[Philoshopy] Why do we keep trying to build something pretty ?

    What is more important ?

    • Vizual

      Votes: 41 67.2%
    • Effectiveness

      Votes: 20 32.8%

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    Compraing Starmade an Minecraft is waste of time, there is no "Starmade is like Minecraft" because they are 2 completely different games with different motives...



    You seem to misunderstand the "deadly weapon"... why would you make a TNT cannon for defeating mobs ?

    I am trying to discuss why we try to build something pretty, and I justify building cubes more then ships, because they are more effective and usually not so complicated... the trailers and ingame builds don't involve much this discussion
    You do realize cubes and flat shapes in general are more fragile than non-cubes when they get shot by missiles right?

    Plus, details help as armor too

     
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    The reason why people build pretty things, is because they like to look at pretty things. Also doom cubes are more effective but not by much so although you can build whatever you want, your small percentage increase doesn't really give you any noticeable advantage vs a pretty pvp ship. SO let me inverse the question.

    Why do you prefer doom cubes when knowing the following?
    A. Doom cubes are only somewhat more effective then any well built ship in the same weight class.
    B. People base their opinions of you in games on how you look/carry yourself, an doom cubes give a bad first impression
    C. Doom cubes are considered "Easy" compared to other interesting challenges presented by Hull's that have a more advanced shapes. Thus making the builder look lazy.

    A, B, and C are why people DON'T like to build doom cubes. These facts have been pointed out to you. Even video evidence in the BnS tournament was pointed out. They are not up for dispute at this point unless you have an actual logical argument and can prove them wrong.

    SO taking all that into consideration why do you so want to promote doom cubes and argue in their favor when the community has proven that pretty ships can be effective, and they would prefer to have something that looks good and works when they play?
     
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    I am trying to discuss why we try to build something pretty, and I justify building cubes more then ships, because they are more effective and usually not so complicated... the trailers and ingame builds don't involve much this discussion
    Yes they do. The trailer is a marketing speech in video form; a message to potential players of what to expect - what kind of possibilities StarMade offers. By choosing aesthetically pleasing ships, the devs send a clear message: StarMade gives you a chance to build awesome-looking, fully functional ships. Why do you think the devs have bothered to put so many aesthetic blocks into the game? Because they're not only what the players want, they're what the devs wanted as well. Aesthetics are a part of their vision for StarMade. You're free to disregard it if you want, but that does not change the fact that for the majority of players, aesthetics will always be as important as - or even more important than - effectiveness.
     
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    Damn this topic is entertaining !



    No seriously, why do people try to build good looking ships ? Well it's been told maybe a hundred times here, but i'll just add a layer of it ...

    Because building a good looking ship is satisfying, challenging, rewarding, when you manage to build something original, special, it makes you feel different, you feel like you've built something never done before ( well that's not valid for people who reproduce already existing ships, but that's not the topic obviously ) and this feeling is very satifying, while optimizing is at the moment not bringing in any of those. In fact the only thing it is giving is the feeling of having what .... good stats ? Nice fire power ? Well yeah, it's pretty cool, never gonna deny it ! But in the current status of the game, any player who's got at least a couple of neurons could just be like "monkey see, monkey do" the optimizations because they're just not complex enough to be satisfying to be hardly working on. I mean, no one's gonna say "Oh look at this ship, what an awesome optimization, it must have been so hard working on it" while it's just ugly af. At the opposite, someone who's gonna make an awesome looking ship but with poor optimization, people are gonna be like "yeah, you could have done that better, but whatever it's still viable" and still get rewarded and recognized for it's awesome look or interiors.

    That's just how it works right now ...

    The day optimization will be something may more harder and technical to work on, well this day, it's gonna be as valued as design.
     
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    sayerulz

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    What do you mean "the trailers don't involve much"?

    You have completely, and probably deliberately, missed my point. The trailers and ingame builds clearly demonstrate that the developers think that asthetics are important.

    And of course, you are still cherrypicking arguments. If the game is not about asthetics, why are well over half of the blocks there for the sole reason of allowing people to build asthetically pleasing builds.

    Also, "comparing minecraft and starmade is a wast of time"? Are you serious?! Your are the one that first compared them in this discussion.
     

    Reilly Reese

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    Compraing Starmade an Minecraft is waste of time, there is no "Starmade is like Minecraft" because they are 2 completely different games with different motives...
     
