Making passive Push/Pull effect actually useful

[jorgekorke]

I'll post here some ideas on how to make Push/Pull effects useful for vessels, not serving only as logic/block dependent of auto-movement.

I hope the devs could give some attention to this, since it might fix two modules that are great in concept, but useless in actual gameplay (in passive mode)

The initial concept of those passive effects were for being like afterburners, that were requested for so long from the fighter ship lovers, like me. However, for them to be any relevant for a fighter, it takes a lot of room of modules, which weakens the ship considerably.

A way to make this work better for fighters and to avoid capitals going max speed out of nowhere at the same time would be :

1) Make the speed gain equivalent to the server's maximum speed requirements, so 100% of the effect would result on getting the maximum top speed (without overdrive) in one click, acting as a true afterburner. But however, add a cool down to the module, so people can't spam it.

2) Reduce the % of the ship required to make that happen, since currently it is around 10%~20%, which is too much. An amount of 3%~5% of the ship to achieve 100% effect would be acceptable.

3) To avoid big ships from using it, make the cooldowns of the module equivalent to their size and to the ship's mass, so the more % of effect and the more mass the ship has, the bigger the cool down is.

4) And another factor for avoiding capital ships from using it would be increasing the power consumption equivalent to the ship's mass and % of the effect as well, just like the cool down.




So, instead of investing too much on thrusters, fighters could have 3%~5% of pull/push modules for going high speed in order to dodge missiles, incoming bullets and avoiding enemies in their tail.

 

[Marduk_Zoekoff]

This booster idea seems like a fantastic idea, but honestly it sounds a bit like an exploit. Push and pull beams are already very useful if you just want to push or pull something.

 

[DivineEvil]

I agree. As far I see Push/Pull passives a bit unusable for the player, only viable with logic. And it's the only two which has these limitations.

 

[jorgekorke]

I agree. As far I see Push/Pull passives a bit unusable for the player, only viable with logic. And it's the only two which has these limitations.

It is usable by the player, but currently, the burst is small, and it has no cooldown, so you can accelerate by spamclicking it. Better just pressing W instead xD

 

[AtraUnam]

Make the burst far more powerful but have a cool-down. That way you could make jinking thrusters.

 

[Marduk_Zoekoff]

Seriously I think your taking the secondary use of these modules as its most important feature. It's primary use is so one ship can catch the other ones and blow them to pieces, and for that it works perfectly. On a 100%100%100% beam/cannon/stop or pull mix the beam is constant and will hold you there so you are not dodging anything. The secondary, meaning not the main function, is a start burst, not replacement thruster, not 0 to 200kph in 0 seconds superthruster.

What you need to ask for is an actual afterburner module but something separate from the tractor beams systems, in which a simple diminishing returns rule would make it only useful to fighters. Though I doubt they would try to "prevent" any ship capital or otherwise from being able to use a particular module. The big sell on this game is that if you can imagine it you can build it, not if you can imagine it you can build it, except for that, and that, oh and that. You can for instance cloak a capital ship, you may not have enough power fire any weapons or even move that matter, but you can do it. No "prevent" is too strong a term, deter would be a better sell if your trying to exclude someone.

 

[jorgekorke]

Seriously I think your taking the secondary use of these modules as its most important feature. It's primary use is so one ship can catch the other ones and blow them to pieces, and for that it works perfectly. On a 100%100%100% beam/cannon/stop or pull mix the beam is constant and will hold you there so you are not dodging anything. The secondary, meaning not the main function, is a start burst, not replacement thruster, not 0 to 200kph in 0 seconds superthruster.

What you need to ask for is an actual afterburner module but something separate from the tractor beams systems, in which a simple diminishing returns rule would make it only useful to fighters. Though I doubt they would try to "prevent" any ship capital or otherwise from being able to use a particular module. The big sell on this game is that if you can imagine it you can build it, not if you can imagine it you can build it, except for that, and that, oh and that. You can for instance cloak a capital ship, you may not have enough power fire any weapons or even move that matter, but you can do it. No "prevent" is too strong a term, deter would be a better sell if your trying to exclude someone.

There needs to be a reason to use smaller crafts, at least one single edge is required. Currently Starmade is all about "who can throw the biggest game-breaking titan to each other". A truth that is slowly making the population decrease.

 

[Lecic]

Actually, at larger scales push is more effective for forward engines, because it has a linear energy increase, while thrusters cost more per-block at larger sizes.

Spoiler: Calbiri's Effect Graph

Also, according to Calbiri 's graph on effects, Push only needs 5% of the ship for maximum bonus.

 

[tr0njonen]

What if a "fuel" type system is used. These afterburners require fuel modules to fire. A small fighter, for example, would require one module and a short cooldown. While a titan would require a few hundred and a longer cooldown.

 

[jorgekorke]

Lecic this chart can't be considered, because unlike the rest of the passive effect (Overdrive, Ion, Piercing, Punch) , Push/Pull does not have a limit of efficiency of 100%, it just increases the burst the more blocks you have. And for it being any useful, you need too much blocks, that's my point.
I wanted it to require less blocks, have a limit like overdrive of 100% being equal to the server's max speed, but to compensate, give it a cooldown and triple power cons

 

[Marduk_Zoekoff]

There needs to be a reason to use smaller crafts, at least one single edge is required. Currently Starmade is all about "who can throw the biggest game-breaking titan to each other". A truth that is slowly making the population decrease.

Im sorry but that that depends on what server you play on. here is Mikeland server rule number two for instance.

"2.
Ships that are so large, or so full of systems that they cause lag issues with the server will be removed. These are easily seen by admin from the amount of errors that appear in the logs and live warnings. A salvage ship with a huge number of salvage beams fits the description of being 'too many systems'. Please limit your salvage beam count to 1024 beams max. This problem is made worse when the ships are in the gravity of a planet, or spawn stuck protection with other objects (everything else loads slowly when you're in a large ship and it's very easy to run over a station or asteroid without even knowing you've done it until it's too late). You will be warned once that your ship is causing issues, and if you fail to reduce it's size or systems it will be removed."

and this is from the launcher.

"Hello and welcome to Starmade,

we have a lot new players, so warm welcome to all of you."

You may want to consider playing on a different server if game breaking ships are an issue where you are.

I do not mean any of this in a bad way, but trying to fix something that is not broken (push pull effect) is not always the best way to solve an issue (small ships not being used). If the problem you are actually trying to solve is more use for small ships that would be a better header. The tractor beam systems work perfectly for what they where built to do. Expecting tractor beams to act as some sort of afterburner is a bit silly.

An actual afterburner is really what you need. Maybe a full computer module set you could link to thrusters to boost their thrust or use unlinked as an autopilot requiring more blocks to handle the monster ships. That would effectively cut their fire power if they want speed or even auto-pilot.