Read by Schine Pirates own systems by default

[badmojo]

-Designate 1 pirate station per system a "main base" for the pirate faction
-Give them ownership of all systems
-Force players to neutralize the pirate main base in order to take ownership of the system

 

[jorn818]

-Designate 1 pirate station per system a "main base" for the pirate faction
-Give them ownership of all systems
-Force players to neutralize the pirate main base in order to take ownership of the system

Sure aslong as the pirates have some capital ships in that sector
with some turrets and fighters around it.

 

[SpaceChief]

Agree with this idea, it helps emphasize the "survival" aspect of the game. I'd like to see a game mode called something like "Post-imperial anarchy", where the starting galaxy is almost completely controlled by pirates. The meta-goal would be to take back and hold star systems, providing faction bonuses or whatever.

I like giving pirates really over-powered ships, but they don't spawn by default unless triggered by the admin. As a workaround, I copied some capital ship blueprints into the blueprints-stations subfolder under "pirate". Any unexplored station could be a derelict, trade guild, or pirate capital ship!

 

[badmojo]

I'm all for adding bigger more dangerous pirate stations for the main bases, but I figured I'd leave that out of the suggestion so if the developers like the idea they could implement it without a bunch of work making new stations.

Also, with new NPC factions coming, pirates won't be the only factions with main bases in systems they own.

 

[Bench]

Upcoming NPC updates will change a lot of things that relate to this request so stay tuned.

 

[Andem]

ooh! Yes! Survival will be a matter of surviving and not raiding a pirate base until you get bored!

 

[RabidBat]

Upcoming NPC updates will change a lot of things that relate to this request so stay tuned.

Got an ETA on that Update? AI Ships have been over looked for waaaaay too long. In an open universe game we really need working Pirates and Trade guild. With how often AI fleets are more buggered than not it gets frustrating for players, PVP aside, fighting the AI is really the only game play in this game. Been talking to many players, admins amd server owners and people are leaving SM in droves over the last few months because years of building and mining and little else. Having the damn pirates working once and for all would go along way to alleviating the massive boredom that comes after playing this game for sometimes up to several years.
2 steps forward 1 and sometimes 5 steps back.

We've got to live with constant changes to base StarMade mechanics, I am sure we could live with having to readjust pirates and trade guild as required, if they would only work on the most basic level. (after all we'll be re-balancing every damn ship any way AI or not like every other month or 2 weeks) Hell, it's hard to believe but with each update they actually get worse.
And not that anyone has any clear idea on how they work any way going by the many posts on the subject.

Building a Ship in StarMade for sometime now has been like owning a V8 Super Car and not having a road or racetrack to drive it on. Eventually people will just give up on attempting to keep that car drive-able or believing they will ever be able to drive it.

It's just even more annoying when things are working fine, like weapons, shields, power,thrust and armour. And instead of leaving it alone and moving on to areas of StarMade that desperately need it like AI and other game play elements, Schine instead decides to rebalance everything again and again, or decides what we need is an ore renamed, a new texture and maybe a race track nobody ever uses.
No idea why faction points were ever added when they're as useless as the AI ships.

Seriously Schine many people love this game but you guys are slowly making it a love hate relationship. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, games need game play. You can have tweaks and optimization and game play. Feels like when the gameplay gets added we will see everything re balanced and screwed up again because it doesn't work with what is there, where as if you added this stuff in now or ages ago you could be making it all work at the same time. It seems to be how every other early access/indie game developer does it.
"Here's a bunch of fixes,and some content and game play, please test it."

Oh well I'll sit here and wait for the next power and weapon rebalance, and maybe a new texture for a block that is already fine for alpha because honestly from experience we have more chance of that occurring before we will ever see the AI or Faction points working.
I know the game is still in development and will be for some time, but seriously that excuse only goes so far.

Please stop dragging your feet and fixing things that are not broken and start fixing the things that are.
Sure we've paid to bug test but we've also paid to play a game at the same time. A hamburger is not a hamburger without the meat.

Seriously having the AI ships working has been probably the most requested feature and common complaint I have seen since I bought this game a year and a half ago.
It's getting hard to have a multiplayer experience with no players, and it is hard to convince people to play when there is no game except 'new month, rebuild your ship for the 50millionth time because purple' game. My regular server many of those who have played SM for a very long time have just given up,they do not even come back to see what the new updates bring. We have to work our arses off to get new players and try to retain them.

A space game likes this needs AI ships that work at even the most basic level.
It is seriously time to get 2 steps forward, no steps back.

