Power 2.1 doesn't suck.

[Zoolimar]

stabilisers = limit power to size ratio (I don't know why, maybe encourage interior). they put the "depth" of the power system here : you have to choose if you put stabilisers at optimal distance or use more stabilisers (more mass) but have a smaller ship
purple stream = counter island ships

I know what they do. I just don't understand why they were used in the first place - those functions could have been added to relationships between reactors and systems without adding a new block and that purple thing.

 

[Maramonster]

I know what they do. I just don't understand why they were used in the first place - those functions could have been added to relationships between reactors and systems without adding a new block and that purple thing.

This might come off as snarky, but I don't mean it that way in the slightest. How would you suggest they do it, if not this way? (I'm not the biggest fan of power 2.0, and would love to hear alternatives)

 

[kulbolen]

This might come off as snarky, but I don't mean it that way in the slightest. How would you suggest they do it, if not this way? (I'm not the biggest fan of power 2.0, and would love to hear alternatives)

if you use your search function, and assuming they havent been deleted because of the arguing... theres dozens already on here.

 

[Zoolimar]

How would you suggest they do it, if not this way?

Here is a good thread with ideas on how to encourage interiors without the need for stabilizers https://starmadedock.net/threads/brainstorm-this-crew-chambers-no-crew.30018/
Brainstorm This: Crew Chambers (no crew)
I'd say a similar solution alone is enough to make ships look much more ship like.

To discourage island builds you could apply additional mechanics (conduits, effective radius around reactors, etc.) but in theory good armour should be enough to prevent this - if armour would be actually effective ships will be built in more compact shapes (and no, cube won't be the best). Integrity should prevent ships becoming completely string like.

 

[Valiant70]

Here is a good thread with ideas on how to encourage interiors without the need for stabilizers
Brainstorm This: Crew Chambers (no crew)
I'd say a similar solution alone is enough to make ships look much more ship like.

To discourage island builds you could apply additional mechanics (conduits, effective radius around reactors, etc.) but in theory good armour should be enough to prevent this - if armour would be actually effective ships will be built in more compact shapes (and no, cube won't be the best). Integrity should prevent ships becoming completely string like.

The chamber system does need a rework. I'm not sure this in particular is what we need. There would be less wasted development time if we just wait for Schema to come up with the full crew system. I do have my own idea for a chamber rework, but haven't gotten around to writing about it yet.

 

[Scypio]

I'm glad Scypio shared his feelings on this specific situation that is ruining his enjoyment, because (not to contradict his own account of himself, but just to relate my reading) it further confirms to me that the real problem most people are having right now is the transition itself.

I just said that the new power system completely ruined any type of vertical building and thus ruined my enjoyement in the game. I don't know how you can deduct that from what i said.
I'm not going to change my taste because schema or someone else said that now what i like will suck. If i can't build whatever i like then this game is no sandbox, if i can't have enjoyement in a game then i don't play it. As simple as that.

 

[Valiant70]

I just said that the new power system completely ruined any type of vertical building

Doesn't the recent stabilizer update fix that?

 

[GDPR 302420]

The statement Power 2.1 doesn't suck is incorrect.

Reasons why are as follows:

• Regardless of however StarMade devsquad lowers the required amount of stabilisers, it doesn't change the fact that stabs add nothing to the game and are simply a restriction for the sake of having a restriction.
• Forced design choices as a result of both day zero bugs and core design choices behind 2.0 still exist, this is one of the things the developers wanted to do away with using 2.0, but they have achieved the exact opposite, they have created NEW forced design choices.
• Offence scaling vs defence scaling is still screwed up, 10k mass ships 1 hit killing 500k mass ships is not balanced gameplay.
• Integrity doesn't even solve the issue that was intended to be solved with its implementation, Spaghetti is still possible and is very much meta. This video is a good example of the very issue I am talking about (video courtesy of Lord_Latterous)
• The addition of RHP turns winning combat into what is essentially coring from updates before SHP was implemented.
• Building creativity has taken a major hit, meta PvP has not.

Schine does listen.

So then what was the reason that Schine deliberately avoided posting an update thread on StarMadeDock (where most criticism of the update came from) and locked down the forums for several days after Power 2.0 was released?

Because as far as myself and several others are concerned, this was Schine's attempt to avoid criticism because Schine is not interested in listening.

Schine does use your ideas to help inspire their fixes.

