Read by Schine Mobile Shipyards (shipyards on ships)

[Zaphord]

I read these posts and keep think of the "La Vie en Rose" from the Gundam series (UC series) which was a mobile repair ship.

Mind you, it wasn't able to construct a ship but was able to fully repair a ship in remote locations while it remained parked itself. Maybe having mobile shipyards have to remain still while using the shipyard facilities would be a solution?

 

[Blaza612]

I read these posts and keep think of the "La Vie en Rose" from the Gundam series (UC series) which was a mobile repair ship.

Mind you, it wasn't able to construct a ship but was able to fully repair a ship in remote locations while it remained parked itself. Maybe having mobile shipyards have to remain still while using the shipyard facilities would be a solution?

Shipyards requiring to stop, maybe. But still going creeping upon the line of too restrictive. I'm not too sure on this one, might be best for other people's input.

 

[Zaphord]

Shipyards requiring to stop, maybe. But still going creeping upon the line of too restrictive. I'm not too sure on this one, might be best for other people's input.

Just going by what I think would work. I'd imagine that activating a fully functional shipyard on a ship would disable the thrusters so nothing would get damaged while in transit.

That and the way ships docked on la vie en rose was from the front facing towards the ship. So that might be the reason it remained parked during the repair cycle.

 

[Parameter]

Instead of just adding an arbitrary requirement like "Ships can't move while using shipyards," how about the idea that shipyards are expensive to operate? In order to keep ship size down for a given sized shipyard, you'd probably turn off most power-consuming systems to run it.

An example:
Let's say Schine changes the power consumption of shipyards. Now shipyards require power according to the following formula:

PowConsump = 50000+(2000*SumOfBoxDims*(2-(SumOfBoxDims/(10*SumOfBoxDims^0.7)))

For some sample shipyard sizes:

• A shipyard sized 3x3x7 (nano drones) would cost ~100,000 e/sec
• A shipyard sized 10x20x30 (small fighters/drones) would cost ~250,000 e/sec
• A shipyard sized 100x200x300 (frigates) would cost ~1,650,000 e/sec
• A shipyard sized 1000x2000x3000 (big ships) would cost 7,750,000 e/sec

A ship could have a shipyard roughly its size and run it, but it would take almost all of its power. Stations could stack power generation and easily run shipyards of sorts of sizes.

If you don't like the specific curve here, you could easily tweak a few parameters to get the kind of progression you want. Just an example.

 

[Blaza612]

Instead of just adding an arbitrary requirement like "Ships can't move while using shipyards," how about the idea that shipyards are expensive to operate? In order to keep ship size down for a given sized shipyard, you'd probably turn off most power-consuming systems to run it.

An example:
Let's say Schine changes the power consumption of shipyards. Now shipyards require power according to the following formula:

That'd work similar to the fact that the shipyard would have to compensate for the movement, similar to the factory idea. I like it. :P

 

[Parameter]

That'd work similar to the fact that the shipyard would have to compensate for the movement, similar to the factory idea. I like it. :p

Accidentally posted too soon, I'm going to edit the post with the full contents in a sec

 

[Blaza612]

Accidentally posted too soon, I'm going to edit the post with the full contents in a sec

Not entirely sure frigates should cost more than a million, unless of course if the soft cap for capital ships is increased significantly (which I expect it to be)

 

[En_Dotter]

I havent really read all the 7 pages but id like share my view. If someone else wrote the same/similar i apologize.

I would like to mobile shipyards with severe limitations. For example i would like to have a big capitol ship that can produce smaller ones. So basically i would say that the shipyard cant make bigger ships than the certain percentage of the main ship's size. For example if u have a ship that is 200x50x20 (x,y,z) you could be able to construct ships that are 40x10x4. This example takes max size to be 20% of main ship's size. Ofc, this is an example and numbers should be subject to change. But if u really have a large ship, say carrier, why not make it capable of producing smaller ships?
This would also need additional limitations for this to work. I dont know if this is planned or not, but certain ship size shouldnt be possible to construct without a shipyard (u cant enter build mode and construct a large ship). But that makes the problem of making the blueprint to start with. I have an idea how to overcome this problem as well, but i suppose i should open a new thread and explain it.

