you call cowardice; the things you mention above are all unavoidable if you don't want the get your base wrecked and plundered when you log off.

You need a safe place to park your stuff when you log off otherwise, you'll see people rage quitting after being ripped off or flying off 5 galaxies away just to keep their stuff from being stolen/destroyed while they sleep. That's not good for PVP or any kind of in-game social interaction. Let's not forget about random NPC pirate invasions. On the server I play on, I occasionally get attacked by 4 or more missile spamming NPC pirates with 1 million shields along with several smaller craft. How long do you think a starting player would last against attacks like that with no home base protection?

Limiting how far out you can go, for one, having a 10000000000000000000000000000000000 galaxy starmade universe with a MAXIMUM of 50-60 players, with only 5-6 on at once, you cannot find anyone one.

OP pirates are a problem too. Until you have a super magical poopin troopin titain to deal with them, you have about 10 seconds to jump out before they fire lockon missles and you're done for. It would be nice if you could set certain levels of pirates that would only agro at certain sizes of ships, so starter ships wouldn't be crushed when they leave spawn.

For a while on Shattered skies a bunch of borg pirates decided to hang out in the spawn sector. The sector where players couldn't damage blocks. I was just starting out then. Lets say my starter ship died in one hit, and I lost a lot of my money trying to escape them, then trying to attack them(I was a bit desprate guys!) manually with a torch gun, but I couldn't harm them because of the spwn protection.

If you could make the massive borg ignore you until you attacked them, and only a smaller, weaker pirates went after you if you were in a less mass ship(or some variable like shields, set in configs. You could put pirates into different levels, and the higher levels would only attack a certain size of ship.
[Edit]
Better AI defenses would be good for hidders as well. They will still hide from really big guys, but they don't need to hide from a greifer with a torch.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Limiting how far out you can go, for one, having a 10000000000000000000000000000000000 galaxy starmade universe with a MAXIMUM of 50-60 players, with only 5-6 on at once, you cannot find anyone one.

OP pirates are a problem too. Until you have a super magical poopin troopin titain to deal with them, you have about 10 seconds to jump out before they fire lockon missles and you're done for. It would be nice if you could set certain levels of pirates that would only agro at certain sizes of ships, so starter ships wouldn't be crushed when they leave spawn.

For a while on Shattered skies a bunch of borg pirates decided to hang out in the spawn sector. The sector where players couldn't damage blocks. I was just starting out then. Lets say my starter ship died in one hit, and I lost a lot of my money trying to escape them, then trying to attack them(I was a bit desprate guys!) manually with a torch gun, but I couldn't harm them because of the spwn protection.

If you could make the massive borg ignore you until you attacked them, and only a smaller, weaker pirates went after you if you were in a less mass ship(or some variable like shields, set in configs. You could put pirates into different levels, and the higher levels would only attack a certain size of ship.
[Edit]
Better AI defenses would be good for hidders as well. They will still hide from really big guys, but they don't need to hide from a greifer with a torch.

My starter method...

1) Buy everything on my "shopping list"
- a bunch of power reactors
- a cloaker, and a jammer
- a jump drive computer and a jump module
- some thrusters
- a capsule refinery and a basic factory
- as many salvagers as I can buy with my leftover cash.
- a spare core
- a faction block

2) Build a one-man stealth missile.

3) Set a course for a planet on an unoccupied system; preferably away from any stations. Cloak and warp out of the spawn area.

4) Set up shop on the planet. Place a faction block, set it to faction home then claim the system. Establish basic industry and mass produce salvagers to go mining.

5) Process asteroid rock into carved variants and sell them for 30x their original value. Mass produce factory enhancers to boost industry.

6) expand the colony and install base defenses.

Here's what I do in a week or less...

Spoiler

Then I build up a military and prepare to travel the galaxy; interacting with the other players.

 

[MacThule]

What you're suggesting is that we change the game to make it easy to wipe people off the map. That will definitely kill this game.

This is not true. Several routes of partially removing HB protection have been suggested that would allow one to damage an enemy's capacity to mass-produce large ships but would still prevent anyone from being forced to respawn at 2 2 2 with nothing. Suggesting changes to HB protection is not equivalent to suggesting allowing players be able to be perma-killed.

