Learning from Minecraft (Galacti Craft Mod)

[Promethesus]

I'm a big fan of the Galactic mod from Mine craft.
And i see a lot of ups/downs with the mod its self.

Some of the unique features is oxygen. The ability to make a green house to gather oxygen, store it in containers and then release the oxygen into sealed buildings. While this is all great and all. One big issue i have is that it totally lags the game/server, because the game is constantly checking to make sure that the building is sealed. (It gets worse as buildings increase in size) I really love the concept added, and i would love to see it in Star made. But i fear it will break a lot of things as well.

Electricity is the same way, But you have more options to gather power. You have Solar Panels which are either stationary, or advanced(which rotate with the sun). You could use coal powered, or hydro powered.
All these open forms of electricity to power simple objects such as a oxygen gatherer, or oxygen disperser.

Like both Oxygen/Power, you need lines, oxygen tubes or a electric wire to transport oxygen or electricity to power your objects. This requires alot of thinking and planning to ensure all objects are powered at a nominal level, as well as getting the oxygen it needs.



Now to the point.
A long time ago i read that Star made plans on having you start off on a planet. And i think having these old(outdated) power accumulators would be a great experience for players, and their form of creating/using power will change as they progress to a more advanced state of space travel.
For example. You first join a server, you're on a planet, and you look to the stars! Seeing inspiration, you decide to gather resources, and start building your very first Engine thruster, then your very first coal powered power generator! and you manage to get into orbit. But that is not enough! You travel to a near-by asteroid/moon and gather more resources! And upgrade your power block to solar panels! and you have developed a ion engine! This allows you to travel faster, without the fear of running out of energy in your solar system. After visiting numerous planets you have found everlasting materials which will indefinitely power your systems infinitely. You have created your first warp engine, and now you're ready to join the big boys!


Power Levels
~ Coal
~Steam
~Gas
~Solar
~Black Matter

Thrust Levels
~Push of gases
~Escaping Steam
~Exploding fuel Pointed opposite direction of travel
~ION engines which magically push your ship!
~Star made's current Thruster Engine!

 

[MeepMoop]

It's a good idea in theory. I, however, feel that the developers have Starmade going in a direction of simplicity and ease of building ships to cater to a larger audience.

Starmade community is quite against fuel being added is it creates a new tedium of a few problems. For example, you could get stranded all because you brought 1000 gallons of fuel instead of 1200 gallons, it would make ship building more complex, slower, and etc which drives away new players. It's just a bit impractical.

I'm glad you said there would be different thrust levels, like the magic moving thrust for people who want to move infinitely with no fuel. Unfortunately, there would need to be some discussion on why people would want "ION engines" over "Exploding fuel Pointed opposite direction of travel".

Perhaps people could post some new module and computer types as a reply to this post?

 

[CyberTao]

Fuel should be a mid to late game option with better efficiency than normal power reactors. That's the way I've come to see it, because when everyone starts on the same planet you run into the issue of running out resources eventually (Cal said something about having them reset, but I feel that will just attract larger factions looking for easy resources).

Different levels of thrust I'm not sure on, I like the idea of a beginner having the same tools as a server vetern. A flat out 'better' makes things linear, something that is more about a 'choice' would be better.

Also, we probably wont get that lag intensive, seal room required kind of O2 system, because it would lag badly. Probably a simpler system.

I, however, feel that the developers have Starmade going in a direction of simplicity and ease of building ships to cater to a larger audience.

Yes and No. The base game is aimed to be linear and simple, but if you ever explored the configs there is the option to change the game quite dramatically already. Example;

• Turn off the base rate of power reactors and suddenly every ship has a power cap of 1 million. Lower the max grouping bonus, and suddenly the max is 200k and everyone is relying on Power resupplying stations and power tanks rather than regen.
• I've heard some players have found a way to add a curve to power costs on weapons as well. Suddenly weapon's aren't as linear and smaller ships are more appealing.

Is a couple things anyways. The idea is to be a simple base game that is easily modified into almost a different game.

 

[jzimmerman4]

Fuel should be a toggable feature that works like the OP has suggested. It would certainly add to the survival aspect that many players love.

 

[keylan118]

I'm a big fan of the Galactic mod from Mine craft.
And i see a lot of ups/downs with the mod its self.

Some of the unique features is oxygen. The ability to make a green house to gather oxygen, store it in containers and then release the oxygen into sealed buildings. While this is all great and all. One big issue i have is that it totally lags the game/server, because the game is constantly checking to make sure that the building is sealed. (It gets worse as buildings increase in size) I really love the concept added, and i would love to see it in Star made. But i fear it will break a lot of things as well.

Electricity is the same way, But you have more options to gather power. You have Solar Panels which are either stationary, or advanced(which rotate with the sun). You could use coal powered, or hydro powered.
All these open forms of electricity to power simple objects such as a oxygen gatherer, or oxygen disperser.

