Opinions On Starmades Combat

[Livaria]

I'm curious to know what people think towards the current combat systems that is present within StarMade. If you like or dislike something in particular; then I want specific details on each case that is presented.

Now, some of you may be wondering why I'm interested. It's because I strongly dislike combat in Starmade. I won't explain my own reasons for my dislike just yet. Right now I want readers to focus more on what they think first. Afterwards I may explain my own thoughts.

It's unlikely that I will change my mind, so I won't be arguing. I will be listening instead. The reason for this is because i'm still hopeful that I can get as much perspective as I can from other players. After this discussion, I will decide if I want to move forward with an idea for a suggestion of mine.

 

[terra mining corp.]

I'm a builder/miner so I don't speak from experience but most people on here spend huge man hours building there ships and to watch It get blasted out of the cosmos is a no go for them.m2c

 

[Paullus]

Combat in StarMade is not the best, but I think that's due to the nature of the environment. There is no gravity, no meaningful direction unless and station is involved, no air resistance, etc. This just makes battles different than we imagine them. Because of a lack of gravity in space, ships don't have to keep moving forward to "stay flying", and thus we have the eternal circling of AI and players until one succumbs under fire. The battles I'd like to see involve strategic combinations of smaller craft and larger craft, and the game just doesn't have the player count on a server at a time for a battle like this to spontaneously happen. Once battles like that can happen like this more frequently, I do think we will have battles that look more like we would like to idolize them as

 

[Lecic]

I actually enjoy combat currently, I just think everyone uses ships that are too big. Combat performs fine when ships are smaller.

 

[Livaria]

Would you like fighting against bigger ships if there was somehow a guaranteed yet significant amount of damage that could be done most if not all the time Lecic?

 

[refirendum]

if players with large ships could hire AI pilots to man their fighters and follow player characters' fighters' lead/command in squadrons or formations, that would help facilitate this sort of large scale cinematic play. so besides having fleets, fleets could have each ship assigned "squadrons", the higher the mass of the ship, the higher the number of squadrons/pilots can be assigned to it.

or pirate nomad fighter players could have a 'band' squadron that needed no host ship to stick together, then you could have players who prefer flying fighters balanced somewhat with hosted-squadron players by giving their AI slightly higher accuracy stats vs mothership-hosted squadrons

 

[Lukwan]

pirate nomad fighter players could have a 'band' squadron that needed no host ship to stick together, then you could have players who prefer flying fighters balanced somewhat with hosted-squadron players by giving their AI slightly higher accuracy stats vs mothership-hosted squadrons

So like a Wing Commander bonus? I would be OK with that as long as they were 'human'/NPC and not Bobby AI. I think the squadron leader should be in the same size-range as the red-shirts as well.

 

[MrFURB]

Looking at the weapon statistics and usability I gotta say all the different weapons and defenses that aren't bugged or unimplemented are pretty well balanced. The weapon combos that are working as intended have a good balance of numbers and both shielding and armor feel okay, each with their advantages and disadvantages.
One thing that I feel that Starmade lacks in it's combat are things to do that aren't shooting at people. You have defensive effects and such like radar jamming and scanning but those are not things that take a great amount of player interaction, do not make enough of a difference to lead to specialized designs for them, nor do they offer any counterplay for the opposing player. I would enjoy seeing some of these non-weapon combat abilities revisited and added onto to make them more interactive and important for those that wish to fully utilize them.

I've got a lot of minor gripes... But the only other major one is how difficult it is to manage AI, and that I'm sure is already on Schema's mind.

The battles I'd like to see involve strategic combinations of smaller craft and larger craft, and the game just doesn't have the player count on a server at a time for a battle like this to spontaneously happen.

That is... Ripping thoughts straight out of my head. Perhaps when fleets are more commonly utilized we can see this addressed properly.

I feel like the big vs. small thing is going to be brought up again in a bit. In the meantime, here's some numbers to work with.
Shield regen/block when in combat is up to 1.3/second. With full ion passive that is an effective regen of 3.4/second.
A weapon block deals a base 10 DPS. When equipped with full ion effect that is 20 DPS against shielding.
To become effectively immune to a ship's weaponry you would need approximately 6 times as many shield rechargers as the other ship has weapon blocks.
Assuming either both or neither use ion, a regen-specialized shield tank might be able to become immune to weapons fire from a ship or combination of ships whose mass is up to ~20% of it's own. It'd be extremely weak to anything closer to it's own mass.

