[OT] What draws you into playing StarMade over others in this genre?

[EMC007]

1/10. Git gud.

...Anyway, you should format and submit that as a Steam review. StarMade could use some good and comprehensive ones.

Will do

 

[Tamren Shade]

When I was a kid I got the Star Trek Technical Manual for Christmas, and promptly started building very colorful (I cared far more about shapes and color coded symbology then aesthetics back then ) Star Trek ships of no particular class with complete multi-deck interiors and systems where the crew were represented by the little 1x1 blocks. Then got bored, and slowly blew the ship up by shooting rubber bands at it and carefully removing blocks around the impact sight, and then starting over again.

Much later, I got in deep with Minecraft on the Xbox 360 and later Xbox One. While building fortifications, mines, and transit systems in a survival fantasy setting was fun, I still really wanted to build spaceships. The wife and I got sucked into a short lived 40k Black Crusade game and I started reading up on Battlefleet Gothic ships, which in turn lead my building a 1/8 scale Cobra Destroyer in creative mode minecraft. It was a badly needed distraction at the time as we were trying to recover from the worst financial straights we'd ever been in do to a mix of factors I have no desire to revisit here other than to say I will never ever take a job in another state again without taking a recording of the interview and getting a contract in writing. Lessons Learned ....

Anyways, I got halfway through the Cobra Project and did a random search on google for Minecraft in Space, which lead me to the Mushroom Fleet Channel and I immediately fell in love with the game from the videos alone. I NEEDED TO PLAY THIS!!! Which took another year before I got my hands on a pc that could run Starmade and that was all she wrote.

Now that I've actually played SM for 1200 hours as of yesterday, I have to say I love the sheer level of creativity possible, and the super deep mechanics I'm still figuring out to get a ship tuned just right. Or how there is no Ultimate Starship, anything one can build in SM someone else can build a counter too, so you get a rock-paper-scissors-beam-missile-cannon-shield-armor-thrusters feel that is the hallmark of a fantastic game.

 

[Gasboy]

rock-paper-scissors-beam-missile-cannon-shield-armor-thrusters

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa right there...

No lizard or Spock?

 

[Nickizzy]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa right there...

No lizard or Spock?

rock-paper-scissors-piratestation-red glow-boom-respawn screen

rock-paper-scissors-warheadshotgun

 

[Ithirahad]

Rock-paper-cannons-beams-scissors-lizard-missiles-memes

 

[Comradecolonel]

I'm american so I like freedom. This game has a lot of it. Space engineers and Empyrion I both play but I enjoy the building in Starmade more. I can make whatever I want and make it look however I want.

 

[AngelSquad]

Though I've only been playing Starmade for about a week and only been using the forums within the last few days, but starmade really is a cut above the rest IMO.

I started by playing minecraft and after years that got stale so in an attempt to freshen up gameplay i thought of a cool idea for a story mod, suffice it to say i started searching for images of ships to build for said mod and that's when i seen mention of Starmade, and at first i thought "oh just another minecraft clone"(not exactly but you know what i mean) but it looked interesting enough so i decided to "research"(watch videos) about Starmade.

im not gonna lie, the freeness of Starmade is what drew me in after that, I almost never have enough money to buy new games and when i do they are always (almost always) a disappointment but starmade gave me the chance to try before i buy and i cant tell you how appreciative i am of that, even better though Starmade has the full version playable for free, which is great for me until i can scrap up the cash to pay for it (though its not very expensive, i kinda live cheque to cheque and i smoke so /bye money) so for me it sounded great, so much so that i checked several times to see if the newest version was still free before i downloaded it, because it sounded too good to be true.

but that's just why i started playing, as for the game itself its fantastic,

The way the devs actually listen and incorporate things the community suggests is so refreshing its almost unheard of, i for one cannot think of another example. And the community is so welcoming and nice and always has constructive criticism so you can improve and build even better next time instead of just criticism that helps no one, which is also a major plus. the variety and variance of build styles is...organic, with people building off each other and learning as a group, and there's not a sense of "this is the way you have to do it because it the best/only way" because there's not just one way to do things and people are always finding new ways to do cool stuff.

Also there's the fact that the game itself has a variance, Ship, Station and Planet/Asteroid Bases, the possibility's are endless (or at-least seem to be), freedom to chose what you want to build or focus on, not to mention the (relatively) easy ways to change certain ('rules?' or would it be 'parameters?') of local/server play to your liking.

These are the reasons starmade has eclipsed other games for me, Starmade literally allows you to build your own universe the way you want it while also taking into consideration its community, Its Perfect and far above anything else I've played. I love this game.

 

[Tamren Shade]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa right there...

No lizard or Spock?

Sadly there are neither lizards nor spock in game yet!

