"Heat Boxes" and Crew - Why it Works

[Brokengauge]

I still think having an interior be totally optional. And I'm not crazy about purely aesthetic interiors, even though it's what I tend to focus on.

I want everything I put in my ships to serve a purpose. I hate that my interiors are basically useless except to look pretty. Interiors in a real warship aren't useless. They're full of equipment and machinery that need to be in secured yet accessible areas so they can be operated by crew. In starmade all of that is faked, or just disregarded. I also can't help but chuckle when I see a "full RP interior" that's only 1/10 the volume of the ship, and the rest is just a solid mass of armor and all it's systems, all intertwined for maximum efficiency. Its not that I think that ship is bad, its not that I can't appreciate the effort that went into a ship that is balanced for RP and PvP (I assume anyway) or maybe I should say balanced between form and function, it's just I wish there were design considerations you HAVE to make with regards to internal design. There needs to be space in there for maintenance.

I actually want to build the pieces that make up my ship. Each system should take on a shape, and there needs to be a reason for it. They need to be located in tactically sound areas. Weapons need to be in the best places, not just where it looks pretty. Armor needs to be where it needs to be, and doesn't need to be in places I don't care about, or can survive a fight without.

I also understand the argument of "current power doesn't hinder RP ships, unrealistic expectations and bad design do". I know that even if this new power system gets made standard, ships that were designed for performance and function first, and aesthetics last will STILL curb stomp strictly RP ships. And that basically makes this whole deal useless right? Why replace the power system when the current one works?

I STILL feel like the current power system is a bit boring. I have no idea if the new system will be any better. If I think it is, I'll support it. If it's not any better, I won't. It HAS to be better for me to support it. But I've got no idea what it's gonna be like, so I'm not throwing in one way or another. I just want to see what they've come up with. It may very well be worse, and in that case will be a no-brainer, right?

And as for WHY make a change: sometimes you don't know what you've been missing, and you have to take a chance to find out. Imagine getting into a Lamborghini when your last car was a Toyota that was older than you are. You take it for a test drive, and immediately lose control and get pancaked by a semi truck hauling a bunch of old, crushed Toyotas that somehow break loose and pile on top of you. And you're on fire. And everything's on fire, because now you're in hell...

Sorry, my flawed analogy got away from me there.

My biggest concern. honestly, has been the hostility on display. It's just a game y'all. What if they had used a "heat=power" system from the get go? Would you have still thrown $3 - however much it is now at it and played it? Would you have taken one look at the reactor stuff and said "that's Fucking stupid, imma try scrumbleship instead"? We're all here cuz we love spaceships and sci fi. Why do you feel the need to try to shit on someone who disagrees with you? Whenever someone says they like the current thing, and don't want change, you don't need to tell them Their opinion doesn't count cuz they abuse the current system, or just don't "get" your side of it, and never mind the total lack of actual examples supporting you.

On the other jand, when someone says they would like to see a new and different approach, you don't have to tell them that they're too Fucking stupid to appreciate what they have now, and any shortcomings they see are just a result of their own limited and totally inferior understanding of basic game mechanics.

Both of these are rude, and are my (very) basic interpretations BOTH sides that have gotten butt hurt. My toddler has better manners than what I've seen on display here. Not that I'm surprised. Just disappointed. Disappointed in myself, cuz I should have known better lol.

I'm not trying to call anyone out, since I know I don't have a full appreciation for anybody's personality on here. Maybe that one guy IS really a Canadian, and it wasn't meant as an insult....Idk lol

Now excuse me, I'm going to go slip into a full body condom and an air tank, so whomever wants can take a shit on me now. I actually deserve it for ranting like this. Sorry lol.

Just, do me a favor and hold this camera, and try to get it all on my chest. Haven't had a good cleaveland steamer since I was in Korea...

Not that Korea is the plae to go for that sort of thing. I just happened to meet a- oh sorry, I'll just STFU now.

 

[Az14el]

there's like 4 sides or something silly like that now, jeez guy

 

[Brokengauge]

there's like 4 sides or something silly like that now, jeez guy

Yeah, Idk what I was thinking. Sometimes I just start writing and I wind up just rambling.

