Every single one of your favorite servers sucks: here's why

[Comr4de]

While I was banned I had the unique opportunity of helping host a server with my good pal and fellow racist BDLS. We learned a lot, most of it being that hosting a server with a modded config is a pain in the dick. We also learned why every single server (chorus: EVERY SINGLE SERVER) sucks and gets incredibly boring.

Now at this point you're probably thinking "You're just upset your server failed" and you'd be partially right. But instead of dwelling on that, I moved to find another server. After actually encountering a challenge in the game, every other server is just absurdly easy.

Minor disclaimer: most of this applies to PvP/PvE servers that advertise them as such. If you're running a creative server, this isn't directed at you.

1. If your max mining bonus is above 15 you need to not. Just don't. This is really the crux of my message here so please pay attention. The first major problem with this is that it removes any need to actually fight, expand, maintain territory, or do anything that would require interacting with other players and NPCs. It has transformed the multiplayer experience of starmade into an online creative mode. While some people may be fine with this it betrays the purpose of online play; to interact with other players through both combat, diplomacy, and trade.
   1. Let's use an example. Since I want to bully SS I'll go ahead and use them. Their mining bonus is 500% greater than default. At some point in time I think they advertised themselves as a "hardcore server", but since I can't provide any evidence of this I won't harp on it. MY POINT IS that you have accelerated the resource and infrastructure development of a player/faction by that much, if not more. While I was playing on SS with the helkan imperium, we never encountered problems with resource acquisition and we never expanded past two systems. Then, with TGT we DID greatly expand. At our height, we held 18 systems and mined out the vast majority of them. If I'm not mistaken we ate upwards of thirty planets. Here is a picture of some of our ships. At our height, our fleet was tapping 2m mass total, with enough resources in storage to crank out another two 216k mass ships whenever we felt like it. This meant that every time we sortied the server ground to a halt. I'm going to come back to performance issues later but that point is greatly related to this one.
   2. Conclusion: oversaturation of resources contributes to economic inflation. This isn't entirely the fault of the server; a lot of this is because of how Starmade generates resources in the universe. Having such an abundance does not help in the slightest.
2. Your admins probably shouldn't be admins. Not because they're bad, but because you don't need nearly that many. But, let's acknowledge the low hanging fruit here: admin abuse. I don't know how many stories I've heard about admins being accused of doing X Y and Z that gave them an unfair advantage over other players. To give SS some credit, they require their admins to use specially-marked accounts in order to discharge admin duties. Still, admins have been caught cheating. Admins have been caught having the most convenient "luck" in combat and warfare. I'm not definitively claiming people are cheating, but I do want to point out that admins participating in warfare come under an ever greater level of scrutiny.
   1. Personal anecdote: as an admin on LCB the moment Arstotzka went to war we were accused of cheating. We weren't, and despite a lack of evidence, these accusations continued until the server closed. If you're an admin, you shouldn't be participating in general faction politics/gameplay.
      
   2. Second anecdote: certain pals of mine in odium/ares coalition/vaygr alt faction#102399 have shown me documentation of admins on SS using their admin abilities to inspect their ships in creative mode, find their ships and secondary bases. As such, there was a 1 year period where they would not conduct operations on said server and warned other factions from getting established on there.
      
   3. I probably go on about hypercore too much but it really was the best SM experience I've ever had. Corey was very careful to not get involved in faction politics unless exploits were in use. Now if only he hadn't killed the server like a fucking bitch COREY I HATE YOU
   4. Since it's been demonstrated that I need a disclaimer for this part, I'll post one. Every server has some degree of this problem. It's rare for a server to have no trouble with admin abuse or oversaturation of admins. While ultimately this is an issue for the server own to ponder on their own, my 3+ years of experience in online play for this game have given me some unique insight here.
3. Stop advertising "great performance" with a 500%/1000%/600 gorrilion% mining bonus. After a week you won't have it.
   1. It's really easy to say your server has "great performance" with 20 people on it on the first week of hosting. After a month of mining, combat, and general serverside activity the database increases in size exponentially. I want to make a claim as to how big LCB's database got after a month of use but its smaller than 4gb.
      
