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- Jun 4, 2017
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The purpose of this idea is to prevent players on servers from using homebases as a means of avoiding hostile interaction with other players while still allowing for new players to be able to have a means to protect themselves from having all their work being destroyed overnight while they are offline.
Constructive criticism is appreciated and encouraged, non-constructive arguments are not appreciated and will be reported to the moderators for spam/off-topic.
TL:DR
Attacking factions in order to destroy a factions homebase, would need to deplete the shields of a non-homebased station, wait 24 hours while preventing the defenders from fixing the station, destroy the stations, wait 24 hours while preventing the defenders from linking a new non-homebased station and then destroy the homebase. Stations like this could be numerous and thus completely destroying a faction would require the commitment of a lot of manpower, resources and time.
Forward
In the current faction homebase system, newer players are are able to avoid complete loss of all their assets on multiplayer, but any players are able to hide in their factions homebase upon being put in danger and can either go AFK or simply log off, this essentially kills a large portion of player interaction and is ultimately bad for the game, especially on servers where open pvp is encouraged.
The reason this can be done is because there is simply no reason to have infrastructure anywhere else, a homebase can literally do everything any faction needs to survive. This idea will allow for homebase invulnerability, but a faction will be required to have infrastructure outside of their homebase in order to function and maintain the invulnerability. I strongly believe that permanent turtling should not be a viable gameplay choice in multiplayer, but I do understand that newer factions need a method to prevent complete loss of all infastrucutre, forcing these players to start again.
The Idea
To make way for the system I am prosing, several changes would need to be made
As for homebase invulnerability itself, homebases once set would have its invulnerability enabled for 7 irl days, after this 7 days is up, it will become vulnerable again UNLESS the controling faction constructs another, non-homebased station in the same system system (which needs to be owned by the faction that owns the homebase)
This station would use a new system module (computer and module) that could only be placed on non homebased stations. How it works is it would generate energy that would “power” the invulnerable “shield” on a homebase.
This could (I will say could for this kind of stuff since the developers can name it whatever they want) be called a “Solar energy harvester” and this module would be placed on a station and will generate a form of “energy”, this station could be placed anywhere in the same system as the station that needs to be homebased.
The Solar Energy Harvester would generate a different form of energy that could be called “solar isotopes” and the station would then need to be linked via a GUI the the station you wish to be homebased, the station would have a requirement per second (si/s) that would need to be generated by its linked Solar Energy Harvester Station(s) in order to be invulnerable. This requirement would be based on the size of the station and its docked entities and how “expensive” it is (a station made of hull would be need less solar isotopes than a station made of advanced armor) This could be done with more than one station per faction, and multiple invulnerable stations with their own Solar Energy Harvesting station(s) in any system owned by the faction.
If the si/s required was increased due to additional blocks being added to the station or a ship/turret being docked to the homebase, docked entities on the homebase would become vulnerable and would no longer count to the si/s requirement, if all docked entities were not enough, then docked turrets would be next, if that was still enough, the homebase would enter the homebase sieged stage. (Homebase Sieged and other stages are described below, keep reading)
The establishment of a link would be instantaneous, unless the station is under siege (described below), Once this link is established and the minimum si/s requirement is fulfilled, the homebase will be invulnerable.
Now, in order for another faction to destroy this homebase, they would need to get the homebase through a series of "stages" as described in the linked picture below.
If a hostile faction wished to destroy one factions homebase(s) they would need to commit a large amount of time and assets with the next portion of this idea.
In order to destroy a homebase station, a hostile faction would be required to destroy the Solar Energy Harvester station that is powering the homebase, they way they would do this would be to look at the Starmap of the system an enemy faction inhabits, turn on a filter which would show lines between the Solar Energy Harvester stations and the target homebase (similar to how the lines in between jump gates are shown)
They would then need to go the coordinates of a Harvester station and deplete its shields, once the shields are depleted, the shields will not regenerate and the station would no longer generate power (but would still generate solar isotopes) but no further damage could be done for 24 irl hours (again, this could be changed via the server.cfg or Schine may even have the default higher or lower) This would be shown via a timer on the entity similar to an overheating timer. If a defending faction wanted to prevent further damage, they would need to use a power supply beam on the station to fill up its capacity by 10% and then use a shield supply beam to recharge the shield capacity by 20%. This would be repeated until the shield capacity is full, then the shields will recharge and the timer would stop. The attacking faction would need to try again.
