Feasibility of Ships built from Modular Parts: What is the Consensus on This?

[hunterRAE]

So after a year and a half of not being able to play this game for the reasons of college and life, I decided to get back to building ships. Back when I started, I was to say the least lacking artistic skills. I did develop a somewhat decent style after that, but given I have not freshened my skills up since then, my ships look a bit archaic/pathetic. I decided to make a series of templates to make some uniform and lively designs (at least by my standard/skills). So, your probably asking now why do you care or what is your point? I thought after some consideration and time that a more suitable way of keeping a modular look is to using static docking rails. Before you point out the obvious that people do use static docking to make such structures, I understand it is not such an uncommon practice, I am curious if the following building scheme would be possible for the engine/my computer can handle that many entities and if it is logical/practical to use.

The Modular Design I am Trying:

• Each Ship/Station/Structure must have a skeleton that has rails and a rail speed controller to slow the speed to 0 for each connection
• The skeleton can have thrusters and other blocks necessary to make the build work
• Parts must be connected to frame
• Each part is something like a room or piece of a room that fits within a bounding box of 32x32x32
• Each part must have at least one docker attached on a face to either connect to the frame or another piece
• Parts can have multiple connecting pieces to make a working structure
• Turrets are considered parts
• Station exclusive pieces such as shipyards will be bound to the skeleton

I understand perfectly that there is always an upper bound to the entities on screen and/or connected to ship/station/entity given the lag, frame rate and server stability, but if the following is taken into consideration, what would you say is bounding amount and the feasibility of such a build for combat and/or RP? I will make my case in the next paragraph, but please keep this in mind while you read, maybe I will agree with some of your conclusions or spot something you did not on your first interpretation.

PROS:

• Can mass produce pieces to be fitted
• Can worry more about the shell/skeleton structure for any purposes (RP or combat)
• Can make it easier to repair larger structures with the help of smaller and more numerous shipyards
• On Par with complexity of design
• Makes ship battles more dynamic

CONS:

• Takes much longer to create individual pieces
• Takes more blocks to perform the same task
• Power, Shielding and Thrust becomes much more complex (could be fine for some smaller builds)
• Might cause extreme lag if an inner part comes loose in an unusual way (hence the multiple dockers)
• Sector changes can mess up logic transfers over wireless logic blocks

There is probably more benefits or issues, but you will most likely point that out. If you need me to elaborate on anything, please ask and also if you wish for me to do a poll of any kind the same applies. Please feel free to rip apart this idea, I want to know what the consensus is before I build any larger builds (above 100 in any dimension).

 

[Mork2]

Just some tips or notes for you.

Multiple docks
Be aware everything chain docks to the mothership/station entity. Everything else attached goes through one dock up the chain to the main entity. If that dock gets broken everything else down the chain breaks off when it does. Like roots to a tree that branch out. So multiple dockers on an entity doesn't mean that it has many connection points up the chain to the main entity. Only one of them works. Many things can dock to it though.

Generally pieces don't break off spontaneously now. So if its going to detach its because you manually broke it or it got destroyed by someone.

Templates
You can use templates to copy save load paste in sections. Its called modular building so you don't need the separate entities docked together. However if your not in creative and you build from templates if your missing blocks required it will only put in the ones you have blocks for and leave the bits out that you don't have blocks for. To use templates easier it helps if you have a skeleton frame for the paste points.

Auto-Redock
If you have multiple dockers it may work with pick up points as long as there far enough part and setup correctly they will auto dock an entity with a dock nearby. However there is a 5 sec delay when something undocks before it can redock. So assuming in the 5 seconds of lag after a piece breaks off it stays in the same area one of the pickup up points should reattach the entity. This has a better chance of working with a station that doesn't move. If the station is a homebase then it won't take damage anyway. If it itn't a homebase one cloaking griefer with warheads will detach your starbase and can steal destroy the pieces.

Thrust
There is chaining for shields/energy that you can read up about elsewhere in the forums. Thrust can be set to inherited on the main entity that will give you the thrust of all the thruster blocks docked. However blocks count as one big engine for the purposes of power consumption so having a hundred smaller engines won't save you power. Also all the power for the inheritied thrusters is drawn from the main entity not the parts that the thrusters are on.

Lag reduction
To reduce lag a lot try to keep the each part with a single block of space entirely around it except for the actual required docking points. However if entities with lots and lots of parts get close to another it can quite a bit of lag. So spread them out a bit. The problem with modular building is that every single block face is rendered. If two separate parts are for example flat plates that are placed up against each other. Though you only see one side the graphic card renders both sides facing you then occludes out the faces you can't see. Using multiple parts increases the amount of work your graphics card has to keep up with.

As will all large structures modular or not its lagginess will come down to your computer and or server its on, but there are methods to building that reduces the lag caused that helps.

Happy constructing.....

