Heya, I'm pretty new here, having just started playing again for the first time in years, got a basic setup going on Freaks R us, been attacked a few times, but nothing lost thanks to the home base damage protection. I did notice though that it seems there is a meta for ridiculously huge ships in PVP, yet I see a lot of tags on this forum leading to PVP group pages showcasing screenshots of splendid vessels of all sizes. Are these just for show, or are there servers out there that try and alter the meta somehow that I'm not aware of?
Good PVP server recommendations?
- Thread starter Gwyvern
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All other things being equal, in Starmade, the bigger ship will win. It does not take long for people to figure this out. A player with a modicum of tactical sense and a great deal of free time can in a matter of days, bootstrap themselves into flying a titan scale brick of system blocks, barely concealed with an unwedged layer of hull blocks. They then think they 'rule' and some will wish to lord their putative 'skill' over other players. To those who have not been able to invest so much time, these can indeed be intimidating.
Fortunately however, things are NOT equal. Those enormous bricks are ridiculously vulnerable to well thought out weapon systems on fleets of smaller ships. I currently have a million blocks worth of such smaller ships (25, 4000 mass destroyers) in a fleet around my homebase. I challenge any of those ten million block 'titans' to come visit and take a pot shot at something.
Prior to being able to build such a fleet, a player is advised to make use of their home station's invulnerability. Build an enclosure on your homebase that holds your undeathenator, build block, factories, storage, etc., so you cannot be astronaut killed while doing stuff. They cannot cloak their giant ship, you will be able to know when they are in your system. If they are, simply hide in your station till they get bored and leave. For the most part, you will simply be left alone.
It is possible they might leave attack drones in your system. Again, you will see them. Make sure to put at least a couple of weapon systems on your homebase large enough to do damage to such drones (my homebase has 24 capital ship turrets at this point). If they do leave attack drones around your homebase, given time, they will be destroyed by your invulnerable homebase weapons. Log on, tab out, watch a movie, come back.
The reality is that the only players that get 'griefed' that way are those that have not weaponized their homebase. For drones they might leave elsewhere in your system, treat them just as you would a pirate station. Don't go near it till you are ready to kill it. Mine elsewhere.
Fortunately however, things are NOT equal. Those enormous bricks are ridiculously vulnerable to well thought out weapon systems on fleets of smaller ships. I currently have a million blocks worth of such smaller ships (25, 4000 mass destroyers) in a fleet around my homebase. I challenge any of those ten million block 'titans' to come visit and take a pot shot at something.
Prior to being able to build such a fleet, a player is advised to make use of their home station's invulnerability. Build an enclosure on your homebase that holds your undeathenator, build block, factories, storage, etc., so you cannot be astronaut killed while doing stuff. They cannot cloak their giant ship, you will be able to know when they are in your system. If they are, simply hide in your station till they get bored and leave. For the most part, you will simply be left alone.
It is possible they might leave attack drones in your system. Again, you will see them. Make sure to put at least a couple of weapon systems on your homebase large enough to do damage to such drones (my homebase has 24 capital ship turrets at this point). If they do leave attack drones around your homebase, given time, they will be destroyed by your invulnerable homebase weapons. Log on, tab out, watch a movie, come back.
The reality is that the only players that get 'griefed' that way are those that have not weaponized their homebase. For drones they might leave elsewhere in your system, treat them just as you would a pirate station. Don't go near it till you are ready to kill it. Mine elsewhere.
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That's right, all core systems have diminishing returns of some sort. Building huge ships isn't really worth it. Also, above 2 million energy per second, you'll need auxiliary reactors to halfway efficiently produce more power, and these explode when hit.
Edymnion
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Yeah, just a heads up that like many other games, PvP generally boils down to a very small subset of players actually wanting to do it for the fun of the challenge of actually playing against other players on equal footing, and a whole lot of people that are so afraid of losing their ships they won't even come close unless they believe they can absolutely roll over you.
Which means you need to really leverage your homebase invulnerability, like Panpiper said. You're basically going to want to turtle until you can build on equal footing as everyone else, but then odds are you will have had to build a ship that is too big for you to lose and you will be equally as unlikely to want to go out and challenge anyone on equal ground.
Meaning the only real difference between a PvP and a PvE server these days is that new players get stomped while everybody goes "Its PvP, deal with it" and nobody that is established really fights each other, meaning it just becomes a glorified build server with some n00b griefing.
Its currently a pretty big problem with the metagame.
Which means you need to really leverage your homebase invulnerability, like Panpiper said. You're basically going to want to turtle until you can build on equal footing as everyone else, but then odds are you will have had to build a ship that is too big for you to lose and you will be equally as unlikely to want to go out and challenge anyone on equal ground.
Meaning the only real difference between a PvP and a PvE server these days is that new players get stomped while everybody goes "Its PvP, deal with it" and nobody that is established really fights each other, meaning it just becomes a glorified build server with some n00b griefing.
Its currently a pretty big problem with the metagame.
Ideally if you want to do PVP go on a server where the loss of a ship is minimal(so that nobody gets scared of losing ships) so servers where there is a maximum ship size and a huge mining multiplier.(and blueprints)
Because if someone who lose a ship can rebuild it in 2 minutes of hitting an asteroid with beams he will not care about losing it
Because if someone who lose a ship can rebuild it in 2 minutes of hitting an asteroid with beams he will not care about losing it
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Some great suggestions here!
I would just like to add that single big ships are ridiculously vulnerable to EMP set ups, and combined with a jump inhibitor will allow you to capture enemy capital ships intact for your own use/salvage.
Emp costs 1 power to do 2 power damage to them, so as long as your ship/entity has at least half their energy regen you can easily decimate their power supply and keep it locked down forever.
Combined with some stop weapons to bring them to a halt, the ship cannot regen shields, fire any weapons, jump or maneuver in any way (allowing you to carefully cut a hole a destroy the faction modal at your leasiure).
Emp set ups are only vunrable to multiple drones, and ships running an emp passive. However if a ship is running an EMP passive they are essentialy spending tons of energy... to protect them selves from losing .. tons of energy. Pretty self defeating imo.
I would just like to add that single big ships are ridiculously vulnerable to EMP set ups, and combined with a jump inhibitor will allow you to capture enemy capital ships intact for your own use/salvage.
Emp costs 1 power to do 2 power damage to them, so as long as your ship/entity has at least half their energy regen you can easily decimate their power supply and keep it locked down forever.
Combined with some stop weapons to bring them to a halt, the ship cannot regen shields, fire any weapons, jump or maneuver in any way (allowing you to carefully cut a hole a destroy the faction modal at your leasiure).
Emp set ups are only vunrable to multiple drones, and ships running an emp passive. However if a ship is running an EMP passive they are essentialy spending tons of energy... to protect them selves from losing .. tons of energy. Pretty self defeating imo.