It's made the game unplayable. You either build a normal ship that barely functions or build a tube .......It's a complete failure.
I played with it all day and night throughout the weekend, and finally I may be forced to admit.....that you are 100% correct. It is nearly unplayable. I would shy away from stating it is a complete failure, as there are a few features that I believe are interesting, but as long as they remain tied to the new integrity, shield, and stabilizer mechanics....they may as well be a jelly bean sitting on a turd.
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A cube is by far the most efficient shape to use.....the bigger the cube the proportionally more integrity it has. This of course encourages gigantisim and the whole game will devolve into who has the biggest cubes before the server melts...
On top of that, as you mentioned, a huge cube at either end of your ship is aesthetically SHIT! Fuck this 'update.' It's a de-evolution of Starmade on almost every measurable metric. It's taking my definition of broken, not just to another level but to a whole nother dimension. Twilight (edit: zone) level of insanity.
What I find the most difficult to believe is that the developers were unaware of the obvious consequences of these changes. How could they not be aware that the stabilizer distance, especially in its extreme current state, would result in extraordinarily long ships? I attempted to create a medium sized simple mining barge and ended up with a chunk of stabilizers floating in space, attached by a throbbing purple penis vein, 300 meters away. How is that acceptable? As you mentioned, every system must now be a cube, and preferably a large cube, or it is penalized? How could they not be aware that this would devolve into systems all being created as boxes on top of boxes. Is this creative? The "dream" they had for Starmade? "Insanity" is correct....their offering, in conjunction with what they've stated their goals were, is completely Orwellian.
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The new mechanics will undoubtedly see the same level of refinement. I know it's a lot like polishing a turd, and I still REALLY hate stabilizers, but I shall remain open.
I've been around quite a long time now and remember many of the largest changes. Many, if not most, of them had teething pains and had to be reshaped and/or adjusted over time. Yet they were functional. The underlying ideas behind the changes were sound. This is not the case with the current update. A square wheel cannot be polished into acceptability. The premise itself is flawed.
Were the stated goal of the developers this: "We wish for the players to create only a single shape of ship, filled with systems that are also a single shape, and would like them to make this ship as large as possible!" ..... well, I guess the update is a raging success.
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The main part of your system blocks now needs to be in a cuboidal arrangement. It doesn't have to be an actual cube. Whether or not that limits building? Yeah I think so...
Nonsense! I can now build squares OR rectangles!!!! That is TWO choices, I'll have you know!