[edit]

Here is summary of what Schine has done to address the problems in question (Lecic was the one who originally made this analogy but I can't find the exact quote)

• Experienced Players: Schine, we have done testing and the math and have discovered your system has problems A, B, C, D and E, You could fix all these problems with Solution 1, 2, and/or 3.
• Schine: We are listening to your concerns and have implemented solution 4!
• Experienced Players: What the...? Schine your solution hasn't fixed A, B, C, D or E and now has added Problem F, G and H! Just implement 1, 2 and/or 3!
• Schine: We are listening to your concerns and have added Solution 5 to fix Problem F, G and H!
• Experienced Players: What the fuck Schine, now you have just added Problems I, J, K and L and still haven't fixed anything! Just get rid of all this unnecessary crap and Implement Solution 1, 2 and/or 3!
• Schine: We are satisfied with the current state of our game and we are now releasing this as power 2.0!
• Ticked off experienced players: God dammit Schine!

Schine does not reply because when they do they are attacked mercilessly by trolls.

I have this image in my signature for posts just like this one.

 

[Valiant70]

The statement Power 2.1 doesn't suck is incorrect.

LOL

Regardless of however StarMade devsquad lowers the required amount of stabilisers, it doesn't change the fact that stabs add nothing to the game and are simply a restriction for the sake of having a restriction.

In Power 1.0, there was a strong correlation between ship size and power output, at least until sizes where hitting the softcap was easy. Stabilizers attempt to create such a correlation for all ship sizes. It's not just "for the sake of having a restriction" but rather an attempt at a sanity check.

Forced design choices as a result of both day zero bugs and core design choices behind 2.0 still exist, this is one of the things the developers wanted to do away with using 2.0, but they have achieved the exact opposite, they have created NEW forced design choices.

I noticed at least three things that restricted choices in the initial power 2.0 release.

• 1-dimensional stabilizers forced specific ship shapes (mostly fixed)
• Integrity is borked af.
• You can only have one reactor

Offence scaling vs defence scaling is still screwed up, 10k mass ships 1 hit killing 500k mass ships is not balanced gameplay.

Go figure. We're missing half the systems update. Current stable release uses NEW power/defense and OLD weapons. I'd have released both at the same time, but meh. I'm not too pissed off because you can always wait and update after the other half is out.

Integrity doesn't even solve the issue that was intended to be solved with its implementation, Spaghetti is still possible and is very much meta. This video is a good example of the very issue I am talking about (video courtesy of Lord_Latterous)

Integrity is broken and ineffective. Therefore, this: Necessary Integrity Fixes
It's a start anyway.

The addition of RHP turns winning combat into what is essentially coring from updates before SHP was implemented.

That was one of my complaints. I still think we need a hybrid system between RHP and SHP where hitting the reactor is the equivalent of a "headshot" in first-person shooters. Just make reactors do a disproportionately high amount of damage to SHP. That way shooting the rest of it still matters and the good ol' "shoot it til it dies" tactic is still viable.

Building creativity has taken a major hit, meta PvP has not.

Creative building sucked anyway until fairly recently in Starmade's development. I doubt it will suck for AS LONG with the new system. Was this expected? Yeah. Am I mad? Nah, and I'm a freaking roleplayer.

So then what was the reason that Schine deliberately avoided posting an update thread on StarMadeDock (where most criticism of the update came from) and locked down the forums for several days after Power 2.0 was released?

Because as far as myself and several others are concerned, this was Schine's attempt to avoid criticism because Schine is not interested in listening.

Anyone who has any understanding of the game will know this to be false.

Here is summary of what Schine has done to address the problems in question (Lecic was the one who originally made this analogy but I can't find the exact quote)

• Experienced Players: Schine, we have done testing and the math and have discovered your system has problems A, B, C, D and E, You could fix all these problems with Solution 1, 2, and/or 3.
• Schine: We are listening to your concerns and have implemented solution 4!
• Experienced Players: What the...? Schine your solution hasn't fixed A, B, C, D or E and now has added Problem F, G and H! Just implement 1, 2 and/or 3!
• Schine: We are listening to your concerns and have added Solution 5 to fix Problem F, G and H!
• Experienced Players: What the fuck Schine, now you have just added Problems I, J, K and L and still haven't fixed anything! Just get rid of all this unnecessary crap and Implement Solution 1, 2 and/or 3!
• Schine: We are satisfied with the current state of our game and we are now releasing this as power 2.0!
• Ticked off experienced players: God dammit Schine!

...K whatever.

It's going to take a while for Starmade to be awesome like it was before. Anyone with any wisdom should have expected that. Power 2.0 sucked asteroids. As far as the power itself in Power 2.1? No, it doesn't suck. It's not great, but it's a start. I'm pretty sure that was the goal.

