New Power DEV Thread

[Panpiper]

Disapointing thing (one of them) is that we're still piling up blocks upon blocks to get power. Still way too many cubes.... And those stabilizers mostly there to restrict size of builds/power...

Here's the thing. With the old power system, large ships could get away with simply stringing a few lines. Well built large ships would still do the 3D X thing, just because the extra efficiency was minusculely useful. Doing this took at most minutes and the power system was done. Smaller ships had to be more careful in order to get the most power, and getting good power required paying attention to how one "piled blocks", it was not 'simple'. There was a degree of skill in being able to efficiently string networks of lines together, and one had to pay attention. It was NOT 'simply' an exercise in "piling blocks".

Moreover there was the potential for a lot of thought and strategy using docked systems. I would frequently spend literally hours without even booting up the game, planning how to use turrets and the like so as to get the maximum power potential out of a ship. Again, that was too complicated. That was 'exploiting'. I saw it instead as the epitome of great game design. It was a system that even after two years of playing, I had in no way yet mastered.

I had grasped enough of the build system to build a miner and fight off Isanths within hours of my first game. But there was sufficient depth to explore in the build system that the exploring would last years. What they are building now is a build system that can be mastered in those first few hours, and then that is it! There will be no great depth to plumb, no 'exploits' to learn and perfect, no way to make your ship better than the newb cube, other than spend more time on pretty. To me, 'make pretty' is nothing more than a tedious exercise in piling blocks. I have ABSOLUTELY no desire to spend time with that.

The developers see a game with depth as being a bad thing. They want a simple system that WILL be an exercise in "piling blocks". They want to dumb it down, because apparently having a game that requires less skill and has greater tedium makes for a better game. Seriously, the ideal implementation of their current thinking would do away with blocks entirely except for the outer hull, and everything else should just be allocating a fixed number of points to a selection of choices in a menu. Virtually every other 4X Sci-Fi game has done just that sort of thing. The thing that made Starmade the exception, the depth of build strategy, is being tossed out.

 

[Lecic]

Moreover there was the potential for a lot of thought and strategy using docked systems. I would frequently spend literally hours without even booting up the game, planning how to use turrets and the like so as to get the maximum power potential out of a ship. Again, that was too complicated. That was 'exploiting'. I saw it instead as the epitome of great game design. It was a system that even after two years of playing, I had in no way yet mastered.

It was game breaking from both a balance and performance perspective. It was fun to mess around with it, but I won't miss it, and neither should you. A game cannot survive when all of its highest tier mechanics literally break clients and servers and force 99% of players out of the game because their machines are incapable of loading those 300+ entity monstrosities.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

It was game breaking from both a balance and performance perspective. It was fun to mess around with it, but I won't miss it, and neither should you. A game cannot survive when all of its highest tier mechanics literally break clients and servers and force 99% of players out of the game because their machines are incapable of loading those 300+ entity monstrosities.

This is why, no matter what system comes, I think it has to be linear. Non-linear growth just inherently means that either you need to make ships too big or too numerous (even with docked entities all sharing, it just comes down to spamming corvettes at a certain point because battleships would suck with capped power).

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

Here's the thing. With the old power system, large ships could get away with simply stringing a few lines. Well built large ships would still do the 3D X thing, just because the extra efficiency was minusculely useful. Doing this took at most minutes and the power system was done. Smaller ships had to be more careful in order to get the most power, and getting good power required paying attention to how one "piled blocks", it was not 'simple'. There was a degree of skill in being able to efficiently string networks of lines together, and one had to pay attention. It was NOT 'simply' an exercise in "piling blocks".

Moreover there was the potential for a lot of thought and strategy using docked systems. I would frequently spend literally hours without even booting up the game, planning how to use turrets and the like so as to get the maximum power potential out of a ship. Again, that was too complicated. That was 'exploiting'. I saw it instead as the epitome of great game design. It was a system that even after two years of playing, I had in no way yet mastered.

I had grasped enough of the build system to build a miner and fight off Isanths within hours of my first game. But there was sufficient depth to explore in the build system that the exploring would last years. What they are building now is a build system that can be mastered in those first few hours, and then that is it! There will be no great depth to plumb, no 'exploits' to learn and perfect, no way to make your ship better than the newb cube, other than spend more time on pretty. To me, 'make pretty' is nothing more than a tedious exercise in piling blocks. I have ABSOLUTELY no desire to spend time with that.