 

[Lecic]

Would you like fighting against bigger ships if there was somehow a guaranteed yet significant amount of damage that could be done most if not all the time Lecic?

HAHAHAHA, no, I don't have any problems dealing damage to larger ships with ships smaller than them. I just don't like fighting big ships since they're laggier, and, when push comes to shove, matching their size is always easier than being a fantastic pilot.

 

[Livaria]

I don't see what's funny. But at least I understand what you are saying.

 

[Scypio]

Combat in StarMade is not the best, but I think that's due to the nature of the environment. There is no gravity, no meaningful direction unless and station is involved, no air resistance, etc. This just makes battles different than we imagine them. Because of a lack of gravity in space, ships don't have to keep moving forward to "stay flying", and thus we have the eternal circling of AI and players until one succumbs under fire. The battles I'd like to see involve strategic combinations of smaller craft and larger craft, and the game just doesn't have the player count on a server at a time for a battle like this to spontaneously happen. Once battles like that can happen like this more frequently, I do think we will have battles that look more like we would like to idolize them as

Yes and no.

It's more about ship's conception. In star wars for example most of the weapons are turret mounted weapons while in starmade it is infinitely better to put them on the hull, otherwise your ship will have less firepower than the opponent with hull mounted weapons.
In this meta, because i like to call it a meta (i'm probably playing too much LoL recently), you'll need to have your ship face to face to be the most efficient.
If weapons were to be turret mounted on horizontal ships you would be fighting like the clip in star wars. Because if you don't use the thing that our naval ships use for turrets and that i can't remember properly the name then to use your firepower the most efficient way then it's the only one way (and it's pretty cool, i'll agree with that).
For figthers/small vessels i'll agree that the current AI doesn't use the fact that you can move and do a lot of basic maneuvers with much more maneuverable vessels.

To go back to the original question of the thread, the thing that i dislike the most with the current combat system is the dps. It's the same (well, supposed to be at least) for every weapons. Then why should we take low range weapons when we can have long range weapons with the same dps ? They're much more safier.

 

[madman Captain]

Indeed! Battles between capital ships should feel like in games like Fractured Space or Dreadnought and not as large helicopters.

Seriously. Many ships in the Content Section plays like machine guns.

 

[Jasper1991]

Combat is fine as it is, its not 100% perfect but its fine.

The biggest problem with combat is that most factions will run at the first sign of danger, there is too much risk and not enough reward for doing any kind of combat.

 

[madman Captain]

Why should I Fight when I cant win anything?

 

[Panpiper]

Schine has felt it necessary to get the ship building/combat system largely functional and nailed down before delving into the more strategic elements. How to fight was more important to get functional before why to fight.

I think we have reached or are soon to reach that point where the other elements will start to be fleshed out.

 

[Malacodor]

I hate the controls. If I move the cursor to the side I want my ship to keep turning until I move the cursor back to the center. I don't want to scrub the mouse pad when doing a U-turn. Also, rolling should be possible with hotkey (e.g. middle mouse button) plus mouse.

 

[Hideauze]

When I fight against smaller ships, it's kind of like just shooting at the indicator and name. I think it would be awesome to have a zoom function to help with aiming and so I can see the ships getting blown up.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I think there's a certain size range where Starmades combat really shines, and that's roughly at the point where you're either hitting the soft cap or just about breaking into needing an auxiliary power chunk or two. Once you get two big the ships feel too sluggish to really be enjoyable, and on smaller ships I find actually hitting similarly sized targets to be a bit tedious (probably my lack of skill there admittedly). Once you're in the sweet spot though you can have a good range of either quicker more agile ships, slower tanky ships and a good array of weapon/turret/possibly even drone set ups, and piloting skill feels like it makes a difference more then on colossal titan esque ships.

Once we get good enough AI and fleet command options (and I recall reading about capital ships buffing fleets somewhere?) maybe other sizes will feel better.

 

[Malacodor]

Controlling bigger ships would likely be more fun, if we could control all main turrets simultaneously and let the AI control the ship. I can't find it atm, but I think this even planned already.

 

[madman Captain]

Why not Control the ship with WASD and aiming with Mouse in a third person view.