Come back a month or so after the weapon update. Things will most likely be less broken then. Meanwhile, I hear Empyrion PVP is fun, and they actually have planetside battles. GLHF.

 

[GDPR 302420]

In Power 1.0, there was a strong correlation between ship size and power output, at least until sizes where hitting the softcap was easy. Stabilizers attempt to create such a correlation for all ship sizes. It's not just "for the sake of having a restriction" but rather an attempt at a sanity check.

Your statement that in Power 1.0 larger ships produced more power is correct, but what you seem to be forgetting is that larger ships also used more power thus larger = more power isn't an issue.

I noticed at least three things that restricted choices in the initial power 2.0 release.

• 1-dimensional stabilizers forced specific ship shapes (mostly fixed)
• Integrity is borked af.
• You can only have one reactor

I noticed several more:

• Offence vs Defence scaling mandated the usage of offence focused builds over defence focused, especially true due to current shield mechanics.
• Forced spacing of reactors mandated the usage of Spaghetti-like designs.
• Due to offence > defence style balance, 2.5 thrust to mass was essentially a requirement.
• For the same reasons above, vertical builds were essentially a requirement.
• More

I don't blame you for not noticing these, [edit].

Go figure. We're missing half the systems update. Current stable release uses NEW power/defense and OLD weapons. I'd have released both at the same time, but meh. I'm not too pissed off because you can always wait and update after the other half is out.

The issues we are seeing are not a result of weapon balance, they are a result of the core design elements of power 2.0.

Integrity is broken and ineffective. Therefore, this: Necessary Integrity Fixes
It's a start anyway.

The solutions in this thread won't solve spaghetti, one of the reasons Spaghetti is so effective is that you are not going to get hit in the first place, assuming you can even hit enough times to beat the shield recharge you wont be doing much block damage because 99% of your shots are gonna miss, especially true due to bugs with weapon accuracy (in particular missiles)

That was one of my complaints. I still think we need a hybrid system between RHP and SHP where hitting the reactor is the equivalent of a "headshot" in first-person shooters. Just make reactors do a disproportionately high amount of damage to SHP. That way shooting the rest of it still matters and the good ol' "shoot it til it dies" tactic is still viable.

I think we should just go back to SHP tbh, having a "heatshot" mechanic for reactors just negates the entire purpose of reworking RHP so it isnt coring.

I doubt it will suck for AS LONG with the new system.

I beg to differ.

Meanwhile, I hear Empyrion PVP is fun, and they actually have planetside battles. GLHF.

Myself and several other StarMade vets are already playing Empyrion.

XPA - The Expanse (Selective Recruitment)

 

[The Judge]

Go figure. We're missing half the systems update. Current stable release uses NEW power/defense and OLD weapons. I'd have released both at the same time, but meh. I'm not too pissed off because you can always wait and update after the other half is out.

I spent $10 on this game, and it was well worth it, but I didn't pay $10 for a half released broken update that makes the game unenjoyable, and I certainly didn't pay $10 so I could wait for the next update which will probably come in 2 years or so.

 

[Valiant70]

The solutions in this thread won't solve spaghetti, one of the reasons Spaghetti is so effective is that you are not going to get hit in the first place, assuming you can even hit enough times to beat the shield recharge you wont be doing much block damage because 99% of your shots are gonna miss, especially true due to bugs with weapon accuracy (in particular missiles)

What I'd like to see is an integrity penalty that would instantly disable an entire spaghetti reactor on one missile hit. Get the configs right and possibly add some exponential penalties, and then the changes proposed in that thread should do just that.

 

[GDPR 302420]

What I'd like to see is an integrity penalty that would instantly disable an entire spaghetti reactor on one missile hit. Get the configs right and possibly add some exponential penalties, and then the changes proposed in that thread should do just that.

You still have the problem that it is extremely difficult to hit in the first place.

 

[Az14el]

0.199 power efficiency was already scaled against larger ships, reactor power for one was far more mass efficient than aux, and the more aux you used the more brittle you were. Thrust requirements also scaled diminishing with block count. Docking efficient 2m generating entities as turret bases became problematic, but the main entity still eventually needed to rely on aux to move, and took a hit to power efficiency & 2 forms of scaling debuffs to durability once past that point (system hp damage penalty viewable in build mode, and more shp devoted to aux to power thrust & main entity systems)

 

[Zoolimar]

That was one of my complaints. I still think we need a hybrid system between RHP and SHP where hitting the reactor is the equivalent of a "headshot" in first-person shooters. Just make reactors do a disproportionately high amount of damage to SHP. That way shooting the rest of it still matters and the good ol' "shoot it til it dies" tactic is still viable.