The developers see a game with depth as being a bad thing. They want a simple system that WILL be an exercise in "piling blocks". They want to dumb it down, because apparently having a game that requires less skill and has greater tedium makes for a better game. Seriously, the ideal implementation of their current thinking would do away with blocks entirely except for the outer hull, and everything else should just be allocating a fixed number of points to a selection of choices in a menu. Virtually every other 4X Sci-Fi game has done just that sort of thing. The thing that made Starmade the exception, the depth of build strategy, is being tossed out.

See that's what made the game fun for me. Creativity and engineering, coming up with a non-standard solution to fix a problem. Yes it requires intelligence of some degree. Yes, the average casual player might take one look and say "Ain't nobody got time for that!" But here's the thing - the players that DO have time for that, that WANT that challenge... they'll flock to a game that provides it. And they'll stick with it forever. Just look at EVE Online as an example. Ridiculously high learning curve, that game, enough to really disencourage all but the most hardcore of players. But those hardcore players have been running that game for YEARS. World of Warcraft is a simpler, more formulaic MMO, and while it reached tens of millions of subscribers at one point it has since steadily gone into decline, whereas EVE Online has been growing - albeit slowly - for over 15 years.

The thing about EVE is that it caters to the type of mindset that revolves around managing people. If you're someone who works in any sort of management capacity and enjoy that aspect of the job then the kind of social engineering required to be an elite player in the world of EVE is something that comes naturally to you. On the other hand, Starmade is about building, and creating, and coming up with ideas to make s**t work, to make it look cool or pretty, to live out your fantasy of flying a specific ship from a specific franchise.

What both games have in common is that depth and complexity of gameplay. Unfortunately it seems Starmade is willing to sacrifice that to appeal to a more casual player base, or so it seems at first. I don't know. I think part of it may be bitching by casual players about how elite PvP'ers are always finding new tricks to make their ships difficult to beat. However if they're doing it without outright cheating or using a known bug, that's not exploitation. That's innovation. I feel like if someone thinks a specific "exploit" used by other players is unfair, then they should learn how to use it. Find an enemy ship and capture it to take it apart and see what ticks. Or better yet, join a guild and have them show you the ropes.

TL;DR while I do think the power system should be simple in regards to implementation, and definitely needs to be altered such that less blocks are required to make a decently powered and armed ship, it also needs to have a depth of design.

I've seen a few people who liked my alternative method of bringing back heat as a negative factor regarding reactor size, and adding ways to mitigate that factor. The concept is simple - too little in the way of dispersing heat and heat builds up. Too much build up and reactor goes boom. Bigger reactor == faster heat buildup == more heat dispersal required == more radiator surfaces on the outside of the ship == more weak points. This gives an advantage to smaller ships in the sense that they don't generate as much heat, therefore less radiators are needed. It's a simple trade off in terms of power, size, and block count. However, the devil is in the design. You can put radiator blocks anywhere on the outside of the ship. Do you create "grates" consisting of lines of radiator blocks with armor overhanging them? How about a panel that is shielded during combat to the detriment of being non-functional while shielding? Where do you put these? For a fighter maybe on the wings? There are so many ways to implement this system even though the core idea is simple.


THAT's the sort of power system we need. Something that is simple and not time pr space consuming to implement, but designing it takes some thinking.

 

[Scypio]

This is why, no matter what system comes, I think it has to be linear. Non-linear growth just inherently means that either you need to make ships too big or too numerous (even with docked entities all sharing, it just comes down to spamming corvettes at a certain point because battleships would suck with capped power).

If everything is linear nothing will prevent me from building bigger than you, because linear means more blocs means more damage/shield/thrusts and so on.

I'll preach for my old argument and look like an old geezer but everything should be based on the same fomula and the same logarithmic curve with only base numbers as ways to balance everything. Not taking random numbers and formulas while hoping it'll work.

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

With nothing new (aside from bugfixing) happening in the dev builds right now, I wonder if they're actually working on the system internally now. Did they get enough feedback on the system and pulled out to really fix the system and make it better?