Just...just ignore me lol.

 

[Haalon]

Trying to cram 2 games into one rarely turns out good. All the RP and aesthetic focus that goes on on the forums remind me a lot of the shift from X3 to X-rebirth. X3 was an amazing game, in spite of all its flaws, and X-rebirth is one of the worst sequels i've ever seen. It added interiors and crew to a game that didn't need them. Where in X3 flying around and interacting with stations and your ships was all handled through menus, the addition of an interior you had to navigate created a massive time sink for doing the simplest, most routine things. Everything ended up revolving about you running around looking and clicking on things.

It's also a completely different direction in terms of gameplay, at least from what i've heard schines intentions are. I see starmade mostly as a X3 / freelancer space sandbox; that is it's mostly about ships and growing your faction, and as far as i am concerned interior isn't necessary to the game at all. What it sounds like a lot of people want is more akin to the sims; running around inside the ship and interacting with machines and furniture...

Well, I wasn't going to write anything here, but you so precisely described my thoughts about crew, that I cannot not to mention it.

WHY do we actually need crew? As for me, it looks like some sims inside the starmade, or like some tool to justify high use of interior in your ship. Probably the only interesting thing it does - it makes boarding onto enemy ship more interesting and rewarding. But same can be done by rework of current systems. Personally, I prefer to see my ship filled with systems, rather than filled with NPC dumbasses.

 

[Raisinbat]

Exactly. That's why there ought to be more of a gameplay reason for there to be aesthetically pleasing stuff in ship's interiors. If there isn't, interior aesthetics is pointless. And of course, anything that takes away from existing gameplay just for the sake of giving people room for aesthetics is highly detrimental.

That's the thing: they shouldn't. That's why interior aesthetics should somehow contribute to gameplay, instead of just taking away from it by being a waste of space, or being forced in at the cost of existing gameplay.

I want everything I put in my ships to serve a purpose. I hate that my interiors are basically useless except to look pretty. Interiors in a real warship aren't useless. They're full of equipment and machinery that need to be in secured yet accessible areas so they can be operated by crew. In starmade all of that is faked, or just disregarded. I also can't help but chuckle when I see a "full RP interior" that's only 1/10 the volume of the ship, and the rest is just a solid mass of armor and all it's systems, all intertwined for maximum efficiency. Its not that I think that ship is bad, its not that I can't appreciate the effort that went into a ship that is balanced for RP and PvP (I assume anyway) or maybe I should say balanced between form and function, it's just I wish there were design considerations you HAVE to make with regards to internal design. There needs to be space in there for maintenance.

Ok a reasonable and thought out argument in favor of interiors, that's a first.

Have either of you ever played X3 / X rebirth? For those not in the know, X3 is like freelancer; you start out in a ship, fly around and do missions to do money then start investing in better ships. The big difference is you can buy and command AI ship much like starmade's fleet system but more elaborate; traders can fly around buying and selling good autonomously, you can construct your own stations, setup patrols etc. etc.

Now enter X-rebirth, the sequel. Two major changes were made; speeding the game up was removed and interiors + crew were added. What resulted was a massive slowdown in the game's pace, everything took 10x longer to do because recovering casualties from combat meant running around looking for crew, setting up crew, levelling up crew and giving the crew orders, and this wasn't quick in X3 either, but instead of simply issuing orders through a menu you know had to contact the crew members and go through a dialog, after all you wouldn't notice the crew was there if you werent forced to interact with them.

On top of killing the game's pace the much heavier simulation meant the game went from having about 200 systems to about 30, and the size of ingame battles were drastically reduced as well, although this was also caused by some other silly changes, like the removal of jump drives.

What i am getting is that you're seeing this exclusively from the perspective of a builder, not someone who is going to use the ships you build. Walking around interiors isn't fun, maybe the first time, but you'll sick of it very fast, especially when you'd much rather be doing something with the ship, like mining or fighting the interior is just in the way because it's not a part of the space-sim game, but a seperate game being slapped on top to the detriment of the current game. It would be like forcing you to play a game of tetris every time you switch ships for the sake of including tetris in the game.

