MicroMade - Modded StarMade

[Jojomo]

Sounds very appealing - ships being (relatively) fast to design and build is very attractive for someone with little spare time...(me)

I'm curious about whether you have any ideas/methods for creating a functioning economy - supply/demand, production/consumption. The default one in SM isn't there yet, and an economy is the heartbeat of a game like this (IMHO), it essentially gives players reasons to keep doing things.

 

[Asvarduil]

So Jojomo - when you think about game design as a whole, economics have to factor in pretty significantly, on a number of levels. Everything in games is a trade of some sort. Someone is providing something, someone else is consuming it. It's not limited to money and materials like most would think.

At a very high level, one has to consider what the actual, human player is willing to exchange with the game. How much time, is too much time? We all have a limited amount - the game needs to deliver as much engagement per unit time as possible.

When you focus back on in-universe wealth - Credits, Net Worth, or material stockpiles - there's sort of a cyclical relationship. Things that give wealth and prestige are of value to players and make them more willing to seek out more sources of wealth, power, and prestige. Thus, you could call this a 'game loop' - a cyclical relationship of player investment, and the game rewarding the player such that more investment occurs.

Now, enough of my game-design-nerding. You're probably more interested in the ability to obtain blocks, credits, and personal value, as well as useful starships.

First - I have plans for players to do certain things to get useful, pre-built starships. One of the things I think StarMade actually does wrong, is forcing the player to build everything. Yes, StarMade is a game about building ships - that much, I'll never question or complain about. That being said, we build ships to do things. By having players do things, they can get stuff with which to build their own custom ship (or, outfit their existing ship) to do something better. This 'ship -> action -> upgrade -> action -> ...' loop is something that is an absolute priority for MicroMade 1.0.

Next - right now in the game, there's two ways to get 'wealth' (by which I mean materials and/or credits): mine them, or sell something you have at a vastly marked up price, to get credits to buy more stuff that you re-sell at a marked up price. Neither of these ways are very engaging on their face, unless of course you're into that sort of thing.

A solution to the 'boring wealth grind' problem, is to provide players with more 'active' wealth-gaining options. By 'active' systems, what I mean is: the player does something in order to receive a payoff. Some of this has already been initially implemented - the Bounty system lets players sacrifice net worth gained by playing on the server or defeating other players (to be implemented) to put out a bounty on a target player, that can be claimed by someone else who wants to. In this way, not only is the bounty issuer trading their net worth to see their feckless opponent shot down, it's providing an incentive for actual PvP combat.

This is also why some people say, 'add a quest system!' Quests are a compact, well-understood way of saying, 'if you do this thing, I'm going to give you these rewards.' It gives a clear activity that the player can do, for a reliable reward. That's why a quest system of some sort is almost certainly going to happen - doing quests, makes the player better-able to do more quests. Even EverQuest got that right!

Now, with all this talk of giving the players stuff, that leads to a concern - inflation. Having stuff be too common either devalues the items, or having money be too common devalues money (which, includes Net Worth by proxy.) Having Net Worth be less-accessible than credits helps, and makes having Net Worth be inherently more valuable, but it doesn't help if stuff you need to buy is too expensive, because money itself is worthless.

Unfortunately, this is where dragons lie in my ruminations. To my knowledge, StarMade has no easy way to adjust an item's overall price on-the-fly, or I could write some sort of supply-and-demand analysis daemon to do precisely that. Supply and Demand is a known problem - especially in the real world - and is one that I'll have to put serious thought into solving.

Long story short? Well, I've got no 'clean' conclusion; if you made it this far, it proves that A) you're patient, and B) you now know some of my thoughts on the economy and what game systems need to be included to make the game more 'worth it' to the end player. This didn't start - and likely didn't end - with the thoughts you intended, but really economy is baked into game design inherently. The trick is to learn how to decouple aspects of the economy from each other, such that I can divide and conquer - make one system awesome, test it, get it in, move on to the next, rinse, repeat, victory.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

If it was just about easy construction, and fun to pilot, then Minimade's mass limit would be plenty enough - 3K allows for a lot higher versatility and more detail while still easy to produce and fun to fly, but I already went there, and not gonna go there again. In all due honesty, if Minimade had been properly backed up with someone of the scripting/server management skill Asvarduil has and didn't run on a potato, it would still be running and counted as one of the best servers out there.