As long as as players can make ALL of their ships, factories, storage, shipyards and EVERYTHING they need 100% invulnerable, there is no reason to PvP. And AI is retarded. So unless the dev team magically discover how to advance the game's AI to some real next-level shit, or the game changes so that PvPing other players actually does something, it will remain a frozen, static graveyard of people building digital lego spaceships in a chatroom.

It's fine if peaceful players want to be invulnerable and hide out and just chat. But if you want to field armadas and titans, if you want to dominate trade in the galaxy, or anything beyond have a safe port to dock a few small ships and respawn at with basic storage, all that additional capacity has to be vulnerable. Because there's no purpose to any weapon system in the game even existing if 100% of its targets are 100% invulnerable 90% of the time, and take hours upon hours of hunting to locate the 10% of the time they're out mining. Even a successful kill on them in that brief period of vulnerability only pops their miner - they then respawn at base and BP in a new miner for 1/10th of 1% of their stockpiled resources.

You could even remove invulnerability completely if there were an integrated banking system because then players who get killed could simply use banked funds to respawn BPs of their bases and ships if they had saved prudently.

No risk = no excitement = eventual boredom once you've designed 500 ships that do nothing except look cool.

Currently it's all just decoration on a chat room.

Name a few successful video games centered entirely around giant war machines and the details of their weapons and defenses where players can be 100% invulnerable 90% of the time and nearly impossible to engage in the other 10%.

 

[Nickizzy]

My starter method...

1) Buy everything on my "shopping list"
- a bunch of power reactors
- a cloaker, and a jammer
- a jump drive computer and a jump module
- some thrusters
- a capsule refinery and a basic factory
- as many salvagers as I can buy with my leftover cash.
- a spare core
- a faction block

2) Build a one-man stealth missile.

3) Set a course for a planet on an unoccupied system; preferably away from any stations. Cloak and warp out of the spawn area.

4) Set up shop on the planet. Place a faction block, set it to faction home then claim the system. Establish basic industry and mass produce salvagers to go mining.

5) Process asteroid rock into carved variants and sell them for 30x their original value. Mass produce factory enhancers to boost industry.

6) expand the colony and install base defenses.

Here's what I do in a week or less...

Spoiler

View attachment 24346

Then I build up a military and prepare to travel the galaxy; interacting with the other players.

Great Idea, the only thing I would do differently is make a station as soon as possible, way less lag, and sell asteroid rock capsules, then the carved varients instead of just carvings. It's less cost efficent, and capsules take up less space than carvings.

Nice Idea with the cloaker, do you think it would be possible to make an autojumper? The problem with most servers is that all the systems near spwn are all taken, so you have to jump(depending on sector size) 100-200 km. out. Someone should set up a group of jump gates in like shattered skies so people can get out of spawn to start out.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

This is not true. Several routes of partially removing HB protection have been suggested that would allow one to damage an enemy's capacity to mass-produce large ships but would still prevent anyone from being forced to respawn at 2 2 2 with nothing. Suggesting changes to HB protection is not equivalent to suggesting allowing players be able to be perma-killed.

As long as as players can make ALL of their ships, factories, storage, shipyards and EVERYTHING they need 100% invulnerable, there is no reason to PvP. And AI is retarded. So unless the dev team magically discover how to advance the game's AI to some real next-level shit, or the game changes so that PvPing other players actually does something, it will remain a frozen, static graveyard of people building digital lego spaceships in a chatroom.

It's fine if peaceful players want to be invulnerable and hide out and just chat. But if you want to field armadas and titans, if you want to dominate trade in the galaxy, or anything beyond have a safe port to dock a few small ships and respawn at with basic storage, all that additional capacity has to be vulnerable. Because there's no purpose to any weapon system in the game even existing if 100% of its targets are 100% invulnerable 90% of the time, and take hours upon hours of hunting to locate the 10% of the time they're out mining. Even a successful kill on them in that brief period of vulnerability only pops their miner - they then respawn at base and BP in a new miner for 1/10th of 1% of their stockpiled resources.

You could even remove invulnerability completely if there were an integrated banking system because then players who get killed could simply use banked funds to respawn BPs of their bases and ships if they had saved prudently.

No risk = no excitement = eventual boredom once you've designed 500 ships that do nothing except look cool.

Currently it's all just decoration on a chat room.