No matter what mechanics might bring to shipbuilding, its all worthless if noone is going to use the ships because the game isn't fun to play.

The other downside to this is the performance loss; large fleet battles aren't that feasible in starmade yet and it will NOT get better by introducing more simulation systems for ships. As for maintennance, its been brought up several times and no suggestion i've seen is anywhere near practical. They would all require ridiculous amounts of empty internal space (like heatboxes) or insane amounts of simulation dragging down the game's performance. (or both) Forcing empty space kills the engineering side of starmade; how do you fit a high dps turret to aship that requires a 50 block deep socket and large clearing space; oh nevermind we have plenty of empty space all over the ship!

And as for WHY make a change: sometimes you don't know what you've been missing, and you have to take a chance to find out. Imagine getting into a Lamborghini when your last car was a Toyota that was older than you are. You take it for a test drive, and immediately lose control and get pancaked by a semi truck hauling a bunch of old, crushed Toyotas that somehow break loose and pile on top of you. And you're on fire. And everything's on fire, because now you're in hell...

Have you ever tasted human shit? Ssometimes you don't know what you've been missing, and you have to take a chance to find out.

Or maybe, you've never built a competitive ship before and don't understand what that means. When EVERYONE, and i do mean EVERYONE who builds competitve ships are calling heatboxes out as worse than hitler there just might be something wrong with it.

Aside from that you cant implement everything into the game to try and see what works, that's impossible from a production standpoint...

 

[nightrune]

I want everything I put in my ships to serve a purpose. I hate that my interiors are basically useless except to look pretty.

This is pretty much my stance.

 

[Edymnion]

I still think having an interior be totally optional.

The interesting thing is that this is basically what the RP side is saying too.

Right now its a case of PvP > RP because given the same outer hull and the same pilot, the PvP ship will always preform better than the RP ship. There is no option there. Reason I like the heatbox idea is because it will make it so that people who don't care about interiors can ignore them, and the people who do care about them won't be punished for using them.

Making interiors truly optional.

 

[Raisinbat]

Right now its a case of PvP > RP because given the same outer hull and the same pilot, the PvP ship will always preform better than the RP ship. There is no option there. Reason I like the heatbox idea is because it will make it so that people who don't care about interiors can ignore them, and the people who do care about them won't be punished for using them.

Then why do all the PVP ships have interiors?

Your ships are bad because you are bad at building, interior barely matters, stop repeating this trash like its true.

 

[Edymnion]

Then why do all the PVP ships have interiors?

Your ships are bad because you are bad at building, interior barely matters, stop repeating this trash like its true.

1) You don't know what my ships can or cannot do.
2) An interior space is space that could always have been filled with more shielding or high HP blocks to help with armor tanking.

Don't pretend like it isn't true. Given the same amount of interior space, the ship filled with actual systems is going to be stronger than a ship that is filled with decorative rooms.

Same ship, same pilot, the one that ditches the RP space and has the absolute minimum interior needed to get to the core is going to win.

 

[Brokengauge]

Ok a reasonable and thought out argument in favor of interiors, that's a first.

Have either of you ever played X3 / X rebirth? For those not in the know, X3 is like freelancer; you start out in a ship, fly around and do missions to do money then start investing in better ships. The big difference is you can buy and command AI ship much like starmade's fleet system but more elaborate; traders can fly around buying and selling good autonomously, you can construct your own stations, setup patrols etc. etc.

Now enter X-rebirth, the sequel. Two major changes were made; speeding the game up was removed and interiors + crew were added. What resulted was a massive slowdown in the game's pace, everything took 10x longer to do because recovering casualties from combat meant running around looking for crew, setting up crew, levelling up crew and giving the crew orders, and this wasn't quick in X3 either, but instead of simply issuing orders through a menu you know had to contact the crew members and go through a dialog, after all you wouldn't notice the crew was there if you werent forced to interact with them.