That said, I'm curious if 100 mass will be actually viable for anything half-decent, guess the new power system has yet to show how small ships with small dimensions and small reactors perform in it.

 

[AtraUnam]

So JojomoFirst - I have plans for players to do certain things to get useful, pre-built starships. One of the things I think StarMade actually does wrong, is forcing the player to build everything. Yes, StarMade is a game about building ships - that much, I'll never question or complain about. That being said, we build ships to do things. By having players do things, they can get stuff with which to build their own custom ship (or, outfit their existing ship) to do something better. This 'ship -> action -> upgrade -> action -> ...' loop is something that is an absolute priority for MicroMade 1.0..

Totally off topic but schine does eventually intend to cater to this kind of player, with factions each selling ships that a player can buy with credits earned by doing missions or selling salvage.

 

[Asvarduil]

In all due honesty, if Minimade had been properly backed up with someone of the scripting/server management skill Asvarduil has and didn't run on a potato, it would still be running and counted as one of the best servers out there.

That said, I'm curious if 100 mass will be actually viable for anything half-decent, guess the new power system has yet to show how small ships with small dimensions and small reactors perform in it.

Well, don't count my server-admin skills as anything yet until I get something running. I've said I'm a total n00b on that count; don't expect greatness out of me, unless I can prove that I can deliver. The most I can say, is that I am investigating hosting options, and will seek out the best balance between cost (for me) and performance (for y'all.)

As to the size...well, that's what this week's settings tweaks, and playtesting are for. Games are like making chili - you add stuff, and taste often. If it turns out 100 mass is simply too small, I'll increase the limit. At the end of the day, the point isn't the 100 mass limit, though I'd like to keep it. The point of this entire mod is to have a size limit that is manageable, in addition to other engaging game mechanics, with the result being a satisfying experience. I think the reason the StarMade community has declined as it has, is because the game is simply not engaging enough.

Totally off topic but schine does eventually intend to cater to this kind of player, with factions each selling ships that a player can buy with credits earned by doing missions or selling salvage.

I look forward to that being in the game; one of my goals for the mod, is that the mod will one day be obsolete. Buyable ships would seriously help with that.

Unfortunately, as to the much vaunted 'plan' that Schine put out about a year ago...well, I've got no faith that it's A) going to happen, or B) will happen soon enough to matter. In my entire time playing this game, I've seen few tangible improvements to the game as far as fun is concerned - though, the art has drastically improved! - and that's what the mod is here to help with.

 

[Jojomo]

So Jojomo - when you think about game design as a whole, economics have to factor in pretty significantly, on a number of levels. Everything in games is a trade of some sort. Someone is providing something, someone else is consuming it. It's not limited to money and materials like most would think.

At a very high level, one has to consider what the actual, human player is willing to exchange with the game. How much time, is too much time? We all have a limited amount - the game needs to deliver as much engagement per unit time as possible.

When you focus back on in-universe wealth - Credits, Net Worth, or material stockpiles - there's sort of a cyclical relationship. Things that give wealth and prestige are of value to players and make them more willing to seek out more sources of wealth, power, and prestige. Thus, you could call this a 'game loop' - a cyclical relationship of player investment, and the game rewarding the player such that more investment occurs.

Now, enough of my game-design-nerding. You're probably more interested in the ability to obtain blocks, credits, and personal value, as well as useful starships.

First - I have plans for players to do certain things to get useful, pre-built starships. One of the things I think StarMade actually does wrong, is forcing the player to build everything. Yes, StarMade is a game about building ships - that much, I'll never question or complain about. That being said, we build ships to do things. By having players do things, they can get stuff with which to build their own custom ship (or, outfit their existing ship) to do something better. This 'ship -> action -> upgrade -> action -> ...' loop is something that is an absolute priority for MicroMade 1.0.

Next - right now in the game, there's two ways to get 'wealth' (by which I mean materials and/or credits): mine them, or sell something you have at a vastly marked up price, to get credits to buy more stuff that you re-sell at a marked up price. Neither of these ways are very engaging on their face, unless of course you're into that sort of thing.