 

[JinM]

I like the logic and display modules, with those you can make story lines and rp-elements into your ship. Even though Space Engineers has it too, Starmade gives way more creative possibilities with his block-style than the others.

And - most important - the code is able to host mid-scale battles with 10 or more ship. In Space Engineers having 2 medium ships battling with more than 10 turrets equals in too many (for me thats allready given if one out of ten fights getting bugged) cases a server crash.

 

[NeonSturm]

First off, tried to find an Off-Topic forum, but there doesnt seem to be one.

But to preface this post: There seems to be this genre push for Sandbox style open space sim games, which for one I am happy to be seeing. It seemed the genre was practically non-existent, and then lately, everyone and their mother have been putting out space sim games left and right.

I saw on the Steam workshop ANOTHER sandbox creative space sim: Avorion (Avorion - Sci-Fi Space Sandbox: Explore, Build, Trade, Fight), which looks interesting and pretty. Havent played it yet.

But yet, looking at this list of games in the current genre...

• StarMade
• Space Engineers
• Empyrion
• Intersteller Rift
• Avorion

None of them have that look, feel, and complexity that StarMade has for me. I have played all of them now (except Avorion), but each one severely lacks many things that I cant really put my finger on. But in each case, I get bored of the blandness and end up back at starmade.

With the exception of StarMade, all the games above do a decent job of creating the hull of a ship, but they all look pretty bland, and the way they handle ship systems seems more like a bunch of props placement. And I believe thats the main issue I have with all the above games (except StarMade of course)... You are really just building a shell or frame for system props.

Dont get me wrong, every game looks much prettier and graphics wise, sorta wish StarMade could approach that level... but the limiting factor of prop placement really is major drawback. And thats where StarMade shines for me. I love the complex structures players can make for just about everything, ranging from a ship's power systems and components, to the limitless possibilities with weapons and turrets. Add in the massively complex shipyards, rail system, fleets, carriers, logic systems, NPCs... none of the other games above have that factor.

So there it is. StarMade, for me personally, is a cut above the rest for those reason alone, and the dream game for me would be StarMade + modern graphics.

Anyone else agree?

At times, I was surprised why I care about SM and came to the conclusion that it was the combination of

1. better logic than MC
   
2. Build-able vehicles with build-able turrets.
   
3. fully customizable terrain
   
4. ship combat simulator
5. multiplayer

If it's just these few things, why do not more peoples make games like SM? Here is why:

• hardware incompatibility
• network management
• levels of details (with which sectors or blocks are loaded or rendered in which way)
• physics - just half of an implementation is not sufficient
• …

I have only played SM, SpaceEngineers, MC demo, Robocraft, SpaceJunkLeague, but not:

• Empyrion
• Intersteller Rift
• Avorion
• SkyNation
• From the Depths

SpaceEngineers is nice, but not free2play, Windows only and not providing corridors and rooms as pretty as SM's
MC has no space ships nor zeppelins nor flying buildable vehicles.
Robocraft und SpaceJunkLeague are very limited in block count and design choices due to no energy shields.

I couldn't get a copy of SkyNation for my Computer, but I am not really a fan of SpaceJunkLeage and SkyNation's strict separation of verticale and horizontale directions. Perhaps SN is better than SJL if there are no 400km/h fast Screen-Zippers which you can not point with your mouse.

I certainly try to find letsplay-YouTube-Videos for the other games you mentioned.

Neonsturm, I presume you mean From the depths.

EDIT: ty​

 

[_Scooter98_]

I haven't checked out sky nation yet, but I have played now played avorion. It's a good premise to start on, but at the moment it's just that. I don't like the build mode in avorion (the camera orbits around a single selectable block and the building blocks don't line up with each other most of the time, the way to resize blocks is good though).

Interstellar rift is another great idea, but I really can't stand the build mode in it, that and I end up collecting a fuckton of resources, buy my catalogued ship built by me. After a few minutes of flying around I get bored and End up just forgetting about the game for a month or something.

Neonsturm, I presume you mean From the depths.


My thoughts on the spacey games, but you may have a different opinion.


_Scooter98_

 

[JinM]

The only promissing competitor is Empyrion. But they have no logic stuff, and placing a display block is something most of the people don't do. In Starmade using display blocks is standard. Ofcourse the ships in Emp are more shiny.

But besides that the pvp is as bad as in Starmade: The biggest pvp server (hws) have the same problems SM pvp servers have: Capitals or big groups of people bashing smaller ones. For me multiplayer combat EVE like is just shit. I like to play fair matches. Don't care if you other guys have the patience and time to simulate some faction politics. I think thats just RP gone wrong. RP is done for the sole story purpose, and not for the PVP purpose. But I drift away. :D Anyway: Empyrion - great survival part, mediocore pvp and ship building is more limitted as in SM coz you can't build turrets, docking bays and logic stuff.