I could understand them backing out of the rapid release cycle on the dev builds to really make sure that they get the system tweaks done right. There is a lot of work to be done on the system still, considering some of the things in game that got broken or lost most of their functionality due to the power system changes (Turrets are unusable due to being locked into place, factories work very slowly due to not getting enough power to run), and other stuff is implemented on a surface level (as in placeholders, but don't don't do anything yet).

I get the feeling the dev builds were released at a really early stage, just to give us something to mull over and give feedback on, so that we wouldn't feel like being left out of the loop, during the long process of them working on it.

I myself remain hopeful that this system will become as versatile and usable as the old system was. What we have now in the dev builds is still a long way from what we have in the old system, so there is a lot of work to be done for sure.

I hope you are right on this. My thought on this was that they've already locked in the design of the new power system and are now just ironing out implementation. However, it is possible they merely coded an early dev build to give players/playtesters an idea of how the system would operate in the game. In which case the answer is "badly".

I find it somewhat counter-intuitive for Schine to waste so many man-hours on an implementation of the power system that they aren't planning on putting in the game, but then again their explanation of how it all worked was... well, hard to follow at the very least. Perhaps they figured an early build would give a chance for players to learn the new system by doing, as I myself find easier (The best way for me to learn something is to see someone do it, then do it myself)

Like I said my primary hope is that this system is nowhere near finalized, and that the devs are actually paying attention to the feedback given by players. Who knows, perhaps they're already discussing the points of this thread in a conference room somewhere (probably not today but maybe Monday). If that's the case then I appreciate the devs at the very least coding a rough implementation of this system. However, before they get too deep into implementation and bugfixing they need to go over the design again and ask if this really fits with the goals of the updated power system. If it doesn't then they should stop while they're ahead and go back to design.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

If everything is linear nothing will prevent me from building bigger than you, because linear means more blocs means more damage/shield/thrusts and so on.

I don't think power being exponential was a good way to stop bigger ships from dominating. Ultimately, to make something not the meta, you need to give a combat weakness to it that'll lead to another thing countering it.
So, to stop megahuge ships, I think that the answer has to be masses of fighters. Turning speed is already low for big ships, letting fighters outmaneuver. Of course, turrets will try to shoot down fighters, but if turrets are in some way a bit weak to fighters, it leads to fighters in masses being able to do something.

 

[kikaha]

I got a big ship that turns like a fighter almost, thanks to chambers...

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

I don't think power being exponential was a good way to stop bigger ships from dominating. Ultimately, to make something not the meta, you need to give a combat weakness to it that'll lead to another thing countering it.
So, to stop megahuge ships, I think that the answer has to be masses of fighters. Turning speed is already low for big ships, letting fighters outmaneuver. Of course, turrets will try to shoot down fighters, but if turrets are in some way a bit weak to fighters, it leads to fighters in masses being able to do something.

My thought is that turrets should not be shielded, ever. Or if they are they would need their own internal shield generators & capacitors to power that shield.
When you think about it, having the shield cover turrets makes no sense since the turrets would not be able to fire past the ships shield.
Now with that said, a smart group of fighters could attempt to destroy or disable turrets by targeting their docking blocks. Destroy that and the turret breaks free and is useless. A smart turret designer would build in such a way to protect the docking blocks by layering them with armor. A smart anti-ship pilot would use armor-piercing weapons to compensate for the extra protection. Hell you could even design turrets that become AI-controlled ships when disconnected from the main ship, so that they are still a threat for fighters that specifically aim for mount points.

Even with turrets being vulnerable if you have enough of them they'll wreck a fighter squadron. But assuming the ship is built so as to have multiple anti-air turrets and a few ship-mounted weapons, destroying the turrets effectively de-fangs the ship without destroying it. A fighter + capital ship group could unleash fighters to take out an enemy ships turrets, then pin it down and either whale on it with capital ship weapons or blow a hole and send in crew for a little piracy.

By the way this concept actually meshes well with my heat radiator idea, mentioned above. I've actually thought about it and come to the conclusion that under my ideas, the radiator blocks would need to be vulnerable to some degree even when shielded - the lore justification being the shields reflect radiated heat back onto the ship and therefore must be weaker around the radiator areas to compensate, the gameplay justification being that a large ship can't just protect their radiators (read also, external weak points) using a shield capacity the size of God. It also makes radiators and conduits a potential infiltration path for a boarding crew, since radiators and connected conduits would be weaker and vulnerable to small-arms fire.