A solution to the 'boring wealth grind' problem, is to provide players with more 'active' wealth-gaining options. By 'active' systems, what I mean is: the player does something in order to receive a payoff. Some of this has already been initially implemented - the Bounty system lets players sacrifice net worth gained by playing on the server or defeating other players (to be implemented) to put out a bounty on a target player, that can be claimed by someone else who wants to. In this way, not only is the bounty issuer trading their net worth to see their feckless opponent shot down, it's providing an incentive for actual PvP combat.

This is also why some people say, 'add a quest system!' Quests are a compact, well-understood way of saying, 'if you do this thing, I'm going to give you these rewards.' It gives a clear activity that the player can do, for a reliable reward. That's why a quest system of some sort is almost certainly going to happen - doing quests, makes the player better-able to do more quests. Even EverQuest got that right!

Now, with all this talk of giving the players stuff, that leads to a concern - inflation. Having stuff be too common either devalues the items, or having money be too common devalues money (which, includes Net Worth by proxy.) Having Net Worth be less-accessible than credits helps, and makes having Net Worth be inherently more valuable, but it doesn't help if stuff you need to buy is too expensive, because money itself is worthless.

Unfortunately, this is where dragons lie in my ruminations. To my knowledge, StarMade has no easy way to adjust an item's overall price on-the-fly, or I could write some sort of supply-and-demand analysis daemon to do precisely that. Supply and Demand is a known problem - especially in the real world - and is one that I'll have to put serious thought into solving.

Long story short? Well, I've got no 'clean' conclusion; if you made it this far, it proves that A) you're patient, and B) you now know some of my thoughts on the economy and what game systems need to be included to make the game more 'worth it' to the end player. This didn't start - and likely didn't end - with the thoughts you intended, but really economy is baked into game design inherently. The trick is to learn how to decouple aspects of the economy from each other, such that I can divide and conquer - make one system awesome, test it, get it in, move on to the next, rinse, repeat, victory.

It's good to know it's on your radar, and that you've already given it some thought.

Really looking forward to seeing this project up and running.

 

[Jojomo]

Asvarduil, will MM use power 1.0, or power 2.0 (in whatever state it's in at time of launch)?

 

[Brokengauge]

I stopped playing minimade because I only had opportunities to get on it ever week and a half or so, due to work and family obligations, and the faction point penalties were simply too great. It's disheartening to finally get some time to do something I enjoy, only to find that you have to start over again and again and again.

Having said that, I'm interested in this. The stuff I make on my own tends to be large with huge interiors. Even on minimade my in-progress ships had large interiors. I just can't think of a 2k mass ship as a fighter lol. A teeny tiny mass limit would be fun to mess around with.

Count me in, once it's up. I just won't be able to get on too often

 

[Asvarduil]

Asvarduil, will MM use power 1.0, or power 2.0 (in whatever state it's in at time of launch)?

Right now, all content is being designed under Power 1.0, as we have no idea when Power 2.0 will come out. The release of Power 2.0 - whenever that is - will be incorporated into the existing universe. I have plans on how to accomplish that little miracle, but right now my efforts are focused on getting the mod and server to a release. Due to Schine's track record, I'm not expecting Power 2.0 for at least another three months, but more likely 6mo. to a year.

I stopped playing minimade because I only had opportunities to get on it ever week and a half or so, due to work and family obligations, and the faction point penalties were simply too great. It's disheartening to finally get some time to do something I enjoy, only to find that you have to start over again and again and again.

Having said that, I'm interested in this. The stuff I make on my own tends to be large with huge interiors. Even on minimade my in-progress ships had large interiors. I just can't think of a 2k mass ship as a fighter lol. A teeny tiny mass limit would be fun to mess around with.

Count me in, once it's up. I just won't be able to get on too often

Well, this server has some features that cater to someone who can't live and/or breathe StarMade.

One is the Net Worth system. By merely playing on the server, you get a small amount of wealth stored up that you can cash out with a custom command, !CASHOUT. Right now the only way to accumulate Net Worth is to play on the server - you gain some periodically - but there's other things I have planned that will grant you Net Worth. Net Worth also powers the Bounty system, and will have some other uses as this project goes along.

