New Factories? Really?... Really?

[WesleyFromTX]

I had a long wordy post about the ridiculous nature of this new factory system but I accidently hit backspace and now its gone. I'll just post of summary of that post now...

Do you like playing loot-disabled servers? Do you like being able to manufacture things? Do you like things that make sense? Do you not enjoy going from shop to shop for hours on end looking for the things you need? Too bad, you've been given a nice, swift kick in the crotch. Enjoy.

That was the general message behind my first attempt. I'm sure those of you who know what I'm talking about can fill in the missing pieces.

 

[MrFURB]

I\'m not usually one to employ sarcasm in my responses to the community, as I am a Tester and one of the more active ones as far as chat and forums go, and I do respect your right to have an opinion... But...

Oh. no! The developer is changing something in a free alpha game! Obviously all the alerts, teasers, interviews, streamings, news articles, and various leaks by the Testers are doing absolutely nothing to help move this game forward, and as such any changes made by the developer automatically make no sense, because REASONS!

That felt good. But yeah, if people are going to freak out every time something changes, then they\'ve got a long road ahead of them.



Schema\'s vision is the first priority. This is Schema\'s project, perhaps it could even be his greatest achievment in his life. Schema usually works with others to think out ideas. Beetlebear, Omni, Calbiri, sometimes even me (Although not nearly enough XD) just to name a few. The Testers might have varied views on where to bring the game, but we do our best to help the game grow to it\'s fullest potential... While also considering many of the wonderful bug reports and suggestions our community graces us with.

Once the features planned for an update are put through rigorous bug testing to insure that they work on a more massive scale (We don\'t always catch everything, but you guys sure do. We\'re grateful for the bug reports, truly) we then release them (Usually after several different dev versions) to the public. The public continues the testing, although it usually take the shape of simply playing the game.

Starmade might occasionally feel like a stable/finished game, but it isn\'t. Dealing with changes to the game\'s very fundamentals is what happens in an alpha.

Likewise, an alpha community is the perfect place to get your voice heard if you have good ideas or legitimate complaints. Perhaps if you word your response more appropriately so it\'s implications are less \'I hate this change, change it back or I quit, this game sucks now!\' and more along the lines of \'It is my opinion that this change is wrong because of these reasons, here is a suggestion to change it for the better. Please discuss.\' then this thread should be more purposeful to the community.



Remember, the changes to the crafting system are only just beginning.

 

[Krazykat]

This guy is full of so much win

 

[Trawne]

I like you.

 

[TangentialThreat]

The old factory system somehow \"made sense\" to you with all those totally intuitive recipes? Enjoy... going from shop to shop... for hours? Bwahahaha.



You won\'t miss the old system for long.

 

[Krazykat]

I like you too . But seriously I kinda like the new system, creates a drive for more of a player-run economy

 

[TheOrigin]

I just learned the old crafting system yesterday - now i did apply the patch and i LOVE the new system. Its simple and it doesnt need huge production lines in order to produce a specific good.

 

[golem000]

I want to say that yes, I did enjoy the way the old system worked. I liked knowing that I needed x + y to make z. To me, it made sense. But thats fine, thats old news, we have a change.



Right away I attempted to jump into it. I went to a shop, and started buying recipes. The recipes I got left me scratching my head. I wanted to start with something simple, and something that I had a lot of. Grey hull. The first wasnt \"that bad\", but the next two required at least four different components, with one of them being red and yellow paint. I can get behind recipes being good and bad, but I had invisioned something more along the lines of each having two to three set components, with varying quantities of the required materials to denote how good or bad the recipe is. It just seems like such a complete random crap shoot with the current implementation.



Also, even though I know the cost can be changed by an adimn, I feel the starting buy cost of most recipes is too high. I should also mention that I play on an npc loot disabled server. With this new system, I can finally craft Power Tanks. Except I need ten thousand of them first. Thats going to be fairly hard to come by, considering most shops are bought out as soon as a player finds them. I understand the idea beind the \"purchase with the item\" concept, but ten thousand of an advanced module is something that someone who can already produce them would have laying around, not someone looking to get into building a new factory setup.