   2. Obligatory self shill

And now you're probably thinking "jesus comro, don't you have finals or other important things to worry about?" And once again you're right. However, I've had most of this material typed up since easter. But since I was banned I really haven't had the chance to post this. Now why am I posting this?

Because I'm seeing so many servers starting up promising a new beginning to this bullshit and delivering the exact same. Nothing is going to change if you keep pandering to these people whose taste in the game and its servers are arguably ruining it. I don't understand why we have at least six servers in the US with borderline identical configuration options. What is the purpose? So you can have that shiny future server owner badge? Here's my point.

1. Don't have an absurd mining bonus.
   
2. Have admins choose between either playing with factions or playing as an admin.
   
3. Don't even advertise the stability of your server. If it's stable, people will advertise that themselves.

Feel free to share your thoughts

Props to Crusade for tricking me into posting this, you sneaky merchant.

 

[FlyingDebris]

NFD is good tho right

 

[Comr4de]

NFD is good tho right

Yeah, I added a disclaimer that this isn't directed at creative servers. Since you're explicitly there for people to mess around in creative mode and do builder stuff it really isn't an issue. My main gripe is that so many mainstream servers have transformed into a faux-creative server. The closest that any server came to not being this is EI only because it had a mechanism that enabled other players to kick your teeth in if you tried this homebase-squatting crap.

 

[Lecic]

The funniest thing about SS, post-reset, was that they tried to encourage people to fight over their "resource rich zones," except people only went there for the sole purpose of combat, because no one needed reasources enough to go to that death trap in a miner but people who didn't know any better.

 

[FlyingDebris]

Yeah, I added a disclaimer that this isn't directed at creative servers. Since you're explicitly there for people to mess around in creative mode and do builder stuff it really isn't an issue. My main gripe is that so many mainstream servers have transformed into a faux-creative server. The closest that any server came to not being this is EI only because it had a mechanism that enabled other players to kick your teeth in if you tried this homebase-squatting crap.

There's been some discussion about starting up an NFD survival server, what I was thinking is either

go absolutely ridiculously high with the multipliers and then confine it to twenty or so systems
or
basically recreate hypercore but with swastikas NFD logos all over.

 

[Comr4de]

There's been some discussion about starting up an NFD survival server, what I was thinking is either

go absolutely ridiculously high with the multipliers and then confine it to twenty or so systems
or
basically recreate hypercore but with swastikas NFD logos all over.

I would argue that a server with default mining bonuses is needed now more than ever. Even confining to 20 systems is going to get ridiculous very quickly.

 

[UndeadPotato]

localhost:4242 best server

 

[Jaaskinal]

I would argue that a server with default mining bonuses is needed now more than ever. Even confining to 20 systems is going to get ridiculous very quickly.

Default is too high.

 

[Comr4de]

Default is too high.

I'm inclined to agree but I think it's a good starting point for a casual skubserver. Unless your schtick is hardcore, I would recommend default.

 

[Az14el]

I like everything stated except im a loner and can never expand due to FP
maybe I'm part of the problem D:

 

[Lecic]

I think loners are part of the problem with poor performance on servers. Not loners like Az14el who are actually contributing to the multiplayer environment, of course. I mean the players who do absolutely nothing they couldn't be doing in SP. They just sit at their HB, mine and stockpile, never fighting anyone, never talking in chat, etc. Just draining the server's hardware, storage space, player slots, and habitable space within the galaxy.

 

[Zyrr]

I think loners are part of the problem with poor performance on servers. Not loners like Az14el who are actually contributing to the multiplayer environment, of course. I mean the players who do absolutely nothing they couldn't be doing in SP. They just sit at their HB, mine and stockpile, never fighting anyone, never talking in chat, etc. Just draining the server's hardware, storage space, player slots, and habitable space within the galaxy.

StarMade eugenics now

 

[Az14el]

We've had it all wrong, screw the community, purge! PUUUURGE!