Next, one thing that I'm definitely planning for for my second iteration, are Quests. Quests can grant you parts, ships, money, Net Worth...all sorts of things. I definitely look forward to implementing a quest system, as a lot of people tend to suggest it, and there's direct evidence of other server-wrappers such as LvD that use a quest system to great effect. As I'm still working on Iteration 1 stuff - specifically, server configuration - I'm not devoting too much time to it, but when I have gotten my first iteration tested by non-Asvarduil people, I'll be going all-in on questing. In your situation specifically, quests should be helpful to achieve things despite having limited play time.

Getting away from concrete features, I'm also open to suggestions on how to cultivate a more 'casual' play style on the server. If someone has to take a break because they hold a day job (I do this) or have a sick family member (I have one), or whatever the cases may be, I want MicroMade to be a humane experience. As you note, the game currently punishes spending time away from it, which I greatly dislike. This isn't an iteration 1 goal by any means, but any things I can do to make MicroMade more humane will be taken into consideration.

 

[Asvarduil]

Week 6 - "This does whaaaat!?"
This week was spent on two main activities - revamping the Outpost stations, and figuring out StarMade's configurations. Neither task was as easy as it seemed, but paid off.

Configuration Vexation
The main thing I spent time on this week was configuring StarMade. In my GitHub project, under the main Penumbra directory, I added a folder structure that houses configurations - both default and modded. A concept I have for down the line, is to be able to install configurations through some means...but that's nebulously down the line, somewhere. The here and now is what concerns me more.

I was able to find the configuration setting for Max Mass thanks to Batavium over on the Fixing StarMade's Play Value thread. Shortly after this, I was able to commit up some modded settings to the GitHub.

I need to test these settings, though, as to this point, I've been developing the framework using stock StarMade configurations. It has to pass the "Me" test, before it passes the "Poor unfortunate souls who get to alpha this thing" test. This is definitely happening this week (probably tomorrow, actually.)

Stations "2.0"
In my last posts, I've expressed frustration with my custom faction stations. This week, I got started with fixing that.

The first thing I worked on is a new, smaller, more vulnerable Coalition station, the Type A Station.

The Valron Empire will have a similar station built for it this week as well. The station itself is about 800 mass, but has full industrial facilities, as well as medbays, undeathinators, a single shipyard, and two protective turrets. I think this will be sufficient to be a safe place for players in the early iterations of the mod/server.

I feel a lot better about the new Coalition station, and think this is a better path for the Valron station too. It seems like Shipyards in particular are very power-hungry. Still, this sort of thing is what I enjoy about engineering in general - trying stuff, seeing what works, and refining the design. Yeah, the hiccups can be annoying, but when there are elated reactions from players of this server/mod, it'll all be worth it.

When are Beta Happen?
As noted above, I have not yet deployed the mod to Tunk's server, or let anyone beta test, due to the state of the mod. The first step to changing that happens tomorrow, when I actually test the full mod - configurations, content, backend - in tandem. I'm expecting to find issues, so I plan to devote this week to fixing those issues. Further, I need to get the Valron station in the game as well.

After that's done - assuming this doesn't take the entire week to accomplish, and assuming nothing else gets in the way - there's some ships I need to re-evaluate. Some of the Coalition designs have problems, and the Valron heavy ship actually has a weapon that in practice will never get used. These are things I can fix, and due to the scaled-down size, relatively quickly.

After that, Tunk will get a zip file with the entire mod setup on it, and he'll install it on the server and grant me permissions. From there, people will get whitelisted and I'll take about a week to see how things go.

Conclusion
Making a mod is hard work, but I made some small progress this past week. There's a lot of work yet to be done, the mod is nowhere near done, or ready for the public at large. Nonetheless, it is taking shape. I'm looking foward (sort of) to the whitelist alpha test of the most basic features, so I know what's needed. And, as always, I thank each of you for your feedback, ideas, and well-wishes on this mod. I couldn't do it without y'all, and knowing you all are backing this project keeps me working on bringing it to fruition.

Thank you all, and see you next week!

 

[Asvarduil]

...And the Valron counterpart, the Type A Post.



If it seems similar? Well, there's level design reasons for that.

