Valiant70
That crazy cyborg
FIRST IMPRESSION: A system where I must space systems apart from one another sounds more enjoyable to work with than the current system where my ships are composed of hull, interior, and a solid mass of system blocks.
THOUGHTS ON THE MECHANICS FROM THE OP:
The logic of the "heat" system seems to be this: Reactors are a sort of power source so tremendous that they can output just about as much power as you want (zero-point, perhaps?), but they also output heat when they output energy. Small reactors produce more heat per power in return for being compact. Larger reactors are able to distribute energy more heat-efficiently, as well as house bulky cooling systems. The concept is unconventional, but I like it. Please keep this as-is. It is believable but not too complex.
An "auxiliary cooling chamber" that uses consumable coolant could be a good and sensible solution for a fuel-like mechanic that many players desire. It could simple take coolant from a linked cargo module as needed to keep the ship from reaching dangerous heat levels. The chamber's maximum cooling capacity would be limited by its design. Balancing parameters include: Coolant consumption rate, weight and bulk of stored coolant, and heat radius of the chamber.
This is a good opportunity to implement directionally-based shielding. Draw a virtual "box" around the ship. Whichever face a shot passes through is the shield emitter that will soak it up. Shield balance should be reconfigurable on the fly. "Stabilize your rear deflectors. Here they come!" --Red Leader, Star Wars: A New Hope.
Heat mechanics offer a good opportunity for a rework of stealth and detection. Perhaps...
Mass x Heat Percentage = Signature Size
your Sensor Strength / enemy Signature Size = Detection Radius
Signature size determines how far away something may be detected. Primary stealth systems may work by stopping cooling in return for dividing the "Heat Percentage" factor of the equation by a very large number, making your ship harder to detect until it gets very close or very hot. Cloaking (visually hiding) a ship could be a separate system with a flat heat generation rate. Advanced sensor systems increase the distance at which you can detect enemy ships, but they generate heat too.
Weapons are another important point. I would like to see fewer shots fired with much greater effect per shot. In most scifi, when a ship fires on another ship, stuff happens. They don't sit there pounding each other with many shots per second for several minutes. To accomplish this, first increase the effectiveness of each shot considerably. Second, ensure that all weapons generate a significant amount of heat so that they must cease fire for a few seconds to cool down after firing a shot or a few shots.
Weapons/drives/etc. should not have built-in cooldowns. Instead, the ship's heat level acts as a universal cooldown for all systems. Rate of fire when you hold down the button should be configurable. A larger, heavier weapon should output more damage for less heat (similar to adding a % of overdrive effect, or not). This will allow a great deal of freedom in weapon design, and potentially allow a ship to carry more variety in weapons. Weapons should be balanced mainly by heat output versus weight and heat radius. (And by the way, firing bullets out at odd angles needs to go. Completely. See this thread.)
Overall, I think this new system has a higher potential for enjoyment and game balance than the current one. I would like to see a test build implemented so that players can get a better idea of what playing with it will be like.
I agree with each of these. All systems are focused too much on block count and not enough on design choices. I would like to see that change. In general, spacing systems apart will allow more creative freedom. You can choose between void or pretty stuff rather than pretty stuff or more shield capacity. This will make building ships more enjoyable.Problems with the current power system
According to our own experience and player experiences shared on the forums, we have identified the following problems.
Forced design choices
Lack of complexity
Too many blocks involved (number, not types)
Focused on regen
THOUGHTS ON THE MECHANICS FROM THE OP:
The logic of the "heat" system seems to be this: Reactors are a sort of power source so tremendous that they can output just about as much power as you want (zero-point, perhaps?), but they also output heat when they output energy. Small reactors produce more heat per power in return for being compact. Larger reactors are able to distribute energy more heat-efficiently, as well as house bulky cooling systems. The concept is unconventional, but I like it. Please keep this as-is. It is believable but not too complex.
An "auxiliary cooling chamber" that uses consumable coolant could be a good and sensible solution for a fuel-like mechanic that many players desire. It could simple take coolant from a linked cargo module as needed to keep the ship from reaching dangerous heat levels. The chamber's maximum cooling capacity would be limited by its design. Balancing parameters include: Coolant consumption rate, weight and bulk of stored coolant, and heat radius of the chamber.
This is a good opportunity to implement directionally-based shielding. Draw a virtual "box" around the ship. Whichever face a shot passes through is the shield emitter that will soak it up. Shield balance should be reconfigurable on the fly. "Stabilize your rear deflectors. Here they come!" --Red Leader, Star Wars: A New Hope.
Heat mechanics offer a good opportunity for a rework of stealth and detection. Perhaps...
Mass x Heat Percentage = Signature Size
your Sensor Strength / enemy Signature Size = Detection Radius
Signature size determines how far away something may be detected. Primary stealth systems may work by stopping cooling in return for dividing the "Heat Percentage" factor of the equation by a very large number, making your ship harder to detect until it gets very close or very hot. Cloaking (visually hiding) a ship could be a separate system with a flat heat generation rate. Advanced sensor systems increase the distance at which you can detect enemy ships, but they generate heat too.