 

[whooplaah]

There was a misunderstanding somewhere. In earth's actual, real-life history nomads don't farm, mine, or have factories. The closest you get is with Native Americans who would sew seed, leave, and come back during the harvest - and any farmer will tell you that is horribly inefficient.

My point was to illustrate that nomadic communities are productively and technologically inferior to settled communities. Obviously Sci-Fi can have whatever it wants - that's the fiction angle. Even so, no where are nomads equal to settled communities.

I added emphasis to these quotes:

The USCSS Nostromo (reg. 180924609) was a $42 billion (and adjusted) mining vessel owned by the Weyland-YutaniCorporation, a Lockmart CM 88B Bison M-Class starfreighter used as a commercial hauler between Thedus andEarth. The Nostromo was 243.8 meters in length, 164.6 meters wide and 72.5 meters in height. It also carried (or rather pulled) a massive refinery behind it for processing ore on the long trip to Earth.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek):

The technology is also used for producing spare parts, which makes it possible to repair most ship damage without having to return to a starbase.

Nomads are not as efficient as settled civilizations. In both of your examples this holds true. Processing ore is nowhere near as complex as constructing an inter-stellar vessel. Repairing a ship still requires help in some situations, ergo, the Enterprise and it's replicators would be unable to construct a second (smaller) enterprise. In some way a nomad will require and depend upon a settled, stable, and more developed community.

I don't think anyone in the thread is still arguing that nomads should not have production. The discussion has moved more towards how nomadic production will compare to settled production.

 

[Drakkart]

i am totally for the idea that everything that is possible in the game should not be limited to neither planet station or ship with the one exception of declaring a refugee place aka homebase. wouldn't make sense to have flying homebases which can cause havok but are untouchable.

Where is the balance issue? i don't see it with ships building ships or building torpedos to launch them rinse and repeat...
Tht would actually make warheads usefull trade ressources against firepower great concept! now when npc factions also would use up stuff players can harvest like ressources we are getting closer to establishing a real economy... no issue with that.

 

[Parameter]

There was a misunderstanding somewhere. In earth's actual, real-life history nomads don't farm, mine, or have factories. The closest you get is with Native Americans who would sew seed, leave, and come back during the harvest - and any farmer will tell you that is horribly inefficient.

My point was to illustrate that nomadic communities are productively and technologically inferior to settled communities. Obviously Sci-Fi can have whatever it wants - that's the fiction angle. Even so, no where are nomads equal to settled communities
...
<SNIP>
...
In some way a nomad will require and depend upon a settled, stable, and more developed community.

I'm not really seeing where you're going with this line of thought. Sure, ancient nomadic people were less productive than settled people. The means of production historical has been large, heavy, and logistically difficult to transport, let alone set up and use while being carted around. In Starmade, however, this isn't the case. An entire factory fits into a meter cube. That cube does its thing whether its on a planet, on a station, on a 1 meter cube asteroid being push-beamed through space at max speed. Where ever the factory is, it's happily chugging along, making stuff. Additionally, in Starmade I can extract any raw material I would need using a hand-held ray gun and stuff it in my pocket to use later. Heck, my astronaut suit has the ability to turn rocks into the aforementioned high-tech superfactory.

In this environment, There's no large infrastructure needed to procure raw materials or process them into finished goods. I can literally carry the means of production around with in my spaceship. In this environment with the level of technology shown, there's no reason I couldn't go and live out my days as a hermit on a mobile asteroid and fashion everything I need for my own existence, never visiting a shop again. In fact, I did this in Starmade, when I was starting out. I don't think an argument about comparatively primitive people helps to inform decisions about society's capabilities in a high-tech science fiction setting. That's why I responded with the science fiction references to refute your earlier post's claims. Maybe I'm missing something.

I think I've pretty thoroughly said my piece about balancing mobile shipyards, and mobile production in general. I think the best approach is to keep mobile technology functionally the same, and let the resource balance between stations and ships naturally limit the scale and means of mobile production.

From a game balance standpoint (not a setting standpoint), do you think there is something about on-ship shipyards or production that would require a more restrictive approach to balance them versus stations, planets, and asteroids?

