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Starmade is currently what I guess you'd call a building game. Currently, the base game is mainly focused on building starships. Yes you can fight with them, but there's not much motivation to do so besides "you can". More features and mechanics have been promised, but I thought I'd give my thoughts on how I personally, would imagine their implementation.
As of now, Starmade is in a bit of a trough. It's had its yogscast explosion, and has gone through it's exodus. People are starting to return with all the new features--- the game is starting to find its ground and forge its identity. With Voxel based space games popping up like geysers, it's important that starmade be able to not only develop a unique identity, but also a engaging one. No amount of uniqueness can save a game if at its core, it isn't fun to play.
Starmade at its present state, is a joy for builders, but it alienates a lot of the people who originally stumbled upon it--- survivors. People who like to manage crops, design irrigation systems, manage system consumption, storage, resource allocation. All of these problems, can be solved through planets.
Starmade needs more to bases than just being "The place you store your ships". It's a ridiculous idea. In any sci fi series, the ships protect the bases! Not the other way around. Bases need a purpose, a function, that's why I've built a "Proof of Concept" for some systems I'd like to see implemented.
I present, "Mars Base", based on concepts and ideas brought up for the Orion Mission.
Food
Yes, I know that food gets suggested over and over again, and I know the various pros and cons. Lots of people don't like food because mine craft's implementation leaves...more to be desired. The fact is, is that food is a great feature because not only is it A) essential to life, but B) something that can be fun to implement, if implemented properly.
The way I see it, Food management should work in stages.
First stage:
"Minecraft Stage" Rations, berries, Space Squid. The typical scrounge what you can eat. I see that realistically, you start off with a large amount of rations, because they are specifically developed, they last for long periods of time and need to only be eaten once or twice a day.
"Greenhouse" Like the picture, where farming can start to occur. On an earth planet, crops could be exposed to air. On a alien planet, an oxygen seal would be needed to grow crops. Artificial light could be used, however crops exposed to the sun (greenhouse) would grow faster.
"Replicator" Once you have gotten further along in the game, you can build Star Trek's Famous replicators. No more need to grow food! They use small amounts of energy on your ship to create food. Bonus, Because replicator food is created form energy, you only have to eat once every few days! These could be in the form of a single block, or maybe some sort of system (module with enhancers). Now, you don't need to farm to get food. Your advanced technology speaks for itself.
Bonus: This would give a reason to build a mess hall instead of just for RP!
Oxygen
Oxygen is essential to human life, simple as that. Possible inspiration for how oxygen could work comes from subnautica, maybe spawn with a small oxygen recycler so that once you build a small enclosed hut, you could set up an oxygen recycler and refill your tanks and take your helmet off. These blocks could be powered by power blocks. Like food there should be tiers. Optionally, there could be "Oxygen Tank" items which could be equipped, each improving on the last, with the final tier being pocket sized and able to last infinitely. Aditionally, Trees or plant life (such as the greenhouse) could provide for air as well, giving another reason for flora in ships and stations besides aesthetic purposes.
Fuel
I've heard that the developing team has no plans to make fuel a resource, which makes sense, as star made does not take place in our universe, we have magical meter wide blocks which seem to infinitely generate energy. Even though I had to build them because they look really cool and sci fi looking, I couldn't think of any realistic implementation of fuel that I could justify, so here are some fuel tanks just for fun.
Rovers
Rovers are something that are really not useful in any way right now, but could be VERY useful in the future. Assuming that planets continue to grow and get larger, Rovers could be a fast way to get around and transport things. For how rovers could be created, I was thinking that a similar system to the one used in the voxel game "Scrap mechanic" for how it could be done, it's very similar to Starmade's logic (linking blocks and rotator blocks", and could be very effectively adapted to work seamlessly and naturally in Starmade.
Resources
This is the final suggestion, and the one I am most supportive of. Why do people fight over any part of land? Resources. Every war is fought so that nations can maintain control over the lands they own, and gain new lands and resources that they don't. Unfortunately, unlike the real world, starmade does't have oil, so we have to go for the next closest thing, ore! Ore is arguably the most essential component of ship building, and is something that can be found everywhere. My suggestion, is to have certain or planets have rich ore deposits. You could hand mine it as normal, OR you could set up a mining drill! The drill wouldn't remove any blocks, but as long as it stayed there, it'd generate an endless stream of those blocks. The drill could be connected to a refinery and then on to the factory and boom! Automation at it's finest. This would be a GREAT way to implement farming in starmade, instead of farming food, you farm ore! this would be great, as it'd give you a REASON to control planets, for their resources! Planets with unusually large ore deposits could be sources of contention. The drill would require power in order to function, and would need to be hooked up to a storage block or refinery in order to work. A bonus of drills is that they could ocassionally recover "rare" drops such as rare ore or even relics or something, maybe schematics buried in the ground, you get the idea.
Here's my idea for how a drill could look and function.
It might also be worth saying that implementing solar panels in some way would be cool, but I don't really know exactly how I would work them in.