The problem with removing home base protection is that if your forces were to come under attack while your away, you will lose everything and come back to a bunch of wreckage and smoldering cores. This is a game; not a full time job; players shouldn't have to worry about what happens in the game while they're away. Banking and respawns won't fix the flaws in this idea either. You'd be making people grind endlessly to rebuild what was lost.

Meanwhile, the same capital ship addicts that make PVP a rare occurance will roam the galaxy bullying/wasting all the little guys. How long would you play this game if every time you logged on, you got nuked by a titan or couldn't build up any infrastructure because your base kept being attacked by pirates? Unless you're some kind of masochist, you'd probably get sick of it and either fly off, 5 galaxies away to hide, ask for protection from the biggest faction you could find or just quit the game.

Name a few successful video games centered entirely around giant war machines and the details of their weapons and defenses where players can be 100% invulnerable 90% of the time and nearly impossible to engage in the other 10%.

I'll answer that challenge with another challenge... Name a few successful video games that allow people's giant war machines to be stolen/destroyed while they are offline sleeping.

Here's a sci-fi alternative; I like to think of home base protection as sort of a defense shield; like the Death Star's shield on the forest moon of Endor.



Using this line of thinking, you could make it so a faction block provides invulnerability to a certain mass limit. Beyond that limit, the base can no longer "extend its shields" around your docked entities and they'd become vulnerable. To increase the amount of mass you can dock to a home base, you have to provide an amount of power regeneration that scales with the amount of docked mass. I'm thinking 100 power regen required for every 1 unit of docked mass; essentially one 10,000 mass ship docked to a base with 1,000,000 power regen/sec. When you exceed the natural ingame power regen soft cap, invulnerability wears off for all entities docked to your base.

This would encourage people to utilize fleets to defend their bases rather than dock 10 million mass worth of capital to a station.

 

[ZektorSK]

Hey guys, I think that you have just OFFTHREADED this thread

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Hey guys, I think that you have just OFFTHREADED this thread

Indeed.

In any case, I think I put the meat and potatoes of what needs to be addressed on page 4, post #67. HB protection is really just an after thought.

Returning to base...

 

[MacThule]

I'll answer that challenge with another challenge... Name a few successful video games that allow people's giant war machines to be stolen/destroyed while they are offline sleeping.

Awfully convenient to retort then immediately say "back on topic" when I was responding to your post in the first place and didn't take this thread there.

To answer your attempted dodge of my question about whether 100% invulnerable player empires are even a good idea - Eve. If you don't log in for long enough your station is toast. What typically prevents that happening is that factions which can afford a PoS in the first place need to be large enough in numbers that it's unlikely that during that period none of them would log on to do something about it. Players in SM are able to mass faction enough to achieve the same effect... they simply have no motivation to because why bother when your station can be invulnerable with just 1 player?

Further afield, games like Lord of Ultima, Travian, etc. Other smaller, less successful MP survival games (like Don't Starve) also allow a player's things to be destroyed while he or she is offline. I'm surprised you've never played such a game. A player's assets being vulnerable (regardless of the single player's connection status) is far from something that makes games unplayable. in fact, it's absolutely vital to a war game.

Now, Doc... your example(s), please.

Because I seriously think the dream of a virtual world populated with giant war machines and fortresses with over 100 different primary weapon configurations where no one ever has to fight if they choose not to somehow being "fun" is a poorly conceived fantasy, and I think it's this failure to foster fighting that is a major factor strangling SM (also - alliteration!).

No one wants to play a war game with no wars. Far from being off-topic is of key relevance to the OP's concern regarding keeping SM alive and playable.

Don't mistake a problem for its cause. Those capital ship reavers are the problem they are only because 100% of what a player uses to build/dock them is invulnerable in the first place. Make such behavior able to be retaliated against and only idiots and adrenaline junkies will behave like that and will pay the price. Smart players will team up in large groups and player respectfully, making allies to ensure their future survival. Every time someone is spotted in a giant capital or projecting a huge fleet they will be advertising for players to come raid their vulnerable infrastructure while they're out. If they are lone rangers they're going to lose their shit because no one is home guarding things while they're out maurading.

Hey guys, I think that you have just OFFTHREADED this thread

What's with the allcaps, bro?