 

[whooplaah]

From a game balance standpoint (not a setting standpoint), do you think there is something about on-ship shipyards or production that would require a more restrictive approach to balance them versus stations, planets, and asteroids?

Yes.

A station does not have mobility, and this makes it vulnerable for several reasons.
1) It runs the risk of resource depletion.
Unless we can magically regenerate planets or asteroids, a station will eventually run out of materials. This doesn't happen often, but is still a looming threat for long-term servers. A station will eventually have to rely only upon trade stations or player trade.

2) It is strategically disadvantaged.
A station cannot hide. Once it is found it will always be in the same area. This means that enemy factions can plan assaults, coordinate attacks, and form blockades. It cannot benefit from cloaking the same way that a ship can - the station may not be on the HUD but it is still in the same spot. A station can't be cloaked off of the galaxy map (that I am aware of).

3) It has combat disadvantage.
When a station is in combat, it cannot move to avoid incoming fire, regardless of how slow. Dumb-fire missiles and warheads are super effective against a stationary target. A station also runs the risk of developing blind spots - if an attacker takes out a couple of turrets then they can camp in one area where the station cannot defend itself at all.

4) It relies upon traffic to remain functional.
A station does not directly mine an asteroid or planet. It must have smaller vessels obtain ores and deliver them. This means that there is a delay between need and acquisition as ships are mobilized and sent out. There is another delay between acquisition and use as the ships fly back to the station.

A station has one advantage over ships: 1 construction per faction can be made invulnerable. But we should keep in mind that the ships traveling to and from the station are not invulnerable, so an invulnerable station can still be affected by a blockade (or an enemy who is spawn-camping). If you destroy ships that go to a station then ships are discouraged from going there; the station sees less trade; the station become irrelevant; the station is abandoned. Invulnerability is not truly unbeatable.



If we put everything a station can do on a ship we have give the ship 4 huge advantages over a stationary facility.

I applogize. All these points I've made to another person earlier in the thread, so I had assumed you'd read these. I was talking about nomads and earth history because a couple of people wanted me to justify my suggestions beyond "arbitrary decisions against nomads."

 

[Parameter]

Yes.

A station does not have mobility, and this makes it vulnerable for several reasons.
1) It runs the risk of resource depletion.
Unless we can magically regenerate planets or asteroids, a station will eventually run out of materials. This doesn't happen often, but is still a looming threat for long-term servers. A station will eventually have to rely only upon trade stations or player trade.

2) It is strategically disadvantaged.
A station cannot hide. Once it is found it will always be in the same area. This means that enemy factions can plan assaults, coordinate attacks, and form blockades. It cannot benefit from cloaking the same way that a ship can - the station may not be on the HUD but it is still in the same spot. A station can't be cloaked off of the galaxy map (that I am aware of).

3) It has combat disadvantage.
When a station is in combat, it cannot move to avoid incoming fire, regardless of how slow. Dumb-fire missiles and warheads are super effective against a stationary target. A station also runs the risk of developing blind spots - if an attacker takes out a couple of turrets then they can camp in one area where the station cannot defend itself at all.

4) It relies upon traffic to remain functional.
A station does not directly mine an asteroid or planet. It must have smaller vessels obtain ores and deliver them. This means that there is a delay between need and acquisition as ships are mobilized and sent out. There is another delay between acquisition and use as the ships fly back to the station.

A station has one advantage over ships: 1 construction per faction can be made invulnerable. But we should keep in mind that the ships traveling to and from the station are not invulnerable, so an invulnerable station can still be affected by a blockade (or an enemy who is spawn-camping). If you destroy ships that go to a station then ships are discouraged from going there; the station sees less trade; the station become irrelevant; the station is abandoned. Invulnerability is not truly unbeatable.



If we put everything a station can do on a ship we have give the ship 4 huge advantages over a stationary facility.

I applogize. All these points I've made to another person earlier in the thread, so I had assumed you'd read these. I was talking about nomads and earth history because a couple of people wanted me to justify my suggestions beyond "arbitrary decisions against nomads."

I agree with the points you've outlined about station weaknesses. In general, they don't provide any significant advantages for the cost to build and maintain them. I've outlined similar issues myself in this thread and others. However, I don't think that no production or limited production on ships balances those problems with stations, either.

