New to SM

[Kada Belexora]

Greetings and salutations. This is my first post here. Been playing around with SM local play for about a week now and learning the ropes. Lots of youtube tutorials to help me along the way. I’m an old EVE Online vet with some kewl history until they made changes a few years back that I just didnt like. Currently do a lot of minecraft SP . PC handles both games really well, as well as SM-no lag at all. ASUS MB, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce 9800 GTX++(its dated but still a great graphics card).



Finally put together a makeshift shuttle, factories, build block, deathanator, down on a alien planet.

Today got really really interesting-OMG! What a light show! I started noticing blue and red laser lights skimming arcross the sky with ever increasing intensity coming from all around. At this point lag set in for the first time since I started playing. It really became unplayable. I stood in awe and watched. I pulled up my nav panel and could see quite a few pirate and scavenger ships were in local. Then the ground around my base camp started to disappear, as well as chunks of my power reactors, factories, shuttle parts. Oh no! Its an incursion!! In a state of panic, I ran for cover but no place was safe. Lasers shooting all around. My poor shuttle (only an hour old) was gone! The crater around me kept getting deeper and deeper until I finally fell into the planets core.



I absolutely luv SM! For me it combines aspects of two games I’m fond of-Eve Online and Minecraft. I hope that one day some of its navigation and GUI would more closely mimic Eve Online’s nav controls(targeting, orbital ranges, keep-at-range, etc.) But for now, I have boatloads of fun to look forward to with SM.



Before I can fully enjoy it though, I’ve got to get a handle on the lag that happened today, and what I can do to minimize it. I have fps set to 60, and 4GB ram allocated for it although system usage has always shown about 1.5GB used of the 4GB allocated. Didn’t get to see what it may have spiked up to during todays incursion event.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hoping to make some new friends. Cheers!

 

[kiddan]

Welcome the the Dock!

Your issue might be rooted in the planet you've set-up camp on. They're being replaced next update and haven't received the optimizations other assets have received, as this has been planned for a long time.

Edit: Just realized, there's a cleanup update coming before the Universe Update(planets n' more), sorry for any confusion!

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Welcome aboard!

I'll give my input on your questions in the order they were asked. Hopefully this helps you out.

1) To keep your starting base safe from pirates, It's always a good idea to place a faction block (available from the shops or in creative mode) and use it to create a faction, claim the planet for your faction (so you get a mining bonus) then set that planet to home base to make it invincible. If you dock a ship to your home base, it too is invincible. Eventually you can turn this feature off when you're more established and want a real challenge.

2) Planets are the easiest way to start a new base. There is plenty of room to build and a lot of resources to collect. Unfortunately, they are designed in such a way that they generate massive amounts of lag. That's why they are being phased out and replaced. Once your base is large/strong enough, move away from the planet and build a space station. Use a faction block to set that as your home base. The planet will no longer be invincible but your station will be.

If you get attacked a lot, you may have set up shop too close to a pirate base. The closer you are to one, the more frequent their attacks will be. If you can hold them off long enough, try building some powerful AI defense turrets and attach them to your station. When the pirates attack, your turrets will blast them to pieces and you can use your miner to salvage their wreckage just like in EVE.

 

[SkylordLuke]

Welcome the the Dock!

Your issue might be rooted in the planet you've set-up camp on. They're being replaced next update and haven't received the optimizations other assets have received, as this has been planned for a long time.

so is that "new planet update" official now? :O
Is there somewhere where I can hear and read more details about that ,since I was away for a long time and it was still just a speculation back then.

 

[aceface]

so is that "new planet update" official now? :O
Is there somewhere where I can hear and read more details about that ,since I was away for a long time and it was still just a speculation back then.

apart from the public teaser they only have mentioned in livestreams some vague details like they'll be bigger, less laggy and moons.

 

[Tsnonak]

Welcome to SMD!

If you get attacked a lot, you may have set up shop too close to a pirate base. The closer you are to one, the more frequent their attacks will be. If you can hold them off long enough, try building some powerful AI defense turrets and attach them to your station. When the pirates attack, your turrets will blast them to pieces and you can use your miner to salvage their wreckage just like in EVE.

5 Sectors away from a pirate base and the attacks should stop.

 

[SkylordLuke]

apart from the public teaser they only have mentioned in livestreams some vague details like they'll be bigger, less laggy and moons.

hope that is true!!

