General List of Improvements (In my opinion)

[thehappybub]

I was looking for a new PC game to play last week so I browsed through steam, and came upon Space Engineers and Starmade. No matter how much people object to comparing the two, they are strikingly similar in concept. Anywayhow, I thought Starmade was the game with more potential ... So now here I am, three days into the game. I am the definition of a noob on Starmade and still have tons to learn, but in my short while playing the game I have already noticed a number of issues, as well as things I found myself wishing were part of the game. Below is a fairly comprehensive list of all the issues I've encountered and suggestions:

Issues
- Placing anything on a derelict space station renders that block unharvestable. I built myself my first factory, placed it on the station, and then had a sad moment when I harvested scrap instead of my factory xD

- Building from the surface of a planet has no limit. For example, building a tower from the surface past the atmosphere bubble, your character is still affected by the planet's gravity (even a km off of the surface).

- Stepping in the space between the "plates" of a planet completely glitch your character out as the gravity shifts between the two faces.

- Using salvage modules to split an asteroid completely in two doesn't cause the two pieces of the asteroid to register as separate entities. Even though there is a clear space where the asteroid is split, pushing either piece pushes both as if it was one object.

- The helmet refuses to go on my astronaut's head. Selecting it in the hotbar makes my character start the animation of putting it on, he puts it on, but the helmet glitches through his head and then he takes it right off and repeats the process indefinitely.

- Clicking "R" on a docking module crashes the game ( I submitted a report for this already).

Suggestions
- Stairs/ladders ... Sometimes ramps just don't look right

- Grappling hook gun ... For example left clicking shoots the hook, and right clicking reels in the line, pulling you up or wherever you want to go.

- Plex lifts on ships ... For those multi-level designs.

- Other forms of power generation ... Solar panels, or geothermal energy from planet cores, or even from stars.

- More npc factions ... Here's my personal proposition, I'd love to hear the opinions of other players ...

Banking Clan: banks spawned randomly like shops, as well as randomly spawned "convoys" transporting credits. These convoys could be ridiculously hard to attack (guarded by OP ships to give all those people with Titans something to do)

Galactic Militia: a military-style npc faction to act as an enemy to the Pirates. There could be randomly spawned battles between the two in which players can intervene.

Furthermore, I'd like to propose expanding this idea into other areas...

/Planets controlled by factions, which contain some kind of fortress or whatever.

/More physical NPC astronauts on stations and on larger class ships, which you can fight in hand-to-hand blaster fights.

/The ability to align yourself with either the Pirates or Militia, befriending one makes you an enemy of the other. The faction which you align with will let you recruit NPC crew members (instead of shops).

- Better crews and fleets ... Your crew follows you around and engages enemies, furthermore, you can set each of your crew members to pilot a ship, and once inside, they would act kind of like a bobby ai, following your ship in some staggered pattern and engaging enemies. There could be a cap of crew members, like 5.

- Boarding other ships ... Creating a boarding computer and module. This would let players create small shuttles with a drill or something, dock it on this module, and when inside, aim and fire themselves in the shuttle at a ship's hull. The shuttle, if aimed correctly, could break a hole in the hull and then open to release you into the enemy ship. Your crew members should have the ability to do this as well for exciting on-board battles to try to take over the ship. For balance, boarding would only be possible if the enemy ship's shields are completely down and it would take a longer time to "drill" through the enemy ship's hull if it is of a higher tier. Turrets with push modules could also be used to repell such attacks by boarding shuttles.

- Ramming ships ... When enemy shields are down, and with the right materials at the front of your ship, ramming into the enemy ship at a high speed could do damage to the ship's hull, and even break thinner ships.

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That's the end of all my suggestions. Thank's for reading. Please keep in mind that I am still a beginner and may not be aware that some of these ideas are already possible, or planned. It would be great to see how many people think these ideas are good, dumb, or need tweaking to be feasible.