I think we should just go back to SHP tbh, having a "heatshot" mechanic for reactors just negates the entire purpose of reworking RHP so it isnt coring.

Both of those propositions are bandaids on a system that relies on a single reactor.

If the ship didn't rely on a single reactor it wouldn't be a problem to have reactor sniping - as long as multiple reactors start getting penalties after a certain point.

 

[GDPR 302420]

If the ship didn't rely on a single reactor it wouldn't be a problem to have reactor sniping - as long as multiple reactors start getting penalties after a certain point.

The system you propose would still be what is essentially pre-SHP coring, just with multiple points.

As I said before, having a headshotting mechanic would remove the entire point of reworking the system in the first place.

 

[MacThule]

Your statement that in Power 1.0 larger ships produced more power is correct, but what you seem to be forgetting is that larger ships also used more power thus larger = more power isn't an issue.

If size were not a balance issue, then the meta for competitive combat ships wouldn't have been ships perpetually on the bleeding upper edge of the size spectrum to the point that they frequently lagged & even crashed servers when jumping to large bases to to each other if (god forbid) one or two players happened to mining real hard someplace else at the same time. Every time a performance improvement came through, this eased for a short period, then the size of PvP titans rose. Because size was always OP.

Size has been an OP meta throughout the entire history of the game. No softcap or other penalty imposed has changed that enough to see a real change in the result. To say the relationship between size and power in 1.0 is not actually an issue is incorrect.



The proof is in the pudding - tell me which server without admin-enforced limits had a PvP meta that saw decreases of size in combat ship preference over time as players improved their meta. It's never happened.

You can point to Veilith and others using smaller ships to wreck noobcubes, but those are poor examples because of the tech & experience differences, and did not - could not - result in a change to the size meta because as opponents adapted to new technology that slipped out, they still trended towards larger ships to outclass opponents with relatively similar tech levels.



Size in Starmade is - and has always been - imbalanced.

Until there are equally valuable reasons to go small, and those reasons are valuable enough to show themselves as such by a change in the way people play, an imbalance is indicated and no argument about the math of mechanics, no tossing around emotive terms like "nerfed" and "penalized" to paint large ships as picked-on and gimped, none of that can dispel the actual evidence of how good players wage war against each other, and they don't do that shit in fighters and frigates. You don't see ships under 20K at a serious fight, because they are too underpowered.

The temptation may be to argue that this is "just natural" or "common sense" because "bigger is stronger," but ebola is a single-celled organism. We don't make fighters IRL as big as possible for more power, we don't group troops in clusters as large as possible for combat, many animals & plants have evolved to smaller sizes over time to take advantage of the benefits.

Small size has legit advantages. That's a fact in life as well as in fiction, and this game has never reflected that reality.

New systems fundamentals designed to change the actual gameplay value of size (and other issues) was absolutely necessary.

 

[Tunk]

Size is king for the most part, mainly because people didn't use fleets/drones and it was the easiest way to scale.
A fleet of drones with 10% mass value can decimate any titan, and many of the more experienced PVP factions used them extensively (vagyr for example loved spamming 16-20k destroyers).

Thryn for another example had the votaries designed by Zyrr running in the 2-3k range, lovely little beam platforms each outputting hundreds of thousands of DPS.
A swarm of 10-20 of them literally ate ships like a swarm of piranha.

Probably the largest reason for mass scaling however it that people hate losing resources and losing in general, and having a big ship for the most part protected you from the majority of threats.
They don't want to go and repair their 20k, or their 5k or rebuild them, they want to go out and shoot stuff or drop a hammer on demand.

For most people a single powerful 1 million mass ship is a greater investment than a few dozen smaller ships in their mind, because of loss aversion and wanting to imbalance the playing field as much as possible.
That and honestly most weapon load outs folks use can't handle the regen on larger ships, so larger ships are used to counter it.

There is no reason not to drop million mass ships as well, there is no resource cost for deploying or using it other than a few hours mining.

 

[Zoolimar]

The system you propose would still be what is essentially pre-SHP coring, just with multiple points.

That's the point?

If you can destroy all reactors the ship dies either way. It no longer matters if you have SHP or not - you have no energy on the ship. Currently you have the same system but only with one reactor. How having SHP will help against someone hitting your reactor with a missile or any other weapon with AOE? Also after weapon update there will be more of them so reactors would be even more vulnerable.

Good armour and ability to install multiple reactors seem like much better alternatives.