Another idea too is to make thrusters use a lot of power when thrust is actively being applied, but a small amount when coasting. Ships could save power by switching off their inertial compensators in flight. Larger ships would need to use more thrusters to achieve the same acceleration rate as smaller ships due to mass, thus they use more power. The issue is that thrusters as they stand are much too broken - they don't use much power right now so a large ship can power thruster blocks by the thousands and achieve the same acceleration and turn rate as a fighter. That needs to be nerfed, and hard. Realistically the closest thing there is IRL, at least theoretically, is a RCE (resonant cavity engine) which can generate acceleration from electricity without having any sort of propellant - however, it produces a very tiny amount of thrust and has an extremely high power draw. Thrusters in Starmade should be so that you can't make your ship 50% thruster by mass and expect to be able to accelerate for longer than a second before burning your cap, and you can't make a huge-ass ship that can accelerate for a long as a fighter with 1/100 the mass while still maintaining the same TWR.

 

[Dire Venom]

My thought is that turrets should not be shielded, ever. Or if they are they would need their own internal shield generators & capacitors to power that shield.
When you think about it, having the shield cover turrets makes no sense since the turrets would not be able to fire past the ships shield.

Some intersting thoughts here.
My main gripe with unshielied docked entities is simply the annoyance factor. E.g I'm fying through space and a random pirate or ship fires at my well protected ship. Even though they could not get through my shield they still blow off a bunch of point defense that I have to spend an hour re-attachting -_-
Tbh if more than a couple of blocks get shot off my ship I just deconstruct it and spawn a new one. Takes far less time. Shipyards are still broken as heck as well :/
So mostly the annoyance and time factor of having bits of my ship constantly fall off as I fly around :/ I wouldn't play on a server with this as it simply would not be enjoyable.

On to the second point, weapon mechanics already don't make a lot of sense. Weapons fire through your own ship, missiles fly about inside before suddenly remeber physics just to name a few.

Even with turrets being vulnerable if you have enough of them they'll wreck a fighter squadron. But assuming the ship is built so as to have multiple anti-air turrets and a few ship-mounted weapons, destroying the turrets effectively de-fangs the ship without destroying it. A fighter + capital ship group could unleash fighters to take out an enemy ships turrets, then pin it down and either whale on it with capital ship weapons or blow a hole and send in crew for a little piracy.

A 50k mass ship vs a 20k-50k mass of drones will lose every time btw. Fighters are already very powerful, but cause lag and are not easy to control or manage. If better AI control and fleet management were added I expect to see carrier based ships become a lot more viable. Shipes traveling beyound a certain speed are also near immune to most Turret fire. However AI rarely goes beyound 50% thrust.

By the way this concept actually meshes well with my heat radiator idea, mentioned above. I've actually thought about it and come to the conclusion that under my ideas, the radiator blocks would need to be vulnerable to some degree even when shielded - the lore justification being the shields reflect radiated heat back onto the ship and therefore must be weaker around the radiator areas to compensate, the gameplay justification being that a large ship can't just protect their radiators (read also, external weak points) using a shield capacity the size of God. It also makes radiators and conduits a potential infiltration path for a boarding crew, since radiators and connected conduits would be weaker and vulnerable to small-arms fire.

Agreed, I think radiators would be a far better solution than stabilizors for reactor size. Being able to dissapate heat various ways, some more vunrable than others would be quite engaging. As far as weak points go, most decent weapon shots will easily shoot a hole straight through a ship thus weakpoints are kinda moot. Constantly taking damage to a system could cause a build up of heat or the such.
Personaly I think armour and defense in general needs a bit of a look at. Offense vastly outclasses defense in starmade.

Also, I doubt bording will ever be a thing beyound abbandoned and RP ships.
There are simply too many ways to simply ignore or remove boarders with no effort. Trying to limit them will not work and players will always find ways to make their ships more hostile than next to a star. If crew were added, it might become a bit more viable but it will never be a viable tactic in combat with another player unfortuantly.

 

[Zoolimar]

My main gripe with unshielied docked entities is simply the annoyance factor. E.g I'm fying through space and a random pirate or ship fires at my well protected ship. Even though they could not get through my shield they still blow off a bunch of point defense that I have to spend an hour re-attachting -_-
Tbh if more than a couple of blocks get shot off my ship I just deconstruct it and spawn a new one. Takes far less time. Shipyards are still broken as heck as well :/
So mostly the annoyance and time factor of having bits of my ship constantly fall off as I fly around :/ I wouldn't play on a server with this as it simply would not be enjoyable.