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    The reason why people build pretty things, is because they like to look at pretty things. Also doom cubes are more effective but not by much so although you can build whatever you want, your small percentage increase doesn't really give you any noticeable advantage vs a pretty pvp ship. SO let me inverse the question.

    Why do you prefer doom cubes when knowing the following?
    A. Doom cubes are only somewhat more effective then any well built ship in the same weight class.
    B. People base their opinions of you in games on how you look/carry yourself, an doom cubes give a bad first impression
    C. Doom cubes are considered "Easy" compared to other interesting challenges presented by Hull's that have a more advanced shapes. Thus making the builder look lazy.

    A, B, and C are why people DON'T like to build doom cubes. These facts have been pointed out to you. Even video evidence in the BnS tournament was pointed out. They are not up for dispute at this point unless you have an actual logical argument and can prove them wrong.

    SO taking all that into consideration why do you so want to promote doom cubes and argue in their favor when the community has proven that pretty ships can be effective, and they would prefer to have something that looks good and works when they play?
    Dont bother, i wrote that down before, to a lesser extend, he just doesnt care what everyone, here tries to tell him, this thread serrves no purpose in my eyes. Replying to someone who refuses each and every argument made against his case ist really wotrt a discussion.

    He will make every argument, no matter how ignorant, to justify his cubes,
    Let him build his cubes, ist him who misses out on a major part of this game, not us.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    I'll expand on the position in favor of aesthetics.

    For reasons I won't get into right now, I play as a one-man faction in multi-player. Over the past few months, I've been approached by multiple players; asking for everything from a blueprint of my designs to doing cosmetic work on a basic hull of their design to custom building ships for them. I've even had two players ask for my designs specifically for use in a PVP war. For the record; despite my ships being powerful for their size, I've only been in one PVP engagement...

    So the question is; why would people be so insistent on getting their hands on designs that - for all intents and purposes - have not been battle tested? Why be intent on using said untested designs in an actual war? Why not say "screw it, I really want to win this war, so I'll just build a death brick."?
     
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    Dr. Whammy

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    To answer your question Dr. Whammy (Though I think it was rhetorical) Winning is not enough. You must win with class !
    Did you just call my ships classy?

    You know; flattery will get you everywhere...
    ;)
     

    PLIX

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    i nearly quit starmade after realising that my ships were bad at combat or bad looking i cmae back when i realised that eamming a pirate station in a light corvette doesn't end well wether it looks good or not so I went for looks
     
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    Zektor I try it with a different approach: Pls argue for the content and ideas the debating parties try to tell and not some picked out sentences without connection to what they really tried to say. If you would really care for the others arguments, you would read their whole statement instead of just picking the first sentence out of the essay. How does it matter if or if not Minecraft is like Starmade or not, for the point of:
    Therefore you are not bound to one build rule or battle rule. What if no one wants to fight with a "doombrick" anyway? Or what if it is okay to focus on the technical aspect of the building, and squeze out the last bit of efficiency with a doombrick? I think that building style is totally right.
    You pick the first 4 words "Starmade is like Minecraft" and then the rest of my arguemnt doesn't matter anymore to you, or to the others here. How do you think will there be any discussion when you talk like this? I didn't try to talk about Minecraft vs Starmade, I tried to talk about my view on Aestetics vs Efficiency and how diversity is good in a community. And I think I made my point very clear and easy to understand. So how in the world does someone who has a question about Doombricks vs White Swans suddenly try to force the discussion to Minecraft vs Starmade? I think you try to disagree with the easiest argument, but that's not how you win the others hearth. You instead just show everyone that you don't care to have a real talk with mutual understand. You should've tried to disagree with the whole idea my paragraph represented, not with the first 4 words.

    Maybe you can improve to discuss and lead a discussion. First thing to do would be responding to whole ideas not to the first few sentences. I immediatelly got annoyed when I saw that you didn't actually wanted to talk about what I wanted to talk about, and just picked this Minecraft vs Starmade idea that did not matter any way to me and what I tried to explain to you.

    I personally like the idea of this thread. It's a nice way to smalltalk. That is the reason this thread gets so much attention. But Zektor you really make it hard to talk when you are pretending to read someones point by quoting his first sentence instead of trying to talk about the idea a whole paragraph tried to give. I mean the only people still writing here are either new ones, or guys who allready know how you talk and try to explain to you what they don't like in this discussion.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    i nearly quit starmade after realising that my ships were bad at combat or bad looking i cmae back when i realised that eamming a pirate station in a light corvette doesn't end well wether it looks good or not so I went for looks
    I'm curious, what kind of ship were you flying?