 

[Nosajimiki]

i think the integrity system is a good feature that just needs some tweaking.

i think it would be workling well enough when the integrity would only recieve negative values for blocks facing empty space and only gain positive values for blocks facing 5-6 blocks of the same system.

this would grant full freedom of shape for the systems as long as they are mostly contained by hull, armor or decoratives and still counter spaghetti.

Any system that is based on localized values like this is allow spaghetti. Basically, All this requires is to cover a bunch of 3x3 stands with girders and you still have an OP, stable ship. Integrity really metrics need to be based on something that can predict the shape of a system and not just face counting.

Fact : I still can't build conventionnal vertical ship that doesn't have a weak spot, aka stabilization stream, it's whole lengh. And I still can't shield my whole ship using conventionnal building mechanics because bubble shields. Thus vertical ships are completely useless compared to any more conventionnal ones.

Power 2.1 or whatever you wanna call it killed my fun in this game by killing vertical ships. And i don't feel like using all of the things i know to take care of the stream and shitty mechanics this update added to only have fun building what i like the most.

I'm not coming here as a rper or a pvper no i'm here as a builder and i can't build anything i like without feeling it is a complete waste of time.

Vertical ships have plenty of other advantages such as turning with your straif, narrow targeting profile that make direct-fire weapons struggle to hit you while you straif, and a short profile that makes it difficult for missiles to side-swipe you... vertical builds still have enough advantages, that there is not reason to get upset that they now also have this one disadvantage that won't really effect you until you're already pretty badly mauled and likely losing the fight anyway.

I feel that; tallboys are my go-to as well these days.

I think one of the deepest changes to the game in 2.0 has been removal of players' ability to build ships with no weakness.

Reactors, stabs, streams, bubble shields, regen delay - literally all of these have in common that they revolve around forcing ships to have vulnerabilities more like real vehicles.

You put enough shots through any real vehicle, craft or vessel and it will stop working. In 1.0 there was a constant issue of "Block Destruction," remember that? People talked about it all the time; weapon sets were built around this unrealistic thing where the only way to kill ships was to erase blocks until enough random blocks died that the ship HP went under and it magically overheated (because if I stripped enough exterior panels an seat cushions from a car it would "overheat"??).

There were lots of complaints about that, remember? People bitched about how tedious combat was, how the whole weapon meta was based on block destruction, and about how uncompelling and unrealistic that felt.

Well, now that is fixed. We can't really fight until the weapons are released, but we can be pretty sure at this point that the meta under weapons 3.0 won't have a ton to do with mass erasing of blocks just for the sake of racking up HP damage. All ships will be realistically vulnerable.

Can a solo 1k fighter get at that stream on a 50k destroyer? Not bloody likely - the new vulnerabilities don't make anyone that insanely weak unless they are doing it wrong -but could a top-end 20k frigate, well flown and lucky on a good day? Why not, as long as it's not easy? For both sport and realism, that is probably as it should be.

To those who feel that "Schine never listens," I say: Be careful what you wish for!

2.0 is a response. Not a simple update just trying to "nerf meta-warriors" (though maybe some people can only imagine it as all about them; as if any game is without meta-tactics) and 'failing,' it is addressing a whole slew of common complaints and underlying system issues from 1.0. There is a big picture taking shape here.

Should we go back to a meta of invinci shields and erasing ships block by block until "50%" (because 'overheat')? I would rather press forward myself, I very much like the indicators of where this is going once weapon function is restored and we see real armor in-game, it looks like to be much more compelling by far.

The problem with this statement is that you have to turn a ship way more into swiss cheese to kill it than before. A real ship can be crippled by enough hits to random systems. Maybe you vented enough atmosphere the whole crew is dead. Maybe you destroy enough wiring that systems no are no longer inter-connected, etc. It was actually far more realistic that a ship would stop being functional with a certain amount of damage than to be still 100% functional, after being cut in half by a nuke that just so happened to not hit the reactor.

You still have the problem that it is extremely difficult to hit in the first place.

Your assumption is based on pre-integrity shield mechanics. If spaghetti shields take multiplied damage just like spaghetti systems, then a basic waffle gun will hit it enough to kill the shields and start disabling systems. If you you look at either of my suggestions on the matter, a true spaghetti ship should suffer ~100 x damage to systems, so it would only take 1-2 lucky missiles or a strafing from a waffle gun to bring one down. Based on my fights with spaghetti using non-spegetti ships, I'm fairly certain that that is about their ratio of combat effectiveness to a "normal and rational" ship design.