How to play Starmade for Dummies

[Doomsider]

Courtesy of Archer. This is his guide to playing StarMade for dummies

How to start playing StarMade - For Dummies


Me and some others agreed that there were way too many questions in support/public chat that went like: "Where to get the game?" "How to start the game?" "It's not working, why?", etc etc.

This thread is supposed to be an easy guide for all that, which can be linked to those people wondering. Please sticky, or it won't be as useful!



Table of contents:

- Where to get the game?

- How to start the game?

- How to start playing online?

- How to secure your account?

- General Troubleshooting

- How to install StarMade manually?

- How to play the game?





Where to get the game? (See picture for clarification)

1.) Go to the download tab above.

2.) Hit the Terms&Conditions checkbox, else you won't be able to download the game.

3.) First pick the REGULAR download for your operating system (Windows, Mac OS X or Linux). If the regular one fails to download, pick the alternative one.



How to start the game? (See pictures for clarification)

1.) Put the launcher you just downloaded in a folder somewhere, then run it like you run any other program.

2.) Let the launcher download the latest version of StarMade, then click the "Start Game" button.

3.) If it's not on SinglePlayer mode yet, tick the circle like in the picture.

4.) Give yourself a name, without spaces.

5.) Press OK, and the game should start!



How to start playing online? (See picture for clarification)

1.) Ensure you went through step 1.) and step 2.) from the above.

2.) Tick the MultiPlayer circle, and fill in an IP-address of a server you'd like to join (with the port). You can find servers on www.starmade-servers.com. The port is usually 4242 for StarMade.

3.) Continue with steps 4.) and 5.) from the guide above this one, and you should join the server!



How to secure your account? (See pictures for clarification)

1.) In the game settings menu, press the "Uplink to star-made.org" button.

2.) Fill in your FORUM username and the password for it, it basically links your CURRENT NICKNAME with that account. So if you change your nickname, and don't uplink it again, the link will be LOST.

3.) Hit the "Save Login" checkbox so you won't have to do this everytime (note that if you don't do this, you have to repeat step 2.) everytime you start StarMade!)

4.) Press OK when you are done with all this, if you did everything correctly it should go back to the game settings. From here you can start the game again with the guides above.



Trouble-Shooting - Game won't run:

1.) Ensure your Java is up to date/working and ensure you actually have Java installed on your computer, the game is based on it and cannot run without it. http://www.java.com

2.) Ensure your graphics card drivers are up to date. You can find lots of help with this on google, as it is a pretty general thing I won't elaborate on here.

3.) If you can't join servers, first check if you did all steps correctly, then check if the server is online (www.starmade-servers.com shows this). If it's none of those two, it might be your firewall/router or the firewall that comes with your virus scanner.

Again, the internet is full of solutions for such problems, so I recommend a quick google search "Firewall problems" or something.

4.) If the launcher fails to download the latest version, you can always get it manually from http://files.star-made.org/build/ , the latest one is the one at the bottom! See the guide below for more info on this.

5.) In Windows, try to run the launcher as an administrator, it could solve some issues.



How to install the game manually? (See pictures for clarification)

1.) Download the launcher as explained in the first guide at the top of this thread.

2.) Go to http://files.star-made.org/build/ and get the latest build at the bottom.

3.) Open the .zip file, make a folder INSIDE of the folder that contains the launcher, call it "StarMade", and copy ALL OF THE the contents of the downloaded .zip file into that folder.

4.) Start the launcher and run the game as explained in the guides at the top, you won't have to update/install in this case since you did it manually.



How to play the game?

Look around on YouTube, or on these forums, there are tons and tons of guides everywhere that should help a lot, but you have to look for them.

For starters I especially recommend video tutorials on YouTube.



That's all for now, more will be added as it becomes necessary. If you see people asking how to launch/play/download the game, link them to this, it will help to keep the chat cleaner.

 

[testkil]

good this could help people

 

[thedemoninside]

You should specify that users of 64-bit windows should download 64-bit Java. The game typically will stop loading and freeze at 100% when people do not have the correct Java installed.

 

[Archer6621]

You should specify that users of 64-bit windows should download 64-bit Java. The game typically will stop loading and freeze at 100% when people do not have the correct Java installed.

I think that is a new issue that arose when the functionality to pick texture-packs (and select a resolution) got added. 32-bit java is unable to handle 256x256 packs and the game will indeed simply stop doing anything after reaching 100% (I think if you alt-tab a bit on that frozen screen you can find an error message beneath it, after pressing any button on it the game quits).

Also, thanks Doomsider for re-posting this here, I was about to transfer it after seeing a notice that told people to move their stuff

I'll update the pictures remotely to match the current website.

 

[psteiner]

Hmmm, are you going to add in a part about weapon, thrust, shield, and power balancing? I haven't seen a single thread actually explain how to do that.