 

[MrFURB]

Thank you for your organized feedback. I\'ll bring that up with the other Testers,

 

[WesleyFromTX]

I could of sworn I clicked on \"General Discussion\" and not \"Suggestions\". I must be losing my mind. BTW, I have to thank you. Today I had the oppurtunity to refresh myself on the definition of the word: \"Sycophant\". New knowledge is always great. That felt good.

 

[Arg0n]

Game development can be a strange thing. Sometimes a change that makes the game worse can actually lead to better features later on. If you don\'t like a change, it\'s fine to say so, but do so in a constructive way and let the dev do what he feels is right for the game. If he\'s a good dev, he\'ll do that anyway. It\'s nice that more devs are paying attention to the fans, but sometimes I worry about games that change too much to appease a vocal minority. There has to be a balance, and I think it needs to favor the creator\'s vision more than the playerbase\'s whims.

 

[Solar]

...is that I now need 5,000 of an item to buy the recipe for it. If I have that many of an item, generally I have no interest in manufacturing more. The items that I want are the ones that I don\'t have a lot of.

The old system DID make a lot more sense and it was fun to throw stuff into it and have it make different things. I understand that the coding behind it as explained in the patch notes was cumbersome, but perhaps simplifying the recipes to be similar would be a good way to do things.

I do agree that some of the recipes in the old system were very intricate and complex, sometimes confusing... to the point I made a table with what X mineral turns in Y item to combine with another Y item to make Z... but it was fun to connect the tubes!

 

[Ludovsky]

Note the amount of items required can still be modified in server configs(and the default amount is still prone to be balanced out later on).

Also, I get the feeling looking at how things are(and even how things -were- setup due to the many factories required) that the devs -do- want starting player to depend more on shops and scavenging at first rather than crafting, and instead have crafting(especially with the randomized natures of recipes allowing two players to have different recipes for the same items) become a more advanced players/factions deal to go in the idea of a player-run economy and trading.

As said in the system, a player who get a recipe to make hull blocks from mere sand but do not have easy access to sand himself might find renewed interest in dealing with the faction who\'ve installed one of their faction blocks on a sand planet.

That \"you\" might not have need for crafting anymore when you reach the required amount of blocks does not neccessarily mean that others might not.

If factories can be added inside ships(rather than stations only) later on, I could see such designs as \"specialized crafting/refineries tradeship\" popping up in some of the larger servers, going from system to system to craft stuff for others.... at a price.

And ultimately this could perhaps even lead to the closest things players might be able to get in term of \"faction shipyards\".

Recall, a lot of this game\'s aspects seems to indicate gameplay which favor playing in multiplayer and especially in the players-run factions rather than playing purely alone.

 

[luckz]

That definition being \"person not stupid enough to write could of\"?

 

[Stakhanov]

The system looks both difficult to use for practical legit purposes , and easily abusable otherwise. Mostly you\'ll be forced to use material duplication to obtain enough blocks for recipes you want , if you don\'t then it may take forever to collect enough due to the default recipe cost. The prices for items are now completely unrelated to their actual worth , you can craft L5 ores with a few purple vines (first recipe I got) and use that for infinite money visiting a few shops.

 

[schema]

The system is still incomplete and rather crude. There is a lot of things planned to make recipes represent more what they are worth.

 

[Sortin]

There is a problem with getting factories to be truly necessary and useful. Ships are easily made with admin privileges offline, and imported to be bought online. So the recipes will only have value based on the relative profit, and not on what is made. If everything is meant to be junked at shops, I guess that\'s fine, but wouldn\'t it be better to encourage actual manufacturing from created blocks?
I know the price can be changed, but is that really a good thing when trying to evaluate the system? Like an adjustable speed limit, reception will likely depend on an adjustable setting.

And could we get a more secure trade mechanic, given that it\'s at least implied that we should be trading for goods?

 

[Florrible]

I think that also, to encourage manufacture, each recipe should have a little bonus. A very hard to complete recipe could have like +50% damage at weapons. Then the player would have to choose between easy to do or good result. Currently, I am just really annoyed when I get a recipe using like 5 hardened hull and also the very bad ones, noone is going to buy of you on multiplayer servers

 

[Dire Badger]

something tells me that this is the first step in an eve-style manufacturing/economy base