 

[hunterRAE]

Thank you for your response, it definitely was enlightening. I was aware that entities were only connected to one point, how templates worked and the time that an entity requires to redock. When I came up with my idea, I thought that if the structure was not heavily damaged and was flush with the rail that it would redock after the cooldown, but since there is severe lag with entities being close to each other, it might not be the wisest idea to implement unless necessary. It was interesting to hear about the rendering, though it is not truly that surprising. I hope that someday that the raycasting can fix issues such as that, but at Starmade's current status that is a non priority. It was also interesting to hear about that thrust can being shared from child entity to parent entity, that is something that would be interesting to work with even with the power drain involved. One thing I saw of real interest was the comment of template usage with frame points, that actually is by far easier than what I have done in the past. I am happy to be back to this game, and with the most recent faction update, I will love to work with the construction of NPC factions. Thanks again for your comment, and Happy Holidays to you.

 

[StarWars1981]

Try to attach these things on flat plates off the skeleton. They should be additions only, optional pieces sitting outside the main skeleton's boundaries so that it doesn't collide when destroyed. That'll eliminate issues with collision lag on undocking. Just be careful, cause they can and will be shot off, eliminating that section of your firepower/shields/mobility far faster than would happen if it was attached. However, modular ships that don't require massive amounts of resources in your inventory, but a shipyard and all the associated logic gimmicks for moving parts around ... sounds like RP gold and a lot of fun.

 

[AtraUnam]

Ahem: Ship Generator Mk2 (for RP purposes only)

 

[Napther]

As atra commented above with her Ship Generator, Entirely modular vessels have really bad combat abilities and should be relegated to RP and fighting NPC. However. Certain "Modular" ships abuse certain powers gained by entities. they look like garbage but are stupidly efficient until you remove a key rail dock, sever crucial power efficiency connection points, or remove all their turrets they are likely to use.

Its highly advised you completely "ignore" interaction with these players to starve them of what they want, as these vessels usually have a ridiculous amount of DPS and solely rely on speed, small, hard to hit structures and ion-hardened shields to defend themselves.

 

[Croquelune]

In other words, what Naphter means, if we set all these tears aside, is that modular vessels can be effective in combat provided they are smartly built and use effective design relying on the understanding of some primary mechanics of the game... And I'll add some piloting skills since usually wrong hits in wrong places = fast death.

From RP point of view: it's a way to bring some harmonization and homogenization in your designs. When you dispose from some complete set of piece ; you'll may be able to build quite easely and faster by import-copy-pasting things and change your Starmade in Legomade.

From Combat one: It's about 4-5 months I didn't play SM, but I belevied the docked generator got nerfed ? Docked generators were they're top advantage. They permitted to allow them to use high shield regeneration and op armament.

Then Ion Shield plate are their second one. You have to understand that since your ship is like a grappe, compare to other monoblock solid ship of same size it'll be disadvantaged : less durable since your main ship - aka your bone - have less structure hp and armor. So to compensate that weakness modular ship have to rely on deflection tactic in their design. The goal isn't to think how to block and mitigate damage anymore but how to avoid critical hits and buy some time to kill before get kill or disabled.

But if you are the kind of high-risk, high-reward guy you can attempt build an effective modular ship.

 

[MattDavidS]

I thought they got rid of docked shielding and power in the Aux power update. If you don't have docked generators and shields, the only "modular" parts that would be useful would be maybe a swarmer attachment. Also all your modules can be taken out by one hit to their dock, which means you lose your systems and you experience wild lag.

 

[Mork2]

Modular building still kind of works in some ways. Separate power is still more efficient then aux power. But it depends on how you lay it out. If its a stick ship all over the place that could be very chancy due to exposed docks. However if you build in layers like the following:

Modular layers outside to inside
Turrets - only the last turret rotation the first rotator is under the shield core.
Hull core - just the armour the effects and power are under the shield core. - Minor turrets docked here for power supply.
Shield core - Main shields and ion effect. All other shield protected items docked here and inside under the shield hull.
Main core - Main power supply and systems that have to be here like jump drives. Also anything that doesn't require shields docked here.

With this setup the hull core will transfer the hits to the shield core till its under 25% shields. At that point all 100% ion hits to the hull core will do nothing. All the connection points under the shield core hull can't be damaged till after the shield core shields drop completely.

It is possible to sever the turrets but in this case all I have is the one block turret docker so if it goes the turret flies free and other than some initial collisions with the hull core will bounce off somewhere. Should lag the server to death.

The main issue is if the shield core goes down. At that point the dockers can get killed. I recommend armouring or using the faction block as much as possible around the docking points. Since AI weapons aim at closest block to centre of mass don't have the docker there if possible.....

I would only suggest possibly doing this on:
1. Small ships so if they explode it wont kill the server.
2. Stations cause they don't move its less likely to have collision issues but if it does its going to hurt.
3. Very Very large ships were the only way someone is going to kill it anyway is with a very very large ship or very large fleet. In that case your going to cause a lag fest anyway if you get into a fight. In which case if your playing SP know the limits of your computer and make a backup copy of the world first. In the case of the MP server make sure you read the server rules and see if your ship is breaking them and shouldn't be there in the first place.

 

[DrTarDIS]

looks at sig

 

[Az14el]

I thought they got rid of docked shielding and power in the Aux power update

Only for the case of docked shield supply & power supply, not docked shields & power

 

[SkylordLuke]

Ahem: Ship Generator Mk2 (for RP purposes only)

holy crap,how did I not see this before,this is genius!