While I realize that any implementation of ideas such as these are far off, I thought it's good to at least put my ideas out there so they can be thrown against the wall. I can't wait for survival to be fun again!
As of now, Starmade is in a bit of a trough. It's had its yogscast explosion, and has gone through it's exodus. People are starting to return with all the new features--- the game is starting to find its ground and forge its identity. With Voxel based space games popping up like geysers, it's important that starmade be able to not only develop a unique identity, but also a engaging one. No amount of uniqueness can save a game if at its core, it isn't fun to play.
Starmade at its present state, is a joy for builders, but it alienates a lot of the people who originally stumbled upon it--- survivors. People who like to manage crops, design irrigation systems, manage system consumption, storage, resource allocation. All of these problems, can be solved through planets.
Starmade needs more to bases than just being "The place you store your ships". It's a ridiculous idea. In any sci fi series, the ships protect the bases! Not the other way around. Bases need a purpose, a function, that's why I've built a "Proof of Concept" for some systems I'd like to see implemented.
I present, "Mars Base", based on concepts and ideas brought up for the Orion Mission.
Food
Yes, I know that food gets suggested over and over again, and I know the various pros and cons. Lots of people don't like food because mine craft's implementation leaves...more to be desired. The fact is, is that food is a great feature because not only is it A) essential to life, but B) something that can be fun to implement, if implemented properly.
The way I see it, Food management should work in stages.
First stage:
"Minecraft Stage" Rations, berries, Space Squid. The typical scrounge what you can eat. I see that realistically, you start off with a large amount of rations, because they are specifically developed, they last for long periods of time and need to only be eaten once or twice a day.
"Greenhouse" Like the picture, where farming can start to occur. On an earth planet, crops could be exposed to air. On a alien planet, an oxygen seal would be needed to grow crops. Artificial light could be used, however crops exposed to the sun (greenhouse) would grow faster.
"Replicator" Once you have gotten further along in the game, you can build Star Trek's Famous replicators. No more need to grow food! They use small amounts of energy on your ship to create food. Bonus, Because replicator food is created form energy, you only have to eat once every few days! These could be in the form of a single block, or maybe some sort of system (module with enhancers). Now, you don't need to farm to get food. Your advanced technology speaks for itself.
Bonus: This would give a reason to build a mess hall instead of just for RP!
Oxygen
Oxygen is essential to human life, simple as that. Possible inspiration for how oxygen could work comes from subnautica, maybe spawn with a small oxygen recycler so that once you build a small enclosed hut, you could set up an oxygen recycler and refill your tanks and take your helmet off. These blocks could be powered by power blocks. Like food there should be tiers. Optionally, there could be "Oxygen Tank" items which could be equipped, each improving on the last, with the final tier being pocket sized and able to last infinitely. Aditionally, Trees or plant life (such as the greenhouse) could provide for air as well, giving another reason for flora in ships and stations besides aesthetic purposes.
Fuel
I've heard that the developing team has no plans to make fuel a resource, which makes sense, as star made does not take place in our universe, we have magical meter wide blocks which seem to infinitely generate energy. Even though I had to build them because they look really cool and sci fi looking, I couldn't think of any realistic implementation of fuel that I could justify, so here are some fuel tanks just for fun.
Rovers
Rovers are something that are really not useful in any way right now, but could be VERY useful in the future. Assuming that planets continue to grow and get larger, Rovers could be a fast way to get around and transport things. For how rovers could be created, I was thinking that a similar system to the one used in the voxel game "Scrap mechanic" for how it could be done, it's very similar to Starmade's logic (linking blocks and rotator blocks", and could be very effectively adapted to work seamlessly and naturally in Starmade.
Resources
This is the final suggestion, and the one I am most supportive of. Why do people fight over any part of land? Resources. Every war is fought so that nations can maintain control over the lands they own, and gain new lands and resources that they don't. Unfortunately, unlike the real world, starmade does't have oil, so we have to go for the next closest thing, ore! Ore is arguably the most essential component of ship building, and is something that can be found everywhere. My suggestion, is to have certain or planets have rich ore deposits. You could hand mine it as normal, OR you could set up a mining drill! The drill wouldn't remove any blocks, but as long as it stayed there, it'd generate an endless stream of those blocks. The drill could be connected to a refinery and then on to the factory and boom! Automation at it's finest. This would be a GREAT way to implement farming in starmade, instead of farming food, you farm ore! this would be great, as it'd give you a REASON to control planets, for their resources! Planets with unusually large ore deposits could be sources of contention. The drill would require power in order to function, and would need to be hooked up to a storage block or refinery in order to work. A bonus of drills is that they could ocassionally recover "rare" drops such as rare ore or even relics or something, maybe schematics buried in the ground, you get the idea.
Here's my idea for how a drill could look and function.
It might also be worth saying that implementing solar panels in some way would be cool, but I don't really know exactly how I would work them in.
While I realize that any implementation of ideas such as these are far off, I thought it's good to at least put my ideas out there so they can be thrown against the wall. I can't wait for survival to be fun again!