1. I think in practice what happens when resources are depleted is not player trade, but player relocation. I'm not going to stop mining resources if my system gets depleted - I'm going to move to where resources are more rich. If that's far away from my station, then I'll disassemble it and rebuild it elsewhere. If my station has too much personal value for me to disassemble it, then I'll leave it, but set up some factories on a nearby planet or asteroid while I'm mining far off. There's no reason for me to ferry resources home to my station factories if its reasonably far off - my understanding is the factories won't tick if there's noone nearby. I don't feel like babysitting my production instead of playing the game. Having factories on-ship in this case just saves me some tedium. I think tedium should be removed where possible, not be a core tenet of gameplay or game balance.
2. While stations are strategically disadvantaged, ships are tactically disadvantaged. If I've devoted ship capacity to onboard production, then, just like a mining ship, I'm less effective in combat. I'm unlikely to have as many shields as a station on my ship, so I'm more vulnerable to alpha strikes. I can't field as many turrets, so I'm more easily overcome by missiles or multiple attackers. That's a bit besides the point though. The argument seems to be that fixed production should be used to entice players to build these otherwise expensive and disadvantaged stations. If I'm worried about a station's strategic disadvantages, why build one? Why not just plop my factories down anonymously inside an asteroid or planet? This is the real problem with station balance - that stations don't have anything that makes them intrinsically useful to the player. Limits to mobile production don't address this, they just bandaid a symptom of this underlying imbalance.
3. Another problems with station balance specifically, not production. Again, limits to mobile production don't address this, they just bandaid a symptom of this underlying imbalance. Why should I spend a bunch of time and effort building something which is a giant indefensible target? I'll just make my free invulnerable station big and pretty for RP, and have small, covert planetside or asteroid-buried facilities instead, thank you.
4. Are you arguing that the travel time delay between mining and production is in some way beneficial or required for game balance? Should mobile production be penalized so that players must spend time doing nothing while factories produce, whether that's waiting for a ship to convert to "factory mode" or traveling back to a station? If so, no thanks, I disagree that idling in space should be a desired end-state for Starmade game balance. Waiting on something is fine in a game, but you need to give players something to engage them in the interim besides a moving progress bar.

Your argument kind of changed into a ship versus station argument, instead of a fixed vs. mobile production one. I don't believe that mobile production takes anything away from stations. If fixed production is the only thing making stations viable, then there is a far larger issue with station viability that Schine should balance apart from production capabilities. Saying "You can't have a cool new toy because it makes this other broken toy look bad" isn't a good approach to balance, IMO. I would much rather say "Here's a cool toy that does some of the things your broken toy does. Also, we're fixing your broken toy. Now you have two ways of doing this thing you like to do."

 

[spunkiethefirst]

I think op should lock this thread take the main ideas and open a thread labeled
Mobile Shipyards (shipyards on ships) Part 2
then have a multi-poll (survey?) as opposed to vote for one so you can click on the ideas you agree with.

example:

Should ships be able to have shipyards?

• no
• yes

Should ship based shipyards have restrictions?

• no
  
• yes

What restrictions should be in place?

• limit by mass
  
• limit by dimensions
• limit number of entities ship based shipyard can produce
  
• limit build speed
• limit number of shipyards allowed on ship
• cost more resources to build ships ( such as every 4th block placed takes two blocks of that type, but places only one)
• limit mobility (reduced speed, reduced handling, can't move while shipyard is building, or can only move in straight line)
• reduced systems function (shields, power, generation, or capacity)
• limited to repair only
• ship loses jump capability
• ship loses ability to dock to other ships/stations
• no cloak or jammer
• public visibility, its position is broadcasted to players within a certain distance, or it shows up on galactic map
• cost faction points to build in it (you still need the blocks)
• increase shipyard block mass

Would this be possible?

​

 

[Blaza612]

I think op should lock this thread take the main ideas and open a thread labeled
Mobile Shipyards (shipyards on ships) Part 2
then have a multi-poll (survey?) as opposed to vote for one so you can click on the ideas you agree with.

example:

Should ships be able to have shipyards?

• no
• yes

Should ship based shipyards have restrictions?

• no
  
• yes

What restrictions should be in place?