I think this part is more an incentive to have proper repair mechanics than counterpoint to having turrets shot off. If you could have a repair module allowing you to automatically fill in destroyed parts with parts inside the ship's cargo hold I doubt it would really hinder your enjoyment of the game that much. Fleets could have dedicated auxiliary ships with blueprints for all the fleet ships loaded inside their computers and capable of repairing them out of combat. And you already could make warhead charges for their computers to prevent your blueprints getting into wrong hands.

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

Well, if you have a ship built from a shipyard design and the turrets are on the design you can use it to rebuild the turrets no problem, provided you have the replacement parts available. But yeah, can understand how that would be annoying. Perhaps something along the lines of an internal repair system which functions like the shipyard but whose sole purpose is to restore destroyed blocks on the ship? Nerf its effectiveness a little bit relative to the shipyard and require it be fed the blocks it is replacing, but other than that it would solve that issue, and shouldn't be too hard to implement on top of the already existing shipyard code.

 

[Jojomo]

My thought is that turrets should not be shielded, ever. Or if they are they would need their own internal shield generators & capacitors to power that shield.
When you think about it, having the shield cover turrets makes no sense since the turrets would not be able to fire past the ships shield.

A docked entity can be part of a ship (a turret), or not (a shuttle docked to a large ship for crew transfer). "Entities" are just a necessary mechanic/concept to make the game work and explainable to players.

The reason shields act at the surface of entities (and their children) and not out in space is because computer performance. Everyone* would love shields to have their own shape and sit away from the ship surface ("bubble shields") but it's too big a performance hit for computers.

So if things worked in the ideal way, turrets would be covered by ship shields. So in the compromise solution we get to avoid performance issues, turrets should also be covered by shields.

 

[falco708]

Hi guys, I just want to say here that when a lot of people seems to really disagree with the new power update, I personally really like it.
I'm surely the first one who will say that it may not be the perfect moment to work on this but the new features are truely awesome.
I'm really exited to see this come with a more stable and complete status in game.
And for now, I want to thanks Schine for still work hard, even if he's a bit slow, on great and nicely thought things for the game.
I really do enjoy playing to Starmade since I joined the adventure, so please continue your work.

(also sorry for my probably awful english)

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

So I've actually had a chance to play with the new power system... and bugs (including quite a few game-breakers) notwithstanding, I've come to revise my opinion, slightly.

Someone mentioned the goal of stabilizers was to enforce power generation as a function of ship size. I can see where that can be beneficial. I can also see where chamber design can go insofar as giving ships specific roles (i.e. fast but lightly armored ships, heavily armored space fortresses, glass doomsday cannon dreadnaughts, etc). Between the size limitations and the chamber system it becomes harder to build a ship that outclasses other ships of similar size on all metrics - instead you are limited to a specific level of power for your ship's size, and you must decide where that power would be best invested - offense (bristling with weapons) or defense (impenetrable shields)? Speed (low-mass unarmored hull and lots o' thrusters) or mass (high-mass armored hull and thruster space and power given to weapons or shields instead)?

Now that I've had a chance to see the power system in action, I can say that it does accomplish that goal but not very well. I've changed my mind on the overall system mechanics - while they are still not necessarily ideal for me, they're not game-breakers. I think I can still work with the system as proposed, on a mechanical level - but balancing is definitely needed. For one, stabilizer distance needs to be nerfed - just a little bit - to allow for the construction of more freeform ships instead of death sticks.

The system also needs to be optimized for small fighters, which means increase in the effectiveness of thrusters and weapons without too much in the way of increased power draw, and potentially having stabilizer minimum distance as a function of reactor size be non-linear.

Oh and speaking of shields and armor, the deck is still stacked in favor of the defense on that front. If you're going to have a ship with ludicrously impenetrable shields it shouldn't be able to do much else.

Finally, chambers... well they are difficult in regards to space, though I suspect intelligent construction and shaping of chamber block arrays can mitigate that somewhat. Perhaps something along the lines of chamber blocks needing to be at least 30% of total reactor size rather than 50%?On the other hand though, having larger chamber sizes means less total chambers overall, which goes back to my earlier comment on specialization.

