Off screen fleet operations

[rotrules1234]

What does anyone think about giving player fleets the ability to perform fleet actions while the fleet itself is far beyond the rendering distance of the player's point of view?

Mining asteroids would be much faster and more convenient without the potentially massive frame rate drop caused by massive mining ships firing too many salvaging beams.

Players could send entire waves of ships to their enemy's fleets in order to perform devastating raids before sending in the main fleet.

Players from opposing factions could wage massive battles off screen and even offline without the risk of a server crash caused by too many ships firing too many projectiles within the rendering distances of too many players.

There are already NPC faction fleets that are operating beyond the player's rendering distance, so why can't player fleets have the same ability?

 

[OfficialCoding]

What does anyone think about giving player fleets the ability to perform fleet actions while the fleet itself is far beyond the rendering distance of the player's point of view?

Mining asteroids would be much faster and more convenient without the potentially massive frame rate drop caused by massive mining ships firing too many salvaging beams.

Players could send entire waves of ships to their enemy's fleets in order to perform devastating raids before sending in the main fleet.

Players from opposing factions could wage massive battles off screen and even offline without the risk of a server crash caused by too many ships firing too many projectiles within the rendering distances of too many players.

There are already NPC faction fleets that are operating beyond the player's rendering distance, so why can't player fleets have the same ability?

I think those NPC battles are simulations. The problem with your suggestion is that those fleets would have to load a bunch of stuff in, which would suck up all your RAM. It would also be lag heaven on multiplayer servers. So unless they figure a way around this, I don't think that would really work.

 

[rotrules1234]

I think those NPC battles are simulations. The problem with your suggestion is that those fleets would have to load a bunch of stuff in, which would suck up all your RAM. It would also be lag heaven on multiplayer servers. So unless they figure a way around this, I don't think that would really work.

I believe this is what I meant when I recommend off screen fleet operations: Simulated fleet operations.

I am willing to settle with at least the ability for mining fleets to simulate asteroid mining while the player is far away.

 

[NTIMESc]

I assume it will eventually be simulated similar to NPC fleets, which was described in these two update notes:
StarMade News - StarMade Dev Update: NPC Factions
StarMade News - StarMade v0.199.349 - NPC Faction Update

The dev notes had more info on mining than the v0-199-349 release notes, so I am wondering how much of it is actually in the game:

Mining
For each owned system, the faction will simulate mining. Each system calculates a total amount of resources depending on what resources the system is rich in. The system then looks at its contingent and how many mining ships it has. It then calculates a score based on the blueprints used as mining ships and from that calculates how many resources are mined. This is in addition to the actual resources mined by mining ships when a player is close by.

Each mined system has a max amount of resources it can hold and how fast they replenish each turn. This resource status is then used for actual asteroid generation when a player gets close. Sectors with a low amount of available resources will not have many asteroids spawning or any at all if it is completely depleted..

Resources and Mining
Systems now have a resource richness. This amount is hidden at the moment but will actually be reflected by spawned asteroids in an upcoming universe revamp. The factions will use their contingent to mine resources from their territory. The amount of resources they can mine is limited and will reflect on what the player actually sees when they go there. For example, if a system is mined out, there will be no more asteroids spawning. The npcConfig can define a resource replenish value if needed.

 

[OfficialCoding]

I believe this is what I meant when I recommend off screen fleet operations: Simulated fleet operations.

I am willing to settle with at least the ability for mining fleets to simulate asteroid mining while the player is far away.

Yeah that wouldn't cause too much lag.