Thanks a lot,
thehappybub

 

[CyberTao]

- Placing anything on a derelict space station renders that block unharvestable. I built myself my first factory, placed it on the station, and then had a sad moment when I harvested scrap instead of my factory xD

That is due to an exploit where people would just build-block stations all day everyday. It rendered crafting useless, and put a strain on servers. If you look at a block of a station (have to get close) and Press M, you are given the option to buy it, and render all blocks harvestable.

- Building from the surface of a planet has no limit. For example, building a tower from the surface past the atmosphere bubble, your character is still affected by the planet's gravity (even a km off of the surface).

I quite like that feature. Means you can build orbital elevators. Atmosphere and gravity on planets is still something being worked on I believe, these planets themselves arent that old.

- Pressing "c" to align your ship on a planet is messed up, the ship aligns in some direction completely different from the face of the planet you are nearest too.

Press C aligns you to Galactic North, it points the same way in any sector. Not sure who told you any different.

- Using salvage modules to split an asteroid completely in two doesn't cause the two pieces of the asteroid to register as separate entities. Even though there is a clear space where the asteroid is split, pushing either piece pushes both as if it was one object.

There is an option the server.cfg file called "breakoff", a very buggy and extremely alpha feature that will allow objects that are split in half to seperate. But it's not really all that stable yet.

- Grappling hook gun ... For example left clicking shoots the hook, and right clicking reels in the line, pulling you up or wherever you want to go.

I like that idea, would make boarding a lot easier (when we get that anyways, gotta be wary of exploits).

- Other forms of power generation ... Solar panels, or geothermal energy from planet cores, or even from stars.

That sounds nice, has been mentioned before (normally involving mention of fuels). It would give more of an advantage to stations and bases, as they could potentially generate more power (The planned capital ship system makes me worry about the value of stations and such).

- More npc factions ... Here's my personal proposition, I'd love to hear the opinions of other players ...

That is coming, I think a good deal of frame for it is already done, it just needs to be scheduled as part of an update (Schema likes to focus on certain things at a time).

- Better crews and fleets

AI is gonna be improved someday, and will come with the ability to have small (5 ship) fleets piloted by NPCs

- Ramming ships

Like Breakoff, there is an option for Collision damage in the server.cfg. Still needs work as well, so don't count on much there.

Alpha is Alpha, things are buggy and/or missing :p just give 'er time.

 

[Viridis00]

Some of the things you mentioned are actually working as expected or are limited by the game.

- Placing anything on a derelict space station renders that block unharvestable. I built myself my first factory, placed it on the station, and then had a sad moment when I harvested scrap instead of my factory xD

- Building from the surface of a planet has no limit. For example, building a tower from the surface past the atmosphere bubble, your character is still affected by the planet's gravity (even a km off of the surface).

Building on a planet or a stations means you're adding to the planet or station and still under the effect of its gravity or the scrap status. The game would need a way to discriminate between the two somehow which might be beyond the scope of the game in terms of keeping it seamless.

- Pressing "c" to align your ship on a planet is messed up, the ship aligns in some direction completely different from the face of the planet you are nearest too.

C alignment will align you to space, not to a planet or any other entity so there's nothing broken here and nothing to fix.

- Using salvage modules to split an asteroid completely in two doesn't cause the two pieces of the asteroid to register as separate entities. Even though there is a clear space where the asteroid is split, pushing either piece pushes both as if it was one object.

That applies to everything in the game, however there is a currently experimental (and has been for a long time now) feature in server.cfg called Break Off which does what you describe. It's too buggy right now and is also not a priority for the dev team. I personally really want to see it functional though because it would add a lot to combat strategy.

Everything else you suggested has been suggested before by other players and is probably possible though not necessarily in the ways you described. The only thing that probably won't happen is ramming specialization in ships because the way collisions are handled for large ships causes lag, plus players don't like it.

 

[thehappybub]

Ok, reading wikis I assumed "c" aligned your ship similar to how pressing space aligns your character to your ship, thanks for clarifying that.

I also did not know about break off, so that's cool.

 

[Criss]

Considering you are new, I will preface this by saying that a lot of what you suggest is already been looked at by the dev team, is planned to be looked at or fixed, or has been suggested by other numerous times. It should also be mentioned that there is only 1 person coding starmade while space engineers has an entire team developing their game. Similarities aside, I would consider that a big difference in terms of the progress both games should be showing.