 

[Blaza612]

There's been some discussion about starting up an NFD survival server, what I was thinking is either

go absolutely ridiculously high with the multipliers and then confine it to twenty or so systems
or
basically recreate hypercore but with swastikas NFD logos all over.

Pls do, but don't make the multiplier THAT ridiculous. If I finish any of my damn ships, this server may actually get me into SM for the umpteenth time.

 

[GalactusX]

I agre with some of your ideas; in my experience across multiple servers, if someone has played with me, I like more build and teach to new players than break my face with others ... It is only my personal choice.

I think that a server kept alive, should fulfill these basic rules:

1. Present a real challenge at any time for the player, if the game becomes too easy, the player loses interest and stop playing on the server.
2. Cover as much as possible the different facets of the game and deploy them to the server, whether a player who likes PVP or PVE or build.
3. Do not let time pass without anything happening, create events within the server that require the interaction between players, rewarding those who strive to be present and participating with other.
4. Starmade is a game that is based on multiplayer interaction of players, if a player prefers to be billions of light years away from the habited area of the server (foreveralone), better to play in singleplayer ...

To me, it saddens me as many good servers have had to close because they did not have enough influx of players ...

This is just my personal opinion, not be angry with me :p

 

[ZektorSK]

Admins are there to help people... Rumcajz is admin on server I am playing, and while he should have creative and other bullshit, he plays fair and without any cheats..

But seriously, how do you think admin will help someone, who needs help with rails or logic ? When the admin doesn't have any sort of "advance" ?

Admins are ment to be more "advanced" so slapping them into face and say: "No creative yo suck lololo" is bad idea.

 

[Az14el]

I like the whole "what can be done purely in single player should be done in single player" idea, but yeah i think provisions for PvE via events (and obviously some nice not too overpowered pirates to fight) are a good idea, as well as survival building should be encouraged, though i think the idea of protected build sectors/PvE only galaxies is better served in dedicated build/PvE servers, for performance & community reasons.

Only real hard block limits applied to what you can dock to your stations (notably, homebase), just for fun
Though there was one faction with several 4-5 million block ships spawned and just as many in blueprints on the mikelands server long before the mining bonus was buffed to over 15, and shops were non-restocking for its whole run iirc, so they will be built eventually.

 

[therimmer96]

I agree with every point here. But on the admins note, I forced the Infinite Havoc admins to be separate from the gameplay. Almost all of them became bored and rarely logged in,including myself. You can't force someone to volunteer for a position like this, and say they can't play the game while they're there. That's like asking SMD mods to not participate in the forums.

 

[Heillos]

Admins are there to help people... Rumcajz is admin on server I am playing, and while he should have creative and other bullshit, he plays fair and without any cheats..

But seriously, how do you think admin will help someone, who needs help with rails or logic ? When the admin doesn't have any sort of "advance" ?

Admins are meant to be more "advanced" so slapping them into face and say: "No creative yo suck lololo" is bad idea.

It seems that you misunderstand, I think.

As Comr4de said, SS got it about as "right" as it can be, with admins using separate accounts with the "ADM_" prefix for actually performing their administrative duties, and personal survival accounts while off-duty. Nonetheless, conflicts of interest have allegedly occurred (I do not know if any such cases were proven to be true), wherein an admin used their privileges to illegitimately advantage themselves or their faction.

The survival/admin account duality is about as good as it reasonably gets, though, in terms of securing the trust of your playerbase: As Rimmer states, volunteers who are forced to act only as administrators will grow bored.

Acting only as an administrator, and never being involved in the politics of that server, is probably a job for paid personnel (which won't be happening any time soon, for a Starmade server). As well as that, people will always assume that an admin has an alternate account; it is best to be open about this fact, and make the link clear.

The possibility of an admin helping a player to understand a mechanic (as you suggest) does exist, but this is also a task for a dedicated admin account; there is no reason for an admin to utilize their admin account when not performing legitimate administrative duties (disciplinary actions, bug-fixes, or advising a player, depending on server rules regarding administrative action) and there is no reason that their survival/personal account should gain any advantages due to their role as an admin.

 

[Phillzor]

And this is why they need official starmade servers...