Like both Oxygen/Power, you need lines, oxygen tubes or a electric wire to transport oxygen or electricity to power your objects. This requires alot of thinking and planning to ensure all objects are powered at a nominal level, as well as getting the oxygen it needs.



Now to the point.
A long time ago i read that Star made plans on having you start off on a planet. And i think having these old(outdated) power accumulators would be a great experience for players, and their form of creating/using power will change as they progress to a more advanced state of space travel.
For example. You first join a server, you're on a planet, and you look to the stars! Seeing inspiration, you decide to gather resources, and start building your very first Engine thruster, then your very first coal powered power generator! and you manage to get into orbit. But that is not enough! You travel to a near-by asteroid/moon and gather more resources! And upgrade your power block to solar panels! and you have developed a ion engine! This allows you to travel faster, without the fear of running out of energy in your solar system. After visiting numerous planets you have found everlasting materials which will indefinitely power your systems infinitely. You have created your first warp engine, and now you're ready to join the big boys!


Power Levels
~ Coal
~Steam
~Gas
~Solar
~Black Matter

Thrust Levels
~Push of gases
~Escaping Steam
~Exploding fuel Pointed opposite direction of travel
~ION engines which magically push your ship!
~Star made's current Thruster Engine!

Oxygen...In Starmade? I would never come back to this game. At least, not unless there was a way to disable that option.

My opinion? Get that modding api out so we can make this a mod.

 

[Valiant70]

Rather than cloning Tekkit in the starmade engine, the dev team and community need to get creative and come up with an entirely new system. There is potential for fleshing out aspects of the game that are, as of yet, skeletal. Survival is one such aspect. Because of the way starmade's mining and crafting work en masse, the "flavor" will always be different from Minecraft.

What Starmade needs to learn from Minecraft is that basic tasks like mining need to be more variable and fun. Starmade has yet to come up with any personal equipment to speak of, much less anything as rewarding and enjoyable as Minecraft's enchanting, but I imagine that will come with time. Oh, and we need a mod API. Minecraft never did come out with one.

I think it will help a lot for Starmade to flesh out the astronaut content and make it relevant and necessary. Personal needs like oxygen, food, and water would be one way to pull players out of their cores and into their avatars' bodies, although the dev team must be careful to add unique aspects to these rather than the usual "run out = die" approach.

 

[SeptemberProphet]

I agree with learning from minecraft (many games have and should) but this is a different game, minecraft is about a different kind of adventure, more survival. and starmade is about he grand scope of exploration and wonder of building huge ships. However one thing i have noticed starmade is really lacking is things to occupy the big voids we have in ships, big ships usually just have huge empty rooms. id like to see beds and food and benches and chairs and things to create living spaces and the like, only optional of course but to allow us to create worlds as fleshed out as we like, and maybe a hardcore mode where food and sleep are needed.

 

[Valiant70]

I agree with learning from minecraft (many games have and should) but this is a different game, minecraft is about a different kind of adventure, more survival. and starmade is about he grand scope of exploration and wonder of building huge ships. However one thing i have noticed starmade is really lacking is things to occupy the big voids we have in ships, big ships usually just have huge empty rooms. id like to see beds and food and benches and chairs and things to create living spaces and the like, only optional of course but to allow us to create worlds as fleshed out as we like, and maybe a hardcore mode where food and sleep are needed.

That's more or less what I'm suggesting. A big part of this is making the player feel as though they're occupying the astronaut's body, not just floating around as a disembodied camera. Building huge ships is amazing, but this game has potential for so much more.

 

[whooplaah]

There are forums for expanding astronaut mode which are marked as 'Recognized' and 'Planned.' I don't know how much longer it will be before the Schine team starts expanding in that direction - probably after they get the ship/station construction balanced the way they like. I've read some pretty cool ideas for the survival mode/astronaut mode.

But back to the OP's recommendation - if you want more planet side/astronaut play I don't think that more ship blocks would be the way to go. I've been stranded on a planet before and it is possible to get to space in about 10 minutes if you have nothing but a salvage gun. This is pretty lame, I agree, especially since I never have to leave my ship core ever again. I just can't agree with your solution - making more engine types and adding fuel won't change the game and just introduces early game items that you'll never use once you've built your first ship.

It seems that your goal is to expand planet-side play. So I'd suggest: Items that can only be collected in astronaut mode.

For example:
These can be items that are too volatile for salvage cannons to interact with. I would suspect that the salvage beam is high-energy, and probably very hot, so things like wood, plants, leaves, mushrooms shouldn't be harvestable by the beam - they just turn to raw carbon or ash or nothing. Once creatures are implemented (IF they are implemented) then they only drop items when killed by an astronaut. It makes sense that an AMC blast will vaporize any items the creature might have dropped, but we need leather, meat, protein chains, furs etc. to make astronaut armor, food, weapons, medicine, fertilizers, and furniture.

In this way we transform a planet into more than just the blocks of which it is made. Players must land and be astronauts in order to get the items necessary for their character to not starve to death. This means that no matter where you are in the game it will still be necessary.