• limit by mass
  
• limit by dimensions
• limit number of entities ship based shipyard can produce
  
• limit build speed
• limit number of shipyards allowed on ship
• cost more resources to build ships ( such as every 4th block placed takes two blocks of that type, but places only one)
• limit mobility (reduced speed, reduced handling, can't move while shipyard is building, or can only move in straight line)
• reduced systems function (shields, power, generation, or capacity)
• limited to repair only
• ship loses jump capability
• ship loses ability to dock to other ships/stations
• no cloak or jammer
• public visibility, its position is broadcasted to players within a certain distance, or it shows up on galactic map
• cost faction points to build in it (you still need the blocks)
• increase shipyard block mass

Would this be possible?

​

Nyet

 

[lilheartless]

I've read every post in this thread, i've actually read most of them more than once during a couple different visits to this post in particular.

I've been hesitant to give my opinion on this matter because i only have about 300 hours into starmade and i'm still lacking game knowledge in certain areas.

It seems to me that most people aren't really opposed to the idea of mobile shipyards as they are afraid of them, I think there are a number of logistical concerns that people aren't taking into account when they are considering "mobile shipyards" and those are what I would like to address here.

I will attempt to address most of the problems that have been brought up along with proposed solutions / my own opinion on each matter because of the way I am formatting this some points may and most likely will overlap instead of referring i will just re list all points whenever they are applicable.

Things people are concerned about with mobile shipyards/factories​

1.

Spoiler: they would invalidate stations without heavy penalties

In the current state of the game this is incredibly true
as has been mentioned earlier in this thread there are actually no bonuses to having a space station except for the fact that there are certain blocks that can only be placed on stations which is quite frankly in a sci fi environment poor design.

My opinion, stations in the future will hopefully have "added value" what I mean by this is that stations will get bonuses over whatever value ships will get with the same equipment, In most science fiction genres the benefits or rather what stations are is well big, REALLY REALLY big, I mean massive huge so huge in fact that hundreds of thousands of people can live on them and be supported by them as well as having ship maintenance areas, food production, energy production, defense systems much bigger than seen on any ship.

In starmade there isn't really any way to emulate this since size is literally no limiting factor you can make any station or any ship as big as you want, so lil whats ur point you literally just said that stations in starmade have no point / no benefit, ur right I did say that and that, is the problem right now aside from some arbitrary law handed down by those above stations only have benefit because they are the only user made structure that can house factories, gates, and shipyards.

How to fix this problem​

Stations need actual benefit and because none of the "pseudo real life benefits" can realistically apply in starmade stations need actual hard coded statistical benefits instead, these include higher natural power gen caps, probably along the lines of 4 - 5x the soft cap and increased range, damage, and efficiency for weapons to emulate the fact that a station would have bigger/could have bigger guns than that of any mobile craft of equal size ( in game ) cause like i said stations actually would be much larger than ships there just is no point to doing so and as it stands right now large stations actually just suffer from having more blindspots / having unmanageable power consumption. ( Shields I think are mostly balanced and don't need a distinct difference between ships and stations)

2.

Spoiler: Mobile shipyards would imbalance combat

​

Well people like to abuse the system, its human nature to do everything in our power to get ahead, get a leg up, push every advantage and in the current starmade system mobile shipyards would greatly imbalance combat why wouldn't you just make a giant doom cube filled with only 10 30x30x30 shipyards that shoot out one drone per second and then launch them into space and have the rest of the ship made out shields, power, and thrusters.

Well the short answer is, you wouldn't this would absolutely be the best possible way to fight someone, blow up a station or generally cause mayham cause whoever can bring the most guns wins and if you can make unlimited guns instantly thats pretty much the definition of winning.

My opinion, as it stands right now this is actually a big concern of mine and in the current system I don't think mobile shipyards are something that should / can be implemented without a large amount of abuse but that is going to change.

How to fix this problem​

1. I like parameter's base idea however i'd like to make one change instead of shipyards costing x(energy) per block of shipyard space i'd rather shipyards costed energy per block placed at a time with the config in the shipyard computer something like shipyard cost 200000e/s to turn on and 20000e/s per block (diminishing to about 5000e/s per block over about 100 or so blocks/s) placed this would do 2 things it would allow for mobile shipyards of ANY size while prohibiting instant repair of large ships during combat and would also prohibit running 10x little shipyards churning out tons of drones/s .