 

[Bench]

Thanks for your reply. The team at Schine are actively working towards adding in a number of gameplay improvements and additions. With such an audacious plan it takes a lot of pieces put in place to build the foundation. Rest assured every update is designed to take us one step closer to that end. It's all planned out but even still because of all that needs to happen and such a small team in comparison it'll still take months; that's the fastest it can happen. That's all I'm focused on, getting gameplay to where we want it to be, not implementing something quick for the sake of getting something in quick.

 

[Locusthorde300]

Thanks for your reply. The team at Schine are actively working towards adding in a number of gameplay improvements and additions. With such an audacious plan it takes a lot of pieces put in place to build the foundation. Rest assured every update is designed to take us one step closer to that end. It's all planned out but even still because of all that needs to happen and such a small team in comparison it'll still take months; that's the fastest it can happen. That's all I'm focused on, getting gameplay to where we want it to be, not implementing something quick for the sake of getting something in quick.

Any plans to add new team members?

 

[Valck]

It seems to be how every other early access/indie game developer does it.

Yeah right? One might wonder why that is so...

"Here's a bunch of fixes,and some content and game play, please test it."

It seems what you actually want instead is "early access" to a finished triple-A game. "I want my game with final balance, no bugs, and all the content, and I want it nao."

 

[RabidBat]

It seems what you actually want instead is "early access" to a finished triple-A game. "I want my game with final balance, no bugs, and all the content, and I want it nao."

Actually, I in no way said anything like that. I understand and accept this is an Alpha and has bugs. But I also realise this is a game. Games need game play. I also can see when something is working fine and then is changed for no apparent reason,while things that are broken are neglected.
This is what Early Access is for yes, Feedback? Both the good and bad.

Seriously, it's never a good idea to read "the sky is blue" and then tell the writer that what they meant was 'the sky is red', a common occurence on the net "no no,what you meant is......"

Oddly enough I generally have a good idea of what I am thinking and actually mean. One of the joys of my brain being my own and immune to internet psychics. :D

It's the same as me going like so:

Yeah right? One might wonder why that is so...

No, what you meant to say is you enjoy having turnips shoved up your nose.

See how that works? :p

Bench thanks for taking the time to read and reply.
But I have to admit I more often than not cannot see why things like systems are constantly rebalanced when they appear to be just fine while other areas needing work are seemingly overlooked/ignored.

 

[Bench]

I understand the difficulty in seeing the big picture when you don't have the pieces. One thing to consider is that we have a number of different teams, one of which takes care of looking at rebalancing. Often rebalancing is able to be done through the config a rather than core gameplay code, so while the dev team will be working on one thing, the balancing team will test out some config changes that they're keen to trial across the whole userbase.

So there's a lot at play behind the scenes.

 

[kiraen]

But I also realise this is a game.

Actually, this is where people keep getting it wrong.

This is not a game. In time it will become a game, but it has quite a ways to go first.

The seed has been planted. It has been fertilized and watered. It has sprouted and is beginning to grow.
But we are a long way from apple pie.

Alpha software can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version. In general, external availability of alpha software is uncommon in proprietary software, while open source software often has publicly available alpha versions. The alpha phase usually ends with a feature freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature complete.

Why do people have such a hard time grasping this?

 

[RabidBat]

Wow people really cannot read. I need some of dem psychic powers asap.

I guess understandable, many here who are not native English speakers after all.

 

[Lithia]

Actually, this is where people keep getting it wrong.

This is not a game. In time it will become a game, but it has quite a ways to go first.

The seed has been planted. It has been fertilized and watered. It has sprouted and is beginning to grow.
But we are a long way from apple pie.

Alpha software can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version. In general, external availability of alpha software is uncommon in proprietary software, while open source software often has publicly available alpha versions. The alpha phase usually ends with a feature freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature complete.

Why do people have such a hard time grasping this?

I believe Rabidbat knows what Early access means, unless you are implying that he is stupid or something.

Anyway in my opinion, things are being Re-balanced and modified that don't need to be modified.
Also the developers should just go on a straight and forward task of completing a game that has been in Early access development for so long

New game play elements such as Stable NPC AI, Programmable blocks, Programmable NPC's, Different types of planets, Research and Technology, Upgraded Blocks such as Power Reactor MKI or MKII.

Things people will be interested in instead of just another; Oh i re balanced all the weapon systems and minor systems so you an all rebuild your ships to our specifications.

I do hope you understand what i am trying to imply here.

 

[Master_Artificer]

Wow people really cannot read. I need some of dem psychic powers asap.

I guess understandable, many here who are not native English speakers after all.

I believe they want the crew update in first, then have the new pirates use the stuff from the crew update, with crewed pirates and whatnot.
I don't think they want to update pirates, do crew, then update pirates again.