This stage would be called Harvester Sieged
Shield ignoring weapons such as warheads and astronaut cutting torches would do no damage at this point as they could be used to bypass the Harvester Sieged stage
If the owner of the sieged harvester did not “fix” the Harvester station within 24 hours (or whatever time is set by the server.cfg) then the attacking faction would then be able to finish off the station and overheat it just like any other station, the defenders could still fix the stage using the described method above if the attackers did not come immediately to finish it off.
This stage would be called Harvester Vulnerable
Once this occurs the homebase will be invulnerable for another 24 hours (again, depending on server.cfg) before it loses its vulnerability, the only way to stop this timer from reaching zero would be for the defending faction to link another Harvester station and furfill the si/s requirements of the station, linking during this phase would not be instantanious and would take 2 irl hours (can be changed in server config)
This phase would be called Homebase Sieged
If the timer ran out, the station would lose vulnerability and could be attacked and destroyed (if the attackers do not come immediately, a Harvester station could still be linked, taking the same 2 hours to prevent destruction and restore invulnerability)
Closing
Overall, I think this would address a lot of the concerns PvP players have about turtling and concerns PvE players have about being able to lose everything overnight.
Factions intending to destroy a homebase would be required to commit a significant amount of time and manpower to do so, the defenders would have the advantage so destroying a homebase would be hard, but possible. Even if a homebase is destroyed, a faction can still have others with the same mechanic so even then, a faction cannot lose everything in a single strike with this system.
In a sense, a faction could lose some of its assets in a short timeframe, but completely destroying a faction would be a very difficult long term commitment.
I do see a potential argument against this, and that would be that a faction could attack all the Harvester stations at once while a defender is taking a 3-4 day break from the game, my counter argument to this would be that the only factions that would have this problem would be 1 man factions, and this would encourage these 1 man factions to group together, the multiple homebases feature of this suggestion would allow members to keep to their own while defending each other and ultimately themselves.
Now before everyone looses their shit, this system, like many things in StarMade would allow server admins to opt their servers out of it in their server.cfg file if they choose to
Improvements? Ideas? Constructive criticisms? Smartass remarks?
Constructive criticism is appreciated and encouraged, non-constructive arguments are not appreciated and will be reported to the moderators for spam/off-topic.
TL:DR
Attacking factions in order to destroy a factions homebase, would need to deplete the shields of a non-homebased station, wait 24 hours while preventing the defenders from fixing the station, destroy the stations, wait 24 hours while preventing the defenders from linking a new non-homebased station and then destroy the homebase. Stations like this could be numerous and thus completely destroying a faction would require the commitment of a lot of manpower, resources and time.
Forward
In the current faction homebase system, newer players are are able to avoid complete loss of all their assets on multiplayer, but any players are able to hide in their factions homebase upon being put in danger and can either go AFK or simply log off, this essentially kills a large portion of player interaction and is ultimately bad for the game, especially on servers where open pvp is encouraged.
The reason this can be done is because there is simply no reason to have infrastructure anywhere else, a homebase can literally do everything any faction needs to survive. This idea will allow for homebase invulnerability, but a faction will be required to have infrastructure outside of their homebase in order to function and maintain the invulnerability. I strongly believe that permanent turtling should not be a viable gameplay choice in multiplayer, but I do understand that newer factions need a method to prevent complete loss of all infastrucutre, forcing these players to start again.
The Idea
To make way for the system I am prosing, several changes would need to be made
- Homebases would no longer be restricted to one per faction, any amount of home bases can be controlled by a faction, a limit could be set in the server config files.
- Secondly, faction points would no longer affect if a homebase would be invulnerable or not (they would be kept in the game simply as a placeholder for if the devs decide to implement ways to spend your faction points)
- Thirdly, the faction menu would no longer show where a homebase(s) are located, and would now show the system coordinates of systems controlled by the faction.
As for homebase invulnerability itself, homebases once set would have its invulnerability enabled for 7 irl days, after this 7 days is up, it will become vulnerable again UNLESS the controling faction constructs another, non-homebased station in the same system system (which needs to be owned by the faction that owns the homebase)
This station would use a new system module (computer and module) that could only be placed on non homebased stations. How it works is it would generate energy that would “power” the invulnerable “shield” on a homebase.
This could (I will say could for this kind of stuff since the developers can name it whatever they want) be called a “Solar energy harvester” and this module would be placed on a station and will generate a form of “energy”, this station could be placed anywhere in the same system as the station that needs to be homebased.