On top of killing the game's pace the much heavier simulation meant the game went from having about 200 systems to about 30, and the size of ingame battles were drastically reduced as well, although this was also caused by some other silly changes, like the removal of jump drives.

What i am getting is that you're seeing this exclusively from the perspective of a builder, not someone who is going to use the ships you build. Walking around interiors isn't fun, maybe the first time, but you'll sick of it very fast, especially when you'd much rather be doing something with the ship, like mining or fighting the interior is just in the way because it's not a part of the space-sim game, but a seperate game being slapped on top to the detriment of the current game. It would be like forcing you to play a game of tetris every time you switch ships for the sake of including tetris in the game.

No matter what mechanics might bring to shipbuilding, its all worthless if noone is going to use the ships because the game isn't fun to play.

The other downside to this is the performance loss; large fleet battles aren't that feasible in starmade yet and it will NOT get better by introducing more simulation systems for ships. As for maintennance, its been brought up several times and no suggestion i've seen is anywhere near practical. They would all require ridiculous amounts of empty internal space (like heatboxes) or insane amounts of simulation dragging down the game's performance. (or both) Forcing empty space kills the engineering side of starmade; how do you fit a high dps turret to aship that requires a 50 block deep socket and large clearing space; oh nevermind we have plenty of empty space all over the ship!



Have you ever tasted human shit? Ssometimes you don't know what you've been missing, and you have to take a chance to find out.

Or maybe, you've never built a competitive ship before and don't understand what that means. When EVERYONE, and i do mean EVERYONE who builds competitve ships are calling heatboxes out as worse than hitler there just might be something wrong with it.

Aside from that you cant implement everything into the game to try and see what works, that's impossible from a production standpoint...

I hear (er...read) you. Though, in 3 years, I've never gotten sick of running through my interiors. The entire reason I started playing starmade is because it not only allowed me to make the space ships that have existed in my brain for the last 10-15 years, but also allows me to actually use them. It's all part of the experience for me. I built a 10k mass "frigate" with enough room and "facilities" for 60 crew, and every one of those hypothetical crewman have a job, and a reason for taking up precious space. I will always do this, because it's WHY I build. I want to take ships like this into fights and see how well I've designed them. Getting my ass handed to me is more useful than a win, because I can see what works and what doesn't. Thats just me though. I obviously play for a different reason though. And which of us is closer schine's target audience? The game is probably gonna have to be tailored for one or the other, unfortunately. I'm not gonna get angry if they shift focus away from my own style though... I'll adapt.

I would assume all of the logistics involved with crew would be customizable and optional. Of course, I know what it means when I assume things...

And you're right, I don't build competetively. I'm trying to make my designs as sound as possible, but I really only play with 1 guy I know IRL and we basically share design constraints (though his stuff doesn't look anything like mine lol)

Still, I'd LIKE to see interiors gain a function. A real, useful function, that's fun. If what Schine shows us isn't fun, I''ll change my opinion on it. Better to fake it for my own benefit, than to soulessly grind away. If I'm gonna neglect my family, it at least need to be doing something fun...
[doublepost=1492620544,1492619153][/doublepost]

The interesting thing is that this is basically what the RP side is saying too.

Right now its a case of PvP > RP because given the same outer hull and the same pilot, the PvP ship will always preform better than the RP ship. There is no option there. Reason I like the heatbox idea is because it will make it so that people who don't care about interiors can ignore them, and the people who do care about them won't be punished for using them.

Making interiors truly optional.

Ah, but does the RP community want a functional interior? or more decorative? I want to simulate how a spaceship works, not the starmade equivalent of LARP LOL

 

[Lecic]

WHY do we actually need crew? As for me, it looks like some sims inside the starmade, or like some tool to justify high use of interior in your ship. Probably the only interesting thing it does - it makes boarding onto enemy ship more interesting and rewarding. But same can be done by rework of current systems. Personally, I prefer to see my ship filled with systems, rather than filled with NPC dumbasses.

I personally think crew is a good mechanic for a lot of things.