So really, we should be asking, what parts do you need to get the pirate update out, then holler and kick for those to be next.

 

[Winterhome]

Anyway in my opinion, things are being Re-balanced and modified that don't need to be modified.
Also the developers should just go on a straight and forward task of completing a game that has been in Early access development for so long

Y'know, they have multiple staff members. It's not like it's the programmers themselves that're doing the balancing and tweaking. That's the job of the other team members. You know, the ones who can't program or add features themselves? The ones that you and RabidBat are consistently forgetting exist?

 

[kiraen]

I do hope you understand what i am trying to imply here.

That you haven't read any of the development logs?
Or paid any attention to the posts made by Bench, Criss, and the rest of the Schine team?

It has been stated that the next years worth of development has already been planned out. Schine has decided to build a solid foundation instead of randomly throwing crap into the game because a few players don't really know what is going on.

The race track that was added was because it was a matter of copy/paste for Schema. Very little was needed to implement it. He probably did it on a catnip break to unwind before tackling some more serious code.
The new blocks and textures are done by kupu, who has little to do with the code side of things. Frankly, I could add new blocks and textures in a matter of minutes. They'd be ugly, but they would be functionally the same.
Perhaps your complaint is about the slabs, not the pink armor. Slabs were implemented as part of the cargo system. The code that allows them to work is what makes the cargo blocks 'fill up'. Considering the number of threads practically begging for additional slabs and slab-like blocks I think the majority of the community is ok with it.
Then there is the 'rebalancing' that you are complaining about. Seriously? Yet again, I could be doing the rebalancing. It's 5 minutes with a text editor. And I'm betting a lot of the changes had already been done by various server owners.

As for the pirates...

Direction over the next few months
The next few months are going to be interesting, as we delve into these new aspects of the game. There are features we have planned that aren’t a sort of overnight implementation, and due to dependencies there’s several big features that require other features to go in before it can all really come together and be used in its entirety or as intended.

What we can expect in the next few updates...

Recruiting NPCs to your faction
NPC Characteristics
Defining of Internal Areas (Working Title: Quarters)
Duty Stations
Chairs
Managing Crew
Mutinies
Interaction Sets & Paths/Patrols
Ship Management Control

I imagine the patrol code would come in handy for the Scavanger ai. NPC characteristics so that the Scavs don't perform the exact same attacks every time. Internal area and duty stations, Criss will need those in place so that the Scavs aren't just flying doomcubes and Isanths. Duty stations and management will be need so that your crew know what to do when the Scavs try to board your ship. (And so the Scavs know what to do when you try to board theirs.)

And just so we are clear, once all of that is implemented...it will be broken. Why? Because half of the pieces will still be missing. In fact, the entire game will be broken in one way or another until v1.0. (and even then we can expect bugs, no one is perfect)

I believe Rabidbat knows what Early access means,

Obviously he doesn't, since he is expecting feature complete gameplay. The fact that we have 'gameplay' at all is something of a minor miracle. This is not something you can reasonably expect from an alpha level program.

[sarcasm]It's a pity Schine has no idea how to make this game and Bench wasted all of his time writing those useless planning docs.[/sarcasm]



Edit: I could be completely wrong in my expectations of how the coming updates will effect scavengers. But I trust that the developers actually know what they are doing. I wouldn't have bought the game otherwise.

 

[EnerJay]

Personally, I believe that the updates are things to look forward to.. they're brand new settings and mechanics to go and try out and instead of constantly criticizing them, maybe we should be oohing and ahhing over the new things to try out and test. if that means rebuilding your fleet then so be it.. personally i enjoy starting from fresh every time there's a major update.. puts the fun back into things when you have nothing ;p
The developers are doing everything they said they're going to do and to me that's good enough.

EDIT: maybe i should also add that I'm not against the improvements, I'm just saying that i can wait for them and while i wait i will enjoy what we already have.. the developers have given us the general direction things are heading and it's not really our place to say that they should do this over that (we may offer suggestions of course that's the whole point of the forums...). I say that because there are so many different ways they can approach the improvements and complaining just because they aren't doing it the way you'd like them to do it is unfair. Also, realizing that there are different people doing the balancing and tweaking as compared to the coding is essential..

 

[Benevolent27]

I think allowing pirates to own sectors would be a welcome addition to the game. Perhaps allow sectors to be either all owned by pirates or randomly owned or not. This would just take a randomization engine to decide which base the originating base would be.

The problem I see with this sort of gameplay though is that once someone takes a base down and claims the sector, suddenly everyone would flock to their sector to mine all their asteroids and planets to get the 6x bonus or try to gank the newly created base. Once enough parts of the universe are claimed, and those users stop playing, it would become easier and easier to claim sectors.