TL;DR my previous comments notwithstanding, the current power system is in dire need of refinement... but it isn't impossible to work with. I think provided the system is given a good polishing by the devs, I would retract my previous statement re: leaving the game.

Of course I will be going back on hiatus for a little while due to the fact that a lot of things in the current dev build are ridiculously broken at this point. Case in point, bug T2611 which drops logic connections on rails when rails are switched. That's going to get old real quick as it renders useless one of the primary benefits of the rail system. Thankfully there seems to be progress in squashing that and once it is squashed I can return to the dev server to finish my masterpiece of a ship while simultaneously finding new ways to break the game in a way the devs barely understand, and certainly resent me for. I love you guys, but just a reminder:

99 little bugs in the code
99 little bugs
You take one down, patch it around
127 little bugs in the code

Mata ne!

 

[Capt Black001]

Here is my continuation of my testing of what works and what doesn't.

Testing Dev 124

- Checked the docking system, you can have an entity with no power, or with old power, and it will dock to a shop. Once you attempt to dock an entity with new power system to a shop or station still using the old power system, will crash the game, sometimes the game will undock you when you re-enter the game. So I went 1 step further, I docked an entity with no power and put on a basic rail and pickup point. Once my ship, with new power system, attached, the game crashed, cant get back in, time to make a new world.
- Checked the scanners, I made a small scout ship, placed down 3 separate recon chambers, maxed out the range, strength, and Time Duration. I hit it several times to do a scan. I was watching the trading guild ships as they were passing by, I can see all there systems. OK cool. Checked out the Map, still unexplored. I tried scanning again, left clicking and right clicking, and checked out the results in Map, still unexplored. What about the old Scanner Computer and Antennae, so I bought some from the shop and tried it out, I pressed G and there was 1 in the Hot bar, there wasn't a second computer. Went back to build mode and started right clicking it to activate, I tried hooking up a button or an activation module to it, and it wont work. Does this mean we now have to explore the 15 sectors before we can see shops and stations in the Map? Is the old Scanner now a relic? like the old Jump drive computer and modules.
- Fighters, I managed to get a couple fleets going.
Fleet 1, 20 Cannon,Cannon Fighters with Offensive chambers set to Cannons.
Fleet 2, 10 Beam,Cannon + 50% Ion with Offensive Chambers set to Beams.
Observer, Stealth Chambers X 4, 1st set to Strength set to 3, 2nd & 3rd joined to the 1st chamber, set each to Jammer and Cloak, 4th connected directly to reactors set to usage Time , Level Up X 3. This gives me a solid cloak and Jam for 60 seconds, more than what I need.
Target, Delta Pirate Station, 2 sectors over.

I had to build the Observer due to the fact that every time I go into battle within a CC-fighter or BC_I-fighter, and together we enter the battle field, the game will crash. I had other multiple chambers such as shields + 150%, simple Jammers for 60 sec, also tried both Offensive chambers for Beams and Cannons on the BC_I-fighters and ended up with many crashes as soon as any of us entered the battle field. I made the Observer, going into battle with the Fleets in front of us, I can see my fleets has engaged. But as soon as I enter the sector, the game crashed again. Tried it again, this time I didn't enter the sector and observed my fighters, everything working OK, shields down on the station and now taking down the Armor. I see shields going back up, My fleets are now concentrating more on the ships around the station, I hit N navigation, and found they were the turrets, shot right down to the core. So they aren't overheating at all. so I hit ENTER "/destroy_entity" on all there detached turrets. Now my fleets are focusing on the station. We got all of there armor down to zero, but structure isn't budging. I had my Fleets go on for a few more hours and checked, clearly the station was shot up, faction block was getting multiple hits repeatedly, yet it won't overheat or decay.
So I kept my fighters there and started some recon with my observer. A Gamma Pirate Station, my next target.

I see that build 134 has just came out, lets start the tests again.
If you think my posts are informative, then follow the threads, there will be more like this.

 

[kikaha]

0.200.134

Turrets seems to work fine. At least when i'm inside the mother entity; when i spawn a couple of ships to battle each other turrets are non-fonctionning. I've powered the turrets. They got plenty of power both their on power and the mother entity.