1. It'd be a good use for planets. Planetary colonies could be a cheap way to set up large population centers to recruit crew from.
2. Exponentially scaling crew requirements for larger and larger ships would be a good way to cut down on gigantism.
3. A constant cost to crew (credit salaries, food) could fill the role many people want fuel to fill but is personally more interesting to me.
4. Capturing skilled crew for ransom allows for interesting political gameplay or pirating to unfold.
5. Boarding actions are essentially impossible without crew to force people from doing things like filling their interior with damage pulses to instantly vaporize anything inside or otherwise making taking over the ship 100% impossible.

Most of these things (sans the last two) COULD also be accomplished in other ways, but I think crew would be a more enjoyable way to accomplish that.

1) You don't know what my ships can or cannot do.

I think I've got a pretty good idea, considering how you regularly talk about how you never play on PvP servers and regularly make suggestions that showcase your complete lack of understanding of the game's mechanics. But why don't you show us? Give us an example. What can your ships do, Edy?

2) An interior space is space that could always have been filled with more shielding or high HP blocks to help with armor tanking.

But interior also works as explosion-absorbing spaces within a ship and reduces the weight of the ship, allowing it to move faster. Furthermore, are you comparing ships by DIMENSIONS and not mass and block count? That's a terrible mistake. Of course a poorly built RP ship with the same dimensions of a PvP-centric warship with less interior is going to lose when it's got half the mass because half the ship is empty space. Unless a ship is almost entirely interior, it can still compete perfectly fine with other ships in it's mass range.

 

[Haalon]

I personally think crew is a good mechanic for a lot of things.

1. It'd be a good use for planets. Planetary colonies could be a cheap way to set up large population centers to recruit crew from.
2. Exponentially scaling crew requirements for larger and larger ships would be a good way to cut down on gigantism.
3. A constant cost to crew (credit salaries, food) could fill the role many people want fuel to fill but is personally more interesting to me.
4. Capturing skilled crew for ransom allows for interesting political gameplay or pirating to unfold.
5. Boarding actions are essentially impossible without crew to force people from doing things like filling their interior with damage pulses to instantly vaporize anything inside or otherwise making taking over the ship 100% impossible.

Most of these things (sans the last two) COULD also be accomplished in other ways, but I think crew would be a more enjoyable way to accomplish that.

I mostly worry that the crew management will turn into boring and time-consuming routine, and will bring lots of lags with it.
Yep, crew can have interesting uses in game, especially with boarding. But if there will be issues I worried about, than, I think, it's better not to implement crew mechanics at all. (can't say anything about management routine, but crew surely will bring additional load with it. We can only hope that that load won't be too big.)

 

[Edymnion]

Furthermore, are you comparing ships by DIMENSIONS and not mass and block count? That's a terrible mistake. Of course a poorly built RP ship with the same dimensions of a PvP-centric warship with less interior is going to lose when it's got half the mass because half the ship is empty space. Unless a ship is almost entirely interior, it can still compete perfectly fine with other ships in it's mass range.

I am, because its equally useless to compare by pure block count or mass because equal number of system blocks = equal performance.

Although honestly, if we want to go that route, I would say the RP ship still suffers because to hit that same system block count/mass, its going to be larger (and hence have worse turning).

So yes, when I compare PvP to RP ships, I compare them based on dimensions. A 100m long ship vs. 100m long ship. The RP ship loses because its mostly empty space.

 

[Lecic]

I am, because its equally useless to compare by pure block count or mass because equal number of system blocks = equal performance.

Although honestly, if we want to go that route, I would say the RP ship still suffers because to hit that same system block count/mass, its going to be larger (and hence have worse turning).

So yes, when I compare PvP to RP ships, I compare them based on dimensions. A 100m long ship vs. 100m long ship. The RP ship loses because its mostly empty space.

So you're saying you admit to purposefully using a significantly flawed system of comparison to puff up your shitty argument and make it look better?