 

[Kada Belexora]

Dr. Whammy thanks for your valuable input. For lack of a better understanding of the game mechanics I del'd the world I was playing in as every time I logged back in the pirates were still there and shooting up the sky and lag made it impossible to play. I realize now there were possible admin commands that could have circumvented the situation but those in itself will take a while to familiarize with. I had intended to start myself on a planet and peacefully poke around sorta like a crash landing start. I had acquired a few hundred of each capsule type except fertikeen of which I really needed but it remained illusive. Sure I could have admin'd it in but I feel like that was cheating (or maybe not?) I learn best by examination and exploration. SM is beautiful and I look forward to the adventures it has in store for me. I can easily kill 10 hours in a day with it if I don't watch myself

 

[MacThule]

Hi, Kada Belexora
Glad to have you on board and glad you're enjoying the game!

Be sure to check out the Community Content section here - it's where we all share our best ships and stations. Lots and lots of fun toys in there to play with.

hope that is true!!

I did see something that looked very much like confirmation of moons in one of the most recent Dev Q&As. Super excited to see.

 

[aceface]

Reducing max draw segments, turning off bloom, lower block light quality to 16, lowering texture red, turning off bump maps. These tend to help quite a bit with the lag. Also awesome to see another eve player. What race of ships/ship was your favorite?

 

[Kada Belexora]

Also awesome to see another eve player. What race of ships/ship was your favorite?

Yes it is aceface /o Its been so long and have forgot so much. I spent a good 5 years of daily play on it. still have the account, just didnt like the direction it was going a few years back and so I stopped. Caldari race but flew mostly Amarr ships (harbinger, resolution, and my pride and joy, Amarr Legion) Loved to solo lvl 5 missions in my Legion.
A brief history is in order: Started playing circa 2005 with a small corp 'Happy Hour Mining. We eventually joined the Bruce Alliance and in time Bruce took control of a backend system in null sec. Lots of Crokite to mine in it. At that time if i wasn't fleet mining in my hulk, I was ratting with my Harbinger. Bruce Alliance eventually fell apart, and I went to hisec where I started mining and mission running on my own. I would dual box with me flying Orca and miner in a hulk and maxed out fleet mining bonuses. I was actually making around 3 billion isk a month in Hisec mining and that would pay for another month of free play for both accounts. Don't think thats possible anymore and i'm sure things have changed drastically since then. Lots of fond memories of my corp buddies and the endless play to the wee hours of the morning. Good to know you Aceface. Are you still active in EVE?

 

[aceface]

Yes it is aceface /o Its been so long and have forgot so much. I spent a good 5 years of daily play on it. still have the account, just didnt like the direction it was going a few years back and so I stopped. Caldari race but flew mostly Amarr ships (harbinger, resolution, and my pride and joy, Amarr Legion) Loved to solo lvl 5 missions in my Legion.
A brief history is in order: Started playing circa 2005 with a small corp 'Happy Hour Mining. We eventually joined the Bruce Alliance and in time Bruce took control of a backend system in null sec. Lots of Crokite to mine in it. At that time if i wasn't fleet mining in my hulk, I was ratting with my Harbinger. Bruce Alliance eventually fell apart, and I went to hisec where I started mining and mission running on my own. I would dual box with me flying Orca and miner in a hulk and maxed out fleet mining bonuses. I was actually making around 3 billion isk a month in Hisec mining and that would pay for another month of free play for both accounts. Don't think thats possible anymore and i'm sure things have changed drastically since then. Lots of fond memories of my corp buddies and the endless play to the wee hours of the morning. Good to know you Aceface. Are you still active in EVE?

Oh wow you're definitely a vet haha. I started in 2015, Funny I'm also a high sec turtle xD I do a lot of incursions, exploring. Never mind though since I've mostly been an alpha account so wasnt able to mine. Still play now and then, but been playing a little less since I got back into starmade recently. I like starmades simplicity. Speaking of Amarr ships if you like them then check these out: https://starmadedock.net/threads/aeon-naval-shipyards.29678/

 

[Scypio]

Before I can fully enjoy it though, I’ve got to get a handle on the lag that happened today, and what I can do to minimize it. I have fps set to 60, and 4GB ram allocated for it although system usage has always shown about 1.5GB used of the 4GB allocated. Didn’t get to see what it may have spiked up to during todays incursion event.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