 

[RedDragonflyxx]

One of the best introductions to starmade I've seen:

 

[MatthewOfJadethSpeareth]

"How to play StarMade for Dummies"
Doesn't even say how to play StarMade xD

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Ok, so I'm going to cover the basics:

In the very beginning

You start on a trade guild station. You will have a few blocks to begin with. Currently you get:

• 1 core
• 10 power reactor modules
• 8 hyperflux coil thrusters
• 15 cannon barrels
• 1 cannon computer
• 5 salvage modules
• 1 salvage computer
• 30 grey hull
• 1 helmet
• 1 power supply beam
• 1 healing beam
• 1 laser

How to begin

Press X. You will then get a small screen. In that screen you can type the name you want to give your ship. Change the name (or don't) to whatever you want and then press the green button that says OK.
The core will then load, and once it has loaded, press R to go into the ship core.
In the most recent version you already start in build mode (more about that in a moment).
How to figure out whether you are in build mode or not:

• In build mode you can move around your ship while in the ship core.
• On the left there will be some text saying shields, power, thrust and a bunch of other stuff that you don't see while flying.
• If you move your mouse over the core, you will see a yellow box.

How to build

Left click to place a block, right click to remove a block. You can only place a block on an existing block, but you can remove a block that connects to blocks to make a block "float". You know where you are placing a block by the yellow box that displays where you are going to place the block.

Advanced build mode

Press and hold Left Control to enter and stay in advanced build mode. Here you can change the size of the area in which you place your blocks (that area gets filled completely by the block you are placing), but to use that larger area you have to stay in advanced build mode. If you leave and enter advanced build mode again, you will still have the size of the area you last used. You can use that larger area to select an area to copy, and you can can use the larger area to see where you will paste (paste by pressing paste).

Construction basics

Grouping certain blocks will grant you additional stats with every block you place. This is especially true for power reactor modules and weapons. Every module has to be linked to its computer. Press C and the computer and V on the module. The quickly add all the connected modules, press SHIFT + V on the module the other modules are connected to. You can also link computers to each other in the same way to give weapons different abilities. The weapon types that fires is called the master and the weapon type that gives the different stats is called the slave. Effects also do a bunch of stuff. Just look up videos and information about that though, as it is too much to cover it all.

Power reactor modules

To get more power regen per block you place, you need to expand the x, y and z axis of the grouped power reactor modules. Every block that doesn't increase the x, y and z axis gives a lot less extra power regen, so avoid doing so unless the soft cap has been reached. The soft cap is at a million power per second, once it goes over that, every block added will add less and less power regen. At a certain point when mass placing reactors will be the most efficient option, so watch the amount every reactor adds and then decide for yourself how you want to continue.

You also need to make sure that the regen isn't higher than the capacity to be efficient. If the regen is higher, just add some power capacitors. They are best when mass placed and add to the power capacity.

Thrusters

They keep changing, just keep an eye out for news about them on the forums.

Shields

Shield capacitors increase the amount of ho your shields have and shield regenerators increase the regen capabilities of your shields.

Effects

Linking effects to weapons give your weapons different abilities. But if you use the effects on their own (the effect is then called a defensive effect, and can be achieved by adding just the computer to you ships hotbar and then activating it) also gives your ship different abilities.



Tips

• Don't make salvage arrays larger than one block. Instead you should slave cannons to them with 100% effect. This will make them a lot more powerful and this setup is the most efficient not terribly lag inducing. Make the individual salvage arrays larger than two and you will start noticing blocks that still display even though you have removed them, so for the time being this will be the best option.
• To save space and have more damage, use the overdrive modules as effect on weapons. 100% effect gives you 3 times the damage.
• Use ion as a defensive effect. It currently is capped at 50% (but that will change), and at 50% it takes half the damage dealt to your shields.
• Using overdrive effect as defensive effect gives you a higher top speed. 100% effect gives you a top speed of twice the server speed limit (the server speed limit is your normal top speed).

 

[Engineer of Stuff]

What about installing mods?

 

[MossyStone48]

Each mod has instructions on how to install. To be honest the only mods out there are made by a handful of folks, plusnine, megacrafter and bearishmushrrom come to mind.. None of them change anything more than cosmetics. There's also a few third party apps like the skin maker and smedit. They produce files that easily integrate with the game as user modifiable content. Many of those functions are built in.


One modder has been given the privilege of schema's blessing. But until the game is a more refined state it is unlikely anything will come of it. Another third party dev was also given a snippet to remake smedit into something functional again. That's it. As the game evolves under the skilled god-paws of the almighty schema any mods made NOW will likely become unintentionally broken LATER. The great grey one, in his infinite feline wisdom, has decided to not clash with the mod community by breaking their toys during the dev cycle.

Spoiler: A cautionary tale.

Long ago someone claimed to reverse engineer the game discovering cheats, hacks and back doors. Not only is that far-fetched (especially the 'back door' idea. None of the devs need access to YOUR server. They have their own.) but it is also strictly against EULA to access areas of the game not deemed user modifiable already. The safe files can all be opened and edited using wordpad and mspaint. The only caveat being blueprints. Those can be safely opened in smedit. Doing otherwise and uploading that blueprint will likely result in an auto-ban from the servers you attempt to upload to.

As for the long forgotten fellow who 'reverse engineered' the game.. Schema-bots were dispatched to re-leave this person's home of every left shoe and take the prizes in their cereal boxes. Rumor also has it they scattered lego bricks through out the house just before the alarm clock went off. This is yet to be confirmed.

Just check the zip file of the mod for instructions. It's usually pretty straight forward. But make backups.