Also ship don't take any damages from turrets when I fire with the turrets or when the turrets are firing on target.

And yes scanners don't scan the sectors/systems, only flying entities.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

While theres still no change to the stabilizer distance but i found something awesome in 0.200.134.

Its (Almost) time my bois!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lecic]

What about the old Scanner Computer and Antennae, so I bought some from the shop and tried it out, I pressed G and there was 1 in the Hot bar, there wasn't a second computer.

Did you try making a new ship with the old scanners from the start?

Scanners not working with the new system properly yet is probably not intentional.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

So I've actually had a chance to play with the new power system... and bugs (including quite a few game-breakers) notwithstanding, I've come to revise my opinion, slightly.

Someone mentioned the goal of stabilizers was to enforce power generation as a function of ship size. I can see where that can be beneficial. I can also see where chamber design can go insofar as giving ships specific roles (i.e. fast but lightly armored ships, heavily armored space fortresses, glass doomsday cannon dreadnaughts, etc). Between the size limitations and the chamber system it becomes harder to build a ship that outclasses other ships of similar size on all metrics - instead you are limited to a specific level of power for your ship's size, and you must decide where that power would be best invested - offense (bristling with weapons) or defense (impenetrable shields)? Speed (low-mass unarmored hull and lots o' thrusters) or mass (high-mass armored hull and thruster space and power given to weapons or shields instead)?

Now that I've had a chance to see the power system in action, I can say that it does accomplish that goal but not very well. I've changed my mind on the overall system mechanics - while they are still not necessarily ideal for me, they're not game-breakers. I think I can still work with the system as proposed, on a mechanical level - but balancing is definitely needed. For one, stabilizer distance needs to be nerfed - just a little bit - to allow for the construction of more freeform ships instead of death sticks.

The system also needs to be optimized for small fighters, which means increase in the effectiveness of thrusters and weapons without too much in the way of increased power draw, and potentially having stabilizer minimum distance as a function of reactor size be non-linear.

Oh and speaking of shields and armor, the deck is still stacked in favor of the defense on that front. If you're going to have a ship with ludicrously impenetrable shields it shouldn't be able to do much else.

Finally, chambers... well they are difficult in regards to space, though I suspect intelligent construction and shaping of chamber block arrays can mitigate that somewhat. Perhaps something along the lines of chamber blocks needing to be at least 30% of total reactor size rather than 50%?On the other hand though, having larger chamber sizes means less total chambers overall, which goes back to my earlier comment on specialization.

TL;DR my previous comments notwithstanding, the current power system is in dire need of refinement... but it isn't impossible to work with. I think provided the system is given a good polishing by the devs, I would retract my previous statement re: leaving the game.

Of course I will be going back on hiatus for a little while due to the fact that a lot of things in the current dev build are ridiculously broken at this point. Case in point, bug T2611 which drops logic connections on rails when rails are switched. That's going to get old real quick as it renders useless one of the primary benefits of the rail system. Thankfully there seems to be progress in squashing that and once it is squashed I can return to the dev server to finish my masterpiece of a ship while simultaneously finding new ways to break the game in a way the devs barely understand, and certainly resent me for. I love you guys, but just a reminder:

99 little bugs in the code
99 little bugs
You take one down, patch it around
127 little bugs in the code

Mata ne!

This is similar to how I feel about it: the new system isn't absolutely horrid, it just doesn't really deal with all the stated goals. The goal that it comes close to fulfilling is to have a ship of a given size be limited in what capability you can fit in it. It's really only defeated because the optimal build still is a bunch of strands of systems with tons of empty space; and so while it prevents super-dense system'd-up ships, it ends up favoring ships that are just spaced-out systems.

Chambers also are a great idea. I'm not too sold on them yet, but I'd rather have some thought put into my systems closets in my ship's engineering section, and they accomplish that.

I mainly don't like stabilizers because they are an extra chore of something we need to add in to the ship's walls, which raises the block count and makes for a feeling much like how it used to be placing shield blocks.
I think if the system instead made use of existing ship blocks (hull/armor especially) for "stabilization", it'd be less of a hassle both to build new ships and refit existing ones.
There'd still be flying spaghetti monsters, but I don't think anything as far as "you need to add X" will stop those, they just need to be really weak in combat somehow, and thus a separate mechanic would be needed.