- Don't settle on a planet. Sorry but they are really laggy and should be avoided.
- Don't settle on a system owned by a NPC faction. If you press the map button (i suppose it's "m" by default... ? You'll need to check) you'll see the galaxy map. Move with w, a, s, d buttons. Then if the sector you're in has a color it's owned by a faction. If you did not create a faction and claimed the system it's a NPC faction if you are in solo play. Then you should just run away from the system you're in and settle on a clean one (don't forget to claim it for yourself if you don't want intruders). Keep care of pirate stations.
- Buy a faction block at the starting shop and claim your own system. Gives mining bonuses on the ore you mine and it is really handy.
- Start to build a space station and claim it as a homebase. It will be invulnerable and as such you'll be secure from anyone.
- Dock your builds. Don't just leave them here like that. You need to dock them with rail dockers and rails. They'll be less laggy.
- For docked stuff, use a rail speed controller to put the speed to 0. Though with a speed set to 0 you can't have nice sliding doors... So be careful with this. It'll be less laggy than just landing on a landing pad. If you simply land it will count as a collision even if they don't move which means lags because the game needs to calculate the physics.

You can also turn off bloom, shadows and lower the quality settings. You can also join the discord and you'll have quick responses to your simple question there. For example what is this, how do this work and such.

 

[Kada Belexora]

Oh wow you're definitely a vet haha. I started in 2015, Funny I'm also a high sec turtle xD I do a lot of incursions, exploring. I like starmades simplicity. Speaking of Amarr ships if you like them then check these out: https://starmadedock.net/threads/aeon-naval-shipyards.29678/

OMG those are amazing! sure like that damnation : the omen was my first ship. then went harbinger. finally got a resolution and then the t3 legion. wow, sure brings back memories. damnation was a missile boat and resolution was laser boat(my preferred weapon). Checked out your content as well as Gmodism and Dr. Whammy, my lord, how you guys find the time to do all that??! As far as simplicity goes, sit in my chair and say that :D Been watching a lot of youtube tuts of Gmodism and jw608 for starter ship builds and still my OCD wont let me make a decision past placing a core LOL. Need to get out there and bust some roids for resources hehe.

 

[Kada Belexora]

- Don't settle on a planet. Sorry but they are really laggy and should be avoided.
- Don't settle on a system owned by a NPC faction. If you press the map button (i suppose it's "m" by default... ? You'll need to check) you'll see the galaxy map. Move with w, a, s, d buttons. Then if the sector you're in has a color it's owned by a faction. If you did not create a faction and claimed the system it's a NPC faction if you are in solo play. Then you should just run away from the system you're in and settle on a clean one (don't forget to claim it for yourself if you don't want intruders). Keep care of pirate stations.
- Buy a faction block at the starting shop and claim your own system. Gives mining bonuses on the ore you mine and it is really handy.
- Start to build a space station and claim it as a homebase. It will be invulnerable and as such you'll be secure from anyone.
- Dock your builds. Don't just leave them here like that. You need to dock them with rail dockers and rails. They'll be less laggy.
- For docked stuff, use a rail speed controller to put the speed to 0. Though with a speed set to 0 you can't have nice sliding doors... So be careful with this. It'll be less laggy than just landing on a landing pad. If you simply land it will count as a collision even if they don't move which means lags because the game needs to calculate the physics.

You can also turn off bloom, shadows and lower the quality settings. You can also join the discord and you'll have quick responses to your simple question there. For example what is this, how do this work and such.

Thanks Scypio, more starting out info goodness :D

 

[Scypio]

Need to get out there and bust some roids for resources hehe.

For learning game mechanics about building space ships i suggest either hoping into a build server or simply creating a creative single player world. It is easier if you can have access to everything in a few click than having to mine, craft and so on. Your choice though but this speed up the process especially if you want to test things like weapons combination for example.

 

[Kada Belexora]

For learning game mechanics about building space ships i suggest either hoping into a build server or simply creating a creative single player world. It is easier if you can have access to everything in a few click than having to mine, craft and so on. Your choice though but this speed up the process especially if you want to test things like weapons combination for example.

Thanks Scypio, sounds like a great idea for learning and I think I will do that(creative SP) and then after have learned a few things I can run a normal SP world down the road.

 

[MacThule]

Another very valuable learning tool in creative SP is loading in community content ships.

Dozens of good, functional ships there and why that is important is because in creative SP you can admin spawn them for free in unlimited numbers.

Then you cut huge chunks out of them to explore how their systems were built... Test weapons on them... Test how their systems work...

Many CC ships demonstrate techniques players have learned from years of play, practice, combat, and engineering R&D. You could spend years of effort trying to reinvent the wheel if you don't start by looking at what the best builders in the community already do.

 

[Kada Belexora]

Thanx MacThule, I can see the value there for sure. I do learn best by taking stuff apart and examinating it :D