Dimensions are literally the worst way to compare ships, even between ships with similar system density. If you use it, you are doing it specifically to inflate an issue that is nowhere near the level you think it is. The mass of an interior is generally very little as it is mostly empty space and lighter weight blocks, and it contributes to the AHP of ship and works as spaced armor, so it's hardly dead weight on the ship. It is more accurate for comparisons than dimensions by light years.

 

[FlyingDebris]

I agree with Lecic here. Boxdims are arguably the worst metric possible.

 

[Raisinbat]

But interior also works as explosion-absorbing spaces within a ship and reduces the weight of the ship, allowing it to move faster. Furthermore, are you comparing ships by DIMENSIONS and not mass and block count? That's a terrible mistake. Of course a poorly built RP ship with the same dimensions of a PvP-centric warship with less interior is going to lose when it's got half the mass because half the ship is empty space. Unless a ship is almost entirely interior, it can still compete perfectly fine with other ships in it's mass range.

Maybe we can solve all this interior nonsense by renaming empty space "Explosion mitigation block" or "Weight reduction block" ?

 

[Valiant70]

Maybe we can solve all this interior nonsense by renaming empty space "Explosion mitigation block" or "Weight reduction block" ?

That's actually kind of clever!

Then we can use this to allow aesthetic ships to be shield tanks instead of armor tanks: "Shield Armor"

 

[Criss]

WHY do we actually need crew?

Allow Lecic to answer for you.

• It'd be a good use for planets. Planetary colonies could be a cheap way to set up large population centers to recruit crew from.

• Exponentially scaling crew requirements for larger and larger ships would be a good way to cut down on gigantism.

• A constant cost to crew (credit salaries, food) could fill the role many people want fuel to fill but is personally more interesting to me.

• Capturing skilled crew for ransom allows for interesting political gameplay or pirating to unfold.

• Boarding actions are essentially impossible without crew to force people from doing things like filling their interior with damage pulses to instantly vaporize anything inside or otherwise making taking over the ship 100% impossible.

It's not that we want useless crew or interiors to your ship. First we need to ask ourselves a question. Exactly how exciting is this vast universe if we are the only people that walk around on our ships or station? NPC's are inevitable. Without them we are very alone. Crew becomes an option once we introduce NPC's but we can't have them be useless. Lecic laid down some very similar ideas that we had for crew. Beyond that, it also presents the element of choice. Do you want to boost your ship systems with a placed block, or a crew member? Crew members might come with things that a system block does not offer, like the opportunity to board an enemy ship, or diplomacy options. At the very least, we would like those options present. I just might take a while to ensure those systems work properly of course.

 

[Deserea]

last time i walked around in a military cruiser, the only decorations on it were the paintings and posters the crew put there for morale. the halls were about 1 starmade block wide. the space shuttle is even more cramped, and it has no weaponry at all.

warmachines arent built for decor, theyre built to take advantage of the mechanics of their environment. you build dollhouses that imitate popular media representations of warmachines. i see nothing wrong with this; i admire lots of these dollhouses... but they are what they are.

this is absolutely true.
Im in the navy. The ship i serve on is cramped, Its a cruiser. Two people can barely walk past each other in the p-way. we sleep 80-90 people in a room smaller than my parents two bedroom house. The only decorations you see on the inside of the ship wardrooms, staterooms or racks, are two paintings one in the p-way for the office i work in. The other is outside the office of another rates p-way. Those are the only two things in the entire ship, that are actually "decorative"

When its comes to this game. I expect something similar. My ships are built for looks, i expect them to be weaker than a warship of equal size. *could* they be equal too, yes. and at least one of them is, but most of them arent, at least when it comes to systems. *however* most of my ships can take alot more damage, because i have lots of little compartments and rooms, they break up explosions, and they add more armor.

I guess im just saying that ultimately, in this game, you can do everything you want to do. And you can do it. is it hard, absolutely, but if you want to make a pvp ship look good, you can, and it can have an interior to go with, alot of them do. But if you arent willing to take the time to learn how to lay out systems in your RP ship, then expect it to suffer.

Rabbit Out.

 

[kulbolen]

The ship i serve on is cramped, Its a cruiser.

which cruiser? =D