    You should be able to take out a station with a ship of 5,000 mass or less; 3,000 with a superb build. ...and you can do it with a nice looking ship.

    Let me know if you need help, maybe I can give you a some pointers so that you can have both power and style.
     

    Matt_Bradock

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    I'm curious, what kind of ship were you flying?

    You should be able to take out a station with a ship of 5,000 mass or less; 3,000 with a superb build. ...and you can do it with a nice looking ship.

    Let me know if you need help, maybe I can give you a some pointers so that you can have both power and style.
    #BTCHPLZ my 1.3K mass starting miner! can take on and disarm an Eta, Beta or Gamma pirate station, and a 2.6K corvette of mine can handle an Alpha and Delta (if I don't screw up piloting-wise and get obliterated by missiles coming from my AMS grid's blind spots) Both of those ships have a well-detailed hull and interior.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    #BTCHPLZ my 1.3K mass starting miner! can take on and disarm an Eta, Beta or Gamma pirate station, and a 2.6K corvette of mine can handle an Alpha and Delta (if I don't screw up piloting-wise and get obliterated by missiles coming from my AMS grid's blind spots) Both of those ships have a well-detailed hull and interior.
    Even better...

    My ships tend to be a bit heavier than their dimensions may suggest since I use advanced armor and force fields on many of my builds. So I don't doubt that you can go far lower than what my numbers suggest.
     
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    Damn this topic is entertaining !



    No seriously, why do people try to build good looking ships ? Well it's been told maybe a hundred times here, but i'll just add a layer of it ...

    Because building a good looking ship is satisfying, challenging, rewarding, when you manage to build something original, special, it makes you feel different, you feel like you've built something never done before ( well that's not valid for people who reproduce already existing ships, but that's not the topic obviously ) and this feeling is very satifying, while optimizing is at the moment not bringing in any of those. In fact the only thing it is giving is the feeling of having what .... good stats ? Nice fire power ? Well yeah, it's pretty cool, never gonna deny it ! But in the current status of the game, any player who's got at least a couple of neurons could just be like "monkey see, monkey do" the optimizations because they're just not complex enough to be satisfying to be hardly working on. I mean, no one's gonna say "Oh look at this ship, what an awesome optimization, it must have been so hard working on it" while it's just ugly af. At the opposite, someone who's gonna make an awesome looking ship but with poor optimization, people are gonna be like "yeah, you could have done that better, but whatever it's still viable" and still get rewarded and recognized for it's awesome look or interiors.

    That's just how it works right now ...

    The day optimization will be something may more harder and technical to work on, well this day, it's gonna be as valued as design.
    I enjoy it also. But I feel like Zektor is being ganged up on a bit, so I'm jumping in.

    I'll grant that optimization is not a difficult achievement, assuming you know what you are optimizing for. But I would argue that there's more to an effective ship than pure numerical optimization. There are a lot of decisions that go into the mechanics of a ship in Starmade, and while a few are obvious(cannon/cannon for AMS or you're doing it wrong) many are not. The balance of armor and shields, where shields take up precious power and armor takes up thrust, which takes up power. Should you use high alpha weapons, or fast firing weapons? Overdrive slaves will mean you need less modules=cheaper ship to mass produce, but is the power cost worth it? What about the shape of the ship, and do you have turrets for the blind spots? Maybe some modular armor plates to foil ion cannons, and that leads us to the magical world of defensive effects.

    Even non combat ships can take work. I've been experimenting with racing rigs, and it's been tricky trying to fit everything in at the scale I'm working with. But bigger=terrible turning, so I'm stuck making a choice between overdrive for top speed or thrust for acceleration, and maybe I can fake it with a defensive push effect, but then I'll have to compensate in my thrust balance so I can still steer effectively.

    Effective design has its own, quiet kind of beauty that goes far beyond the spreadsheet(although spreadsheets bring a certain joy as well). And I for one have no problem if after all that you don't feel like greebling your exteriors or detailing the showers.
     

    PLIX

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    I'm curious, what kind of ship were you flying?

    You should be able to take out a station with a ship of 5,000 mass or less; 3,000 with a superb build. ...and you can do it with a nice looking ship.

    Let me know if you need help, maybe I can give you a some pointers so that you can have both power and style.
    the ships were drones and light bombers
     

    sayerulz

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    Dammit! Why did you have to bring this back? Now Zektor is going to start spamming his shit again.