Also, please explain how the issue of whether or not invulnerability of all players prevents PvP action that is vital to making the game exciting is somehow "off topic" of an OP that explicitly states:

The game really need a action mode, pvp battle thing

EDIT: Grammar

 

[ZektorSK]

What's with the allcaps, bro?

Also, please explain how the issue of whether or not invulnerability of all players prevents PvP action that is vital to making the game exciting is somehow "off topic" of an OP that explicitly states:

As I said, it is only a player's opinion how he will play.I am not a fan of PVP action whee lazers shoot everywhere, I am more of a builder and miner.

NVM I am terrible builder

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Awfully convenient to retort then immediately say "back on topic" when I was responding to your post in the first place and didn't take this thread there.

To answer your attempted dodge of my question about whether 100% invulnerable player empires are even a good idea - Eve. If you don't log in for long enough your station is toast. What typically prevents that happening is that factions which can afford a PoS in the first place need to be large enough in numbers that it's unlikely that during that period none of them would log on to do something about it. Players in SM are able to mass faction enough to achieve the same effect... they simply have no motivation to because why bother when your station can be invulnerable with just 1 player?

Further afield, games like Lord of Ultima, Travian, etc. Other smaller, less successful MP survival games (like Don't Starve) also allow a player's things to be destroyed while he or she is offline. I'm surprised you've never played such a game. A player's assets being vulnerable (regardless of the single player's connection status) is far from something that makes games unplayable. in fact, it's absolutely vital to a war game.

Eve? That's your big example? I've actually played that game. It was fun at first but I eventually let that unimaginative rape fest of a game go after they failed to address they same issues (repeatedly getting whacked back to square one) that I mentioned earlier. I get advertisements from them asking me to come back. And Guess what; My ships and belongings are STILL there. No one came in my hanger and blew up/stole my Rokh and Cormorants. Your example is invalid. As for your other examples, I don't play fantasy. I play sci-fi. Also; this isn't a war game. It's a creative sandbox game with war-like elements in it. Try to remember that.

Now, Doc... your example(s), please.

Because I seriously think the dream of a virtual world populated with giant war machines and fortresses with over 100 different primary weapon configurations where no one ever has to fight if they choose not to somehow being "fun" is a poorly conceived fantasy, and I think it's this failure to be foster fighting that is a major factor strangling SM (also - alliteration!).

No one wants to play a war game with no wars. Far from being off-topic is of key relevance to the OP's concern regarding keeping SM alive and playable.

Don't mistake a problem for its cause. Those capital ship reavers are the problem they are only because 100% of what a player uses to build/dock them is invulnerable in the first place. Make such behavior able to be retaliated against and only idiots and adrenaline junkies will behave like that and will pay the price. Smart players will team up in large groups and player respectfully, making allies to ensure their future survival. Every time someone is spotted in a giant capital or projecting a huge fleet they will be advertising for players to come raid their vulnerable infrastructure while they're out. If they are lone rangers they're going to lose their shit because no one is home guarding things while they're out maurading.

You still fail to understand that some people really don't give a crap about PVP and aren't interested in playing a game where they can get repeatedly screwed due to having absolutely NO protection for their stuff while offline. I don't know how old you are but some of us have jobs and responsibilities outside of playing a game. There is no reason why we should have to worry about what people are doing to our stuff in a game while we're at work, asleep, etc. Simply put; this is a bad idea; one that will chase players away from multi-player and eventually StarMade as a whole (I guess we are on topic). Besides; I already gave you a way to fix the imbalance of PVP; warheads. Trust me, if I could use actual tactics to counter the sheer size/brute force of a titan, I'd be all up in some PVP. Hell, I might even start few wars myself and I wouldn't be bringing ANY capitals with me.

 

[chetyre]

Eve? That's your big example? I've actually played that game. It was fun at first but I eventually let that unimaginative rape fest of a game go after they failed to address they same issues (repeatedly getting whacked back to square one) that I mentioned earlier. I get advertisements from them asking me to come back. And Guess what; My ships and belongings are STILL there. No one came in my hanger and blew up/stole my Rokh and Cormorants. Your example is invalid. As for your other examples, I don't play fantasy. I play sci-fi. Also; this isn't a war game. It's a creative sandbox game with war-like elements in it. Try to remember that.