First, note the white lights. Part of level design is establishing a visual language. While most Valron structures use red lighting, that's only when there's a PvE objective (or the ship is hijackable, either or.) In the case of these basic stations with no PvE objectives, I use white lighting, signifying that these stations are ultimately neutral to the player. Sure, a Coalition player may want to shoot up a Valron base, or vice versa, but in the end, there's no reason to linger.

Next, the layout is similar, with the lower deck being industrial, the aft having the power system, and the top level having medbays. This too is intentional; not only does it help me design these bases, but it lets players who change factions (or roll a new character on a different faction) be more easily able to navigate.

Further, if the mod has a narrative theme, it's "We're not really so different after all." The Valron are a lot like humans at our most imperialistic. The Valron just have this 'survival of the fittest' attitude that the Coalition disagrees with. Both factions are up to No Good™ with the other, and have their warts. In the end, if these two would stop fighting for long enough to let some smart soul from each study the other...they'd realize they have more in common than they think, and could be more effective working in tandem.

Still, that's the easy part for this week. Configuring StarMade, MicroMade, my custom content, and a partridge in a pear tree comes next. Wheeeeeee!~

 

[Jojomo]

Will there be any station mass limits Asvarduil?

 

[Asvarduil]

Jojomo - I'm going with 10,000 mass limit on stations in the early iterations. This is entirely negotiable, however - stations tend to be built less frequently than starships.

 

[Gasboy]

I've a question. How do you measure cargo ships?

If I build a cargo ship 100 mass or less, but make it so that you can attach cargo pods to it, does it become illegal for your server?

 

[Asvarduil]

I've a question. How do you measure cargo ships?

If I build a cargo ship 100 mass or less, but make it so that you can attach cargo pods to it, does it become illegal for your server?

So, the way I'm implementing the mass limit is through a GameConfig.xml setting. Pretty much, if you build a cargo ship that's sub-100 mass, and attach, say, a 10-mass pod to it that bumps it over the limit, you won't be able to use the cargo ship, unless you manually detach the pod from the ship. This is something I believe StarMade already has implemented, so I don't necessarily have to write any new code.

Also, it's not 'illegal' per se, just prohibited by the game mechanics. It's not like the FBI is going to raid you for having a 110 mass ship on MicroMade.

...As far as you know...

 

[Gasboy]

So, the way I'm implementing the mass limit is through a GameConfig.xml setting. Pretty much, if you build a cargo ship that's sub-100 mass, and attach, say, a 10-mass pod to it that bumps it over the limit, you won't be able to use the cargo ship, unless you manually detach the pod from the ship. This is something I believe StarMade already has implemented, so I don't necessarily have to write any new code.

Also, it's not 'illegal' per se, just prohibited by the game mechanics. It's not like the FBI is going to raid you for having a 110 mass ship on MicroMade.

...As far as you know...

Well, illegal according to the rules you have implemented. :P

 

[Asvarduil]

Week 7 - Mostly, out sick.

 

[Asvarduil]

Week 8 - "Cough, cough, code code"
This week, I'm doing better, but another in my household caught what I brought home. Joy! At least I got to do some minor work on MicroMade.

New Admin Commands:
!REMOVESHIP [ShipName] - Removes all ships that start with ShipName. /despawn_all is useful, but cumbersome.

Configuration and Testing
Thanks to Batavium (again), I was able to get some configuration for MicroMade done. Specifically, I've been able to play the game with my custom stations and ships, as well as my custom configuration options. I still have work to do this week, as the settings and my custom content aren't quite sufficient.

First, the bigger sector sizes do help with combat slightly, but I'm probably going to have to expand them more. Next, I haven't tweaked weapons yet, so that's also got to happen. My faction ships have some oddities in their setup that I don't really want happening - that's something else to fix.

Another thing - I goofed on the stations. My Valron station could have its doors opened by pressing R on the correct door tile. My Coalition station was impervious to attempts by non-faction guests to get in at all. I was able to solve these issues by changing the airlocks to be functional to the public (with some very minor logic), and I was able to ensure that the stations key facilities are publicly accessible.

A Mind for Miners
Speaking of miners, I've created mining ships for each faction! Both have interiors with a gravity generator, as well as storage linked to the twin mining computers. I'll put screenshots below this.