 

[NeonSturm]

For me multiplayer combat EVE like is just cannon. I like to play fair matches. Don't care if you other guys have the patience and time to simulate some faction politics.

I played a lot of StarConflict and Dota2. Not voxel games, but you learn a lot about combat with it.

Equal teams suck if you don't play in a group. Play with random peoples you have not met before the game starts with ships and tools you selected is a mess.
* In StarConflict, maybe you have a gunship+tackler+interceptor, but have to fight a battle without engineer or command (the area buffers).

Ideally, you should play with the players you meet instead of requiring a faction.

Instead of factions, how about motherships as jumping stations which group up to protect each other? Each player could build freely and if someone is kicked from a faction, his mothership just gets warped elsewhere with all his assets.
I think I make a thread for it ​

 

[2dozen22s]

I prefer StarMade over other games like SE because of development and features, SE still hasn't revived compound building, and cant handle large battles at all, meanwhile StarMade doesn't need that can handle larger battles or events than SE.
StarMade has a good amount of complexity and ways to build and is consistent in feel (for the most part).
Further, StarMade has far more potential than other games in the genre, With a physics & mechanics (as in rotors, not game play) revamp we could have engineering on SE level, With a movement revamp we could have excellent gun play & make better ship layouts, & the list goes on, the game is a far better piece of clay to be modeled than SE or other similar games in my view.

 

[NeonSturm]

SE has a better physics implementation - this is what drains the cpu.

With SE's planets and computers, I could imagine playing SE too. SE has what SM doesn't and vice versa.

 

[JinM]

If SE wouldn't have this complicated physics engine, it could've been a great pvp-game. :D It has the best ideas around ammunition, a working oxygen engine and the ability to dock a ship to another ship and board it. Heck even shields were added via plugins. But it doesn't matter as long as the game crashes, lags and has low fps even on high end pc's and servers.

 

[Ithirahad]

If SE wouldn't have this complicated physics engine, it could've been a great pvp-game. :D It has the best ideas around ammunition, a working oxygen engine and the ability to dock a ship to another ship and board it. Heck even shields were added via plugins. But it doesn't matter as long as the game crashes, lags and has low fps even on high end pc's and servers.

I somehow doubt that that's the physics engine's complexity as much as generally crappy design.

 

[NeonSturm]

If SE wouldn't have this complicated physics engine, it could've been a great pvp-game. :D It has the best ideas around ammunition, a working oxygen engine and the ability to dock a ship to another ship and board it. Heck even shields were added via plugins. But it doesn't matter as long as the game crashes, lags and has low fps even on high end pc's and servers.

Is SM better right now? I can't see blocks (not rendered for me).
As long as SM doesn't get fixed and SE does not work on Linux, even MineCraft is better.

 

[JinM]

I somehow doubt that that's the physics engine's complexity as much as generally crappy design.

I think complexity is the right word for this, because they could've implemented a very shallow physics collision damage and would've been better off. But they implemented it way over the top with calculations for each cube on their grids seperately. I think even each cube has also an information from where it gets the damge when it gets drawn. Instead of packing damage that comes from physical collision into a hitbox.

Lets say a ship consists of 81 hitboxes (a cube divided into a 9x9 grid), instead of calculating the damage for each cube on the ship on its own. Allready computing physical damage (velocity, mass, direction, impact point, distribution) for 729 (9^3) hitbox-cubes is a big thing - hardly possible in realtime. But cumputing it for all actual cubes (a 30m long, 10m high and 20m wide ship has like 6000 cubes - minimum) times the cubes that impacts that ship - again 6000 cubes - is horrendous.

And you can do it easy: Just assume each of two colliding ships is a big cube (or even dot) and caculate the damage via multiplicating mass and relative velocity. Then hit each ship with an imaginary missile, that equals the energy of the impact. If the impact damage is too small, nothing at all happens. You even can even calculate the force after the impact. It's not sophisticated, but it should work.
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Is SM better right now? I can't see blocks (not rendered for me).
As long as SM doesn't get fixed and SE does not work on Linux, even MineCraft is better.

It's just a bug. Ofcourse SM is better for space-combat on the long run. On the short run we have no space combat game atm. If you want some sandbox pvp without flying you can take any game, including Minecraft.

 

[NeonSturm]

I think complexity is the right word for this, because they could've implemented a very shallow physics collision damage and would've been better off.

With that much info, you should do uniform physics on the graphics card. But if they do, you cannot compare it to a game which does it on the cpu.
Would SM be better of with minimalistic physics: LandTraveller (Demo) by Sayuri Firebrand ? This game allows you to play as a !!!

It's just a bug. Ofcourse SM is better for space-combat on the long run.

A bug which sticks around for months isn't "just a bug". It's a ban from MP servers which use last stable.