You still fail to understand that some people really don't give a crap about PVP and aren't interested in playing a game where they can get repeatedly screwed due to having absolutely NO protection for their stuff while offline. I don't know how old you are but some of us have jobs and responsibilities outside of playing a game. There is no reason why we should have to worry about what people are doing to our stuff in a game while we're at work, asleep, etc. Simply put; this is a bad idea; one that will chase players away from multi-player and eventually StarMade as a whole (I guess we are on topic). Besides; I already gave you a way to fix the imbalance of PVP; warheads. Trust me, if I could use actual tactics to counter the sheer size/brute force of a titan, I'd be all up in some PVP. Hell, I might even start few wars myself and I wouldn't be bringing ANY capitals with me.

You are like: "I don't like pvp, just like many people, we don't care about pvp, now leave starmade and let us build"
Many people enjoy building and pvping, making the meta more pvp-focused will not remove your build mode, I hope you can understand that
Many people also enjoy pvp, but the current meta is only about building (the problem is "only", by this I mean, to start playing you must build and farm for hours, and don't tell me factory is "fun")
Starmade is not a war game, but it could be
just like it could be an exploration game, a rp game, a survival game, a race game (with new race gates :p) or a strategy game (in some way with fleet and alliances)

People like differents things, focusing on one thing on a game like this one is certainly a bad thing

 

[kiraen]

So you are saying if they add race gates and fleet mechanics it would be a more rounded, and therefore more successful, game?
I'm guessing unique flora/fauna on different planets would make for some good exploration, not to mention rare stellar phenomenon.
An improved NPC system might make RP more fulfilling, they should add that to.
Who knows what sort of game this might become if they added more factions to trade, ally, and/or fight with.

Wait, I forgot, which side of the argument are you on?

 

[Madman198237]

It's a war game, but not a war game? What?

I think that this thread has really just gone off. We've answered, repeatedly, all the issues raised in the OP. We've even truly summarized the biggest "problem" with the game, in a single sentence:
It's in Alpha.
Therefore, the game is not what it will be, and can LITERALLY become anything.
So we should stop complaining about problems, and instead propose future solutions.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

You are like: "I don't like pvp, just like many people, we don't care about pvp, now leave starmade and let us build"
Many people enjoy building and pvping, making the meta more pvp-focused will not remove your build mode, I hope you can understand that
Many people also enjoy pvp, but the current meta is only about building (the problem is "only", by this I mean, to start playing you must build and farm for hours, and don't tell me factory is "fun")
Starmade is not a war game, but it could be
just like it could be an exploration game, a rp game, a survival game, a race game (with new race gates :p) or a strategy game (in some way with fleet and alliances)

People like differents things, focusing on one thing on a game like this one is certainly a bad thing

I'm gonna have to side with Madman198237 on this one. It's far too soon to be worrying about what is when the Devs are working on what will be. I have so many creations built specifically for what the Devs are planning that it makes my head hurt. I designed ahead of rails and cargo, just as I've designed ahead of fauna, warheads and the planned capital ship update. The meta isn't broken; it was simply never a finished product to begin with.

With that being said, I hope you don't think I'm some Eve Online "care bear" looking to oust all capital pilots and PVPers to "ensure the safety of the universe"; that's really not the case. I think PVP is exhilarating when done right but it can be downright agonizing when you are ALWAYS at the bottom of the food chain. All I want is an equalizer so that If I choose to be a builder, explorer, miner, trader, or anything but a fighter, I don't get crushed by the aforementioned "bigger fish" or these missile spamming NPC pirates with the 1 million shields that keep showing up.

 

[AtraUnam]

If I knew all my stuff could be destroyed with zero effort while I was asleep I simply wouldn't play pvp anymore. Largely because thats not even pvp; thats player vs innanimate, non retaliating, object that happens to be owned by another player.

 

[Lukwan]

A little perspective. Up until very recently (the last couple of updates) the faction permission module either did not exist or was it was so new that the kinks were still being worked out. That means if you let a new player into your faction they might be able (and inclined) to grief your base, steal your ships and take your stuff. Without total invulnerability for the HB most builders would refuse to engage with the MP community. This in turn would have stifled innovation and idea-sharing among the player base. The feedback loop to Devs would be closed off and in general lead to divisions withing the community.

...and THAT is why we have needed HB protection up until now. Going forward we should discuss if this can be replaced with a better system, but to debate why we have been using it up until now is to be ignorant of history and context.