Quest System
One other thing that I've been touching on this week, is the Quest System for iteration two. For those who follow my GitHub repository for the mod, you'll have seen a commit with the skeletons of the quest system getting in. Right now, there are no hooks to this subsystem, it's inert code. That being said, these are my initial 'chicken scratches' that I'll be starting with as I design the system and start getting it into the mod.

Conclusion
It was good to work on the mod again this week. I got some good work done. I think I'll be back on track for a closed beta after this week is done, assuming nothing else squirrely happens in my household. Thank you all for your support, and I hope I can get the mod to y'all soon!

 

[jayman38]

I'm looking forward to it. I hope you are feeling a lot better and that the family is on the mend. These latest updates look great.

 

[Asvarduil]

Week 9 - "There's no 'me' in 'Item', but there is an I"
First, it's my birthday today! I'm a year older, but probably no wiser. Anyways, I've been able to do a little work on the mod this week, focusing mostly on items, how to make them, and what they cost.

Messin' With Items
The main thing I've been doing this week, is figuring out how to mod blocks. It turns out, that since I'm not adding new blocks (yet), I can mostly get away with just messing with the BlockConfig.xml.

In this file, I'll be keeping a running log of everything that is changed from the vanilla block configuration. You'll notice some differences right away.

First, Basic Rails, Rail Dockers, and Turret Bases no longer require special ores. This is because the Rails system is very integral to the game - rails let you make everything from automated doors, to securing ships to your home base.

Next - Medical supplies now have a very different cost. One thing I've wanted to see for a while now are flora used in recipes. Medical Supplies are also used to make Undeathinators, so exploring planets and farming plants is actually important. I'm thinking that I need to drop the Berry Bush as an ingredient in hindsight, though, as they're only found on Blue, Earthlike worlds, which are notoriously rare. I'd probably replace them with Water, which is refined from Ice, if anything.

I had other concepts I wanted to explore that at this time don't appear feasible. One thing I'd love to do are 'Mark II' weapons, which are more powerful, and require more power than their basic counterparts, but can only have up to a certain number mounted on a ship at once. It appears all block limits are implemented directly in game code, though, so unless either Schine changes the implementation, or I get uppity and reverse-engineer the game code, that's probably not happening.

I'm open to suggestions on block changes. I think there's a lot of room in the game to make the act of getting blocks lead to more interesting things players can do. Definitely feel free to let me know about some of your ideas.

Playtesting
While making my block changes, I've done some playtesting. While I'm wanting to give this to closed beta-ers, it's still not right.

Part of the problem I'm seeing, is how players start the game. You start off at 2,2,2 at a station. My concept is to start players with nothing but a marker, healing beam, and pistol. What I need in order for the game to be generally better, is a way to get players away from 2,2,2. I have a few ideas on how to accomplish this.

One thing I'm considering, is the default station at 2,2,2 being a massive, neutral hub station. A new player would immediately start a quest, which would involve A) stating how they want to play the game, and B) taking them to a random sector with resources to start off.

Another thing I'm considering is figuring out how I would go about spawning a player on a random planet. Since planets can be bases, this would be a good way to ensure players have something to do to start with. What's more, much like MineCraft, a player could start building useful things right away.

Definitely something I want to do, is to give players the option to align with either the Valron Empire or Coalition of Systems. Doing that would have an immediate, practical reward - a noob starship equipped with a jump drive and minimal defenses. This is something I feel is important, but I'm not sure how to work it in. Maybe new players start in a contained area that require them to state their allegiance, and stating their allegiance teleports them to the home base of the faction in question?

This is another point I'd like to draw suggestions. I'm sure people have feelings on how players start the game, so I'd really like to know what you'd like to see. I think the current way of starting the game is simply not fun enough. I want to invest players in the scenario of the mod/server from the moment they're spawned in, if possible. Please, let me know what you think.

Conclusion
I've had a busy week, but I've made some useful progress. However, I'm at an impasse with making the game more playable. This is something you all, with your insights and feelings, can really assist with. Please, let me know how you'd like the game to start, and let me know if there's anything useful I could do with blocks to make the game more fun.

I thank you all for your attention, and the well-wishes regarding my family situation. It's been an interesting week; the afflicted person in my family might have fluid on their lungs (!!!), so I'm pretty sure that's going to limit what I can do next week. Regardless, I couldn't do what I am doing, without you all. Thank you.