The Solar Energy Harvester would generate a different form of energy that could be called “solar isotopes” and the station would then need to be linked via a GUI the the station you wish to be homebased, the station would have a requirement per second (si/s) that would need to be generated by its linked Solar Energy Harvester Station(s) in order to be invulnerable. This requirement would be based on the size of the station and its docked entities and how “expensive” it is (a station made of hull would be need less solar isotopes than a station made of advanced armor) This could be done with more than one station per faction, and multiple invulnerable stations with their own Solar Energy Harvesting station(s) in any system owned by the faction.
If the si/s required was increased due to additional blocks being added to the station or a ship/turret being docked to the homebase, docked entities on the homebase would become vulnerable and would no longer count to the si/s requirement, if all docked entities were not enough, then docked turrets would be next, if that was still enough, the homebase would enter the homebase sieged stage. (Homebase Sieged and other stages are described below, keep reading)
The establishment of a link would be instantaneous, unless the station is under siege (described below), Once this link is established and the minimum si/s requirement is fulfilled, the homebase will be invulnerable.
Now, in order for another faction to destroy this homebase, they would need to get the homebase through a series of "stages" as described in the linked picture below.
If a hostile faction wished to destroy one factions homebase(s) they would need to commit a large amount of time and assets with the next portion of this idea.
In order to destroy a homebase station, a hostile faction would be required to destroy the Solar Energy Harvester station that is powering the homebase, they way they would do this would be to look at the Starmap of the system an enemy faction inhabits, turn on a filter which would show lines between the Solar Energy Harvester stations and the target homebase (similar to how the lines in between jump gates are shown)
They would then need to go the coordinates of a Harvester station and deplete its shields, once the shields are depleted, the shields will not regenerate and the station would no longer generate power (but would still generate solar isotopes) but no further damage could be done for 24 irl hours (again, this could be changed via the server.cfg or Schine may even have the default higher or lower) This would be shown via a timer on the entity similar to an overheating timer. If a defending faction wanted to prevent further damage, they would need to use a power supply beam on the station to fill up its capacity by 10% and then use a shield supply beam to recharge the shield capacity by 20%. This would be repeated until the shield capacity is full, then the shields will recharge and the timer would stop. The attacking faction would need to try again.
This stage would be called Harvester Sieged
Shield ignoring weapons such as warheads and astronaut cutting torches would do no damage at this point as they could be used to bypass the Harvester Sieged stage
If the owner of the sieged harvester did not “fix” the Harvester station within 24 hours (or whatever time is set by the server.cfg) then the attacking faction would then be able to finish off the station and overheat it just like any other station, the defenders could still fix the stage using the described method above if the attackers did not come immediately to finish it off.
This stage would be called Harvester Vulnerable
Once this occurs the homebase will be invulnerable for another 24 hours (again, depending on server.cfg) before it loses its vulnerability, the only way to stop this timer from reaching zero would be for the defending faction to link another Harvester station and furfill the si/s requirements of the station, linking during this phase would not be instantanious and would take 2 irl hours (can be changed in server config)
This phase would be called Homebase Sieged
If the timer ran out, the station would lose vulnerability and could be attacked and destroyed (if the attackers do not come immediately, a Harvester station could still be linked, taking the same 2 hours to prevent destruction and restore invulnerability)
Closing
Overall, I think this would address a lot of the concerns PvP players have about turtling and concerns PvE players have about being able to lose everything overnight.
Factions intending to destroy a homebase would be required to commit a significant amount of time and manpower to do so, the defenders would have the advantage so destroying a homebase would be hard, but possible. Even if a homebase is destroyed, a faction can still have others with the same mechanic so even then, a faction cannot lose everything in a single strike with this system.
In a sense, a faction could lose some of its assets in a short timeframe, but completely destroying a faction would be a very difficult long term commitment.
I do see a potential argument against this, and that would be that a faction could attack all the Harvester stations at once while a defender is taking a 3-4 day break from the game, my counter argument to this would be that the only factions that would have this problem would be 1 man factions, and this would encourage these 1 man factions to group together, the multiple homebases feature of this suggestion would allow members to keep to their own while defending each other and ultimately themselves.
Now before everyone looses their shit, this system, like many things in StarMade would allow server admins to opt their servers out of it in their server.cfg file if they choose to
Improvements? Ideas? Constructive criticisms? Smartass remarks?