- Placing anything on a derelict space station renders that block unharvestable. I built myself my first factory, placed it on the station, and then had a sad moment when I harvested scrap instead of my factory xD

While I can understand that frustration, derelicts are intended to be scrap. I'm not sure in terms of coding, but it is probably vastly easier to convert all blocks on the entity into scrap instead of keeping track of what could theoretically be millions of blocks that do not turn into scrap.

- Building from the surface of a planet has no limit. For example, building a tower from the surface past the atmosphere bubble, your character is still affected by the planet's gravity (even a km off of the surface).

That's probably intended. Gravity does not work as it does in SE. Personally I like this.

- Stepping in the space between the "plates" of a planet completely glitch your character out as the gravity shifts between the two faces.

Definitely something the dev already knows about. It is one of the biggest issues concerning planets. I personally think it is a petty issue. I would rather the devs work on full unimplemented features.

- Using salvage modules to split an asteroid completely in two doesn't cause the two pieces of the asteroid to register as separate entities. Even though there is a clear space where the asteroid is split, pushing either piece pushes both as if it was one object.

An option for breakoff can be turned on in the config files. It is not optimized yet, but I have seen it work. Activate it at your own risk.

- The helmet refuses to go on my astronaut's head. Selecting it in the hotbar makes my character start the animation of putting it on, he puts it on, but the helmet glitches through his head and then he takes it right off and repeats the process indefinitely.

This has probably been reported already. Easy fix involves scrolling off the helmet once it has been placed or taken off. At that point the animations stop

- Stairs/ladders ... Sometimes ramps just don't look right

Ladders would be nice.

- Grappling hook gun ... For example left clicking shoots the hook, and right clicking reels in the line, pulling you up or wherever you want to go.

Also nice.

- Other forms of power generation ... Solar panels, or geothermal energy from planet cores, or even from stars.

Do want.

- More npc factions ...

Possibly planned, but they may be to the discretion of the player and not the devs. As in we will make our own custom factions and place them on our servers. This is unconfirmed.

Planets controlled by factions, which contain some kind of fortress or whatever.

NPC control of territory is planned.

More physical NPC astronauts on stations and on larger class ships, which you can fight in hand-to-hand blaster fights.

Full NPC integration is planned.

The ability to align yourself with either the Pirates

Not sure if planned. But this might tie in with custom NPC factions.

- Better crews and fleets ...

Planned

- Boarding other ships

Planned.

- Ramming ships

Collision damage can be turned on in the config as well. It isn't perfect but it performs better than breakoff. The devs recetnly stated that there are plans to revamp the system. One possible solution is that colliding with a structure would cause explosions that would then determine damage to both structures based on mass and speed. This is easier to calculate then block to block collision detection. It sounds like a good idea and I hope that this is not merely an idea but the plan.

That being said, it should be known. The devs have thought of a TON of stuff. Do no think the current state of the game is any indication of the massive scope the finished product will have. After listening to all the planned features over the last year, I can tell you this will be one hell of a game. Possibly genre-redefining.

 

[thehappybub]

Thanks for the feedback, considering the game is in alpha, I absolutely hope major changes happen. From reading other posts, I get a sense of people being scared of completely redefining something. I hope the devs don't cower from making serious changes.

 

[Viridis00]

Thanks for the feedback, considering the game is in alpha, I absolutely hope major changes happen. From reading other posts, I get a sense of people being scared of completely redefining something. I hope the devs don't cower from making serious changes.

We've had some serious overhauls in regards to weapons, planets/galaxy, mechanics, and GUI. We're not really scared of new things and neither are the devs, just remember that sometimes there's a limit to what can an cannot be changed in the first place and balancing things between optimization for performance as well as mechanics for fairness/fun is not an easy thing because once you change one thing, you inadvertently change a lot of other things around it.

The devs are fairly responsive to the community though, so you can expect the game to develop nicely with lots of critique and suggestions.

 

[thehappybub]

Cool, I feel liked made an exciting choice choosing to play Starmade :D