2. Shipyards should be limited to 3 maybe 4 shipyards per Host entity ( this area is debatable but my reasoning is that this would limit you from having more than 3 shipyards on a ship if you wanted it to be dockable for repairs) aka the station you go to has 2 Medium speed shipyards you cannot dock your 3 shipyard mobile construction platform to it because 2 + 3 exceeds the 4 shipyard limit of the host entity

3. With the not yet implemented cargo system and stack limits its quite possible that each "storage block" will only be able to hold 100000(random made up number could be more could be less) units of materials this means that sure your SUPER OMEGA FLYING SHIPYARD OF DOOM could indeed carry the resources to pump out 300k block ships albeit at the cost of 3 storage blocks per ship you wanted to build but combined with the energy consumption of the shipyards it just wouldn't be feasible to churn them out at any kind of combat efficient speed, but it would be possible to dock damage ships to the shipyards replace the pieces that they are missing and have them on their way again with a little time.

4. And finally I think people are failing to grasp the significance of dedicated space shipyards take up shipyards are basically the equivalent of functional rp space, if your titan has a 100x100x100 shipyard then yeah you have the ability to make ships and repair ships but for that you give up 1000000(1million) blocks worth of system space thats alot of dedicated space to being able to fix things as we have already established that the energy costs would be too exorbitant to make large ships during combat (if the reason you want ship based shipyards is so you can pump out 25k mass ships every 5 seconds at ur enemies station you are the reason everyone else doesn't want shipyards on ships and i don't really care if thats how you want to play its just not gunna happen).
​

​

3.

Spoiler: Mobile Factories and why they don't matter

So this hasn't really been talked about much and i don't think I need to go into to much detail on this but mass = slow with the cargo system overhaul its been talked about that stored items mass will be taken into account on the host entity I feel this is pretty self explanatory but I will talk about it just a little bit.

There really is no reason that you should not be able to refine the materials you mine on your ship there really isnt without a shipyard you can't do anything with them and all it does is save you some time while you are flying too / from your station

1. with the new cargo system comes stack limits which means extra space
2. with the new cargo system comes mass which means slower ship
3. factories take up alot of space already a factory on a ship means less shields,guns,salvagers,storage,power, whatever you have less to save time
4. along with the added space requirement comes the added power requirement which means if your producing you are shooting less regenerating less shields salvaging less materials

there are literally only drawbacks to having a factory on a ship the only thing it saves you is time standing in front of your factories on your station so while you might not have quite as much downtime doing nothing your uptime is worth less with the same size ship people who are against this i'm just having an I can't even moment right now.

 

[whooplaah]

If fixed production is the only thing making stations viable, then there is a far larger issue with station viability that Schine should balance apart from production capabilities.

That really is the core of this discussion. If ships (mobile production facilities) can have jump gates and factories that are as efficient as stations (non-mobile production facilities) of equal size then there is no reason to build a station.

You do bring up a good point, though. Perhaps there are other game features that could be added specifically for stations to keep them relevant. I mentioned some ideas a few pages back, but I'm curious what your suggestions would be.

 

[max stripe]

That really is the core of this discussion. If ships (mobile production facilities) can have jump gates and factories that are as efficient as stations (non-mobile production facilities) of equal size then there is no reason to build a station.

You do bring up a good point, though. Perhaps there are other game features that could be added specifically for stations to keep them relevant. I mentioned some ideas a few pages back, but I'm curious what your suggestions would be.

there is reason... stations are the one things that can be invulnerable

 

[kiraen]

there is reason... stations are the one things that can be invulnerable

Who cares? If my massive shipyard factory starts taking damage after all the shields I've put on it, I'll just trigger one of my 10 jump drives.

 

[lilheartless]

Who cares? If my massive shipyard factory starts taking damage after all the shields I've put on it, I'll just trigger one of my 10 jump drives.

well this doesn't really work anymore jump inhibitors just wreck small drives so if you jumped in with ur primary and they have an inhibitor chances are only your primary will get you out and if its not charged its gunna take a long time for you to jump