Weapons are another important point. I would like to see fewer shots fired with much greater effect per shot. In most scifi, when a ship fires on another ship, stuff happens. They don't sit there pounding each other with many shots per second for several minutes. To accomplish this, first increase the effectiveness of each shot considerably. Second, ensure that all weapons generate a significant amount of heat so that they must cease fire for a few seconds to cool down after firing a shot or a few shots.
Weapons/drives/etc. should not have built-in cooldowns. Instead, the ship's heat level acts as a universal cooldown for all systems. Rate of fire when you hold down the button should be configurable. A larger, heavier weapon should output more damage for less heat (similar to adding a % of overdrive effect, or not). This will allow a great deal of freedom in weapon design, and potentially allow a ship to carry more variety in weapons. Weapons should be balanced mainly by heat output versus weight and heat radius. (And by the way, firing bullets out at odd angles needs to go. Completely. See this thread.)
Overall, I think this new system has a higher potential for enjoyment and game balance than the current one. I would like to see a test build implemented so that players can get a better idea of what playing with it will be like.
I would like to read your post and dialogue with you, but your tone is too unpleasant to make it worthwhile. I am interested in your ideas, so please consider calmly restating most of this in a more conversational tone so that I can read it without getting a headache.Are you sure? Are you actually open to the feedback, or are you all bent on doing this no matter what we say?
no, not really, only from people that want to build server-lagging big ships and hit soft-caps
...when has there EVER been a consensus in StarMade, or the internet?
Did you really? If you did, why haven't we seen some patches over the past ... 4 years... tweaking stats of reactors and capacitors, or the x-y-z dimensional reactor system? None of that has been done, so you can't honestly say you've gone through every possible way, yet.
You're not solving anything "right now" with this, you're just creating new bugs, new problems, breaking new things, wasting time on what seems a random distraction to redo part of the game and gameplay that most people have been adequately happy with for... 4 years... instead of focusing on fixing easier, more pressing bugs and issues.
It's not broken.
So, it's a good idea to you to continue to annoy the piss out of all your players by making us redesign our ships, constantly, which we've told you repeatedly in the past that it annoys the piss out of us, and... you're doing it again. Great idea?
...people whining because they're making bad decisions about reactor design and ship size.
...foolish players being too focused on titans and being too whiney...
...using a jackhammer to drive a tack into corkboard?
Every game forces design choices. It's part of gameplay and balance. Do you want a pretty RP ship? or do you want a doom cube? Let players decide, and server owners decide (by literally banning doom cubes if they so wish. It's been working fine, so far.
Complexity is not always good. KISS rule always applies to all of life - Keep It Simple, Stupid! Too much complexity frustrates players and creates a high learning curve. No one likes that. EVE is dying off for a reason ;p
.. again, this is only a problem if people are building ships that are "TOO BIG" and hitting softcaps. If you would finally rebalance the game to favor smaller ships, this wouln't happen. Even so, it's not a problem, it's a gameplay choice. Want a bigger ship? You need more blocks. Duh. Simple. You have to do more if you want more.
...not always. Again this is a gameplay choice that should be made by players, not devs. Lots of players choose to go for capacity over regen, because capacitors give a LOT more stats per block than reactors do. Especially on ships that rely on an alpha-strike, capacitors are much more useful than regen. For experimental servers that are using no regen and capacitors only like batteries, you've totally killed them and taken away very valueable gameplay choices.
Speak for yourself, not us. Lots of players get very creative with power placement and system placement, inside and outside the ship. Need we remind you of the external reactor fiasco? Schine is consistently taking away freedom and creativity from us players more than you're giving it with a few new pretty shiny blocks here and there.
Yeah, so ? If we choose to fill it up, then let us. If we choose to sacrifice stat porn for interiors, then let us make that gameplay trade-off choice. Plus if you're worried about the non-functional skin of a ship, then rebalance armor, not power. Some of the more creative server admins have already taken it upon themselves to create new armors, with more functions and gameplay value than the original. Are you listening?.... are you listening?
So...... what? What's your point? You don't want doom cubes? Too bad! Don't make a voxel game, then. Duh. Everything in starmade from 1 block on up is technically a cube. There are very, very, very few ships over the past 4 years that have EVER deviated from some form of rectangular solid/prism. Very few ships in all of sci-fi and art have ever deviated from this. So... what...! Let server admins decide if we want doom cubes or pretty ships. Server admins can choose to delete/ban doom cubes. You as devs stay out of it. Leave us alone and let us the players make our own decisions on form vs. function. That's what good devs do.
Again... so ? You're not making an arguement for your cause here. You're stating a well known and well accepted fact of the game. It's a positive trade-off and gameplay decision to make in the game. It is a way to challenge players, and it hasn't stopped ANY of us over the past 4 years from making pretty ships, or ugly ships, or whatever the F kinda ships we want to make with whatever interior we want. You. Cannot. Have. It. All. ....and, moreover, in a GOOD game, you shouldn't. Let us the players make our own choices.
...what game are you guys playing? Because it doesn't sound like StarMade. Of COURSE it matters how you place the 3 power blocks. Reactors must be in an x,y,z dimension pattern, or you can choose to checkerboard them, but you certainly don't want to lazily toss them down in a giant cube. You also certainly don't want to put the new power blocks near the surface or outside the hull, or they go volatile too easily when hit. There's TONS to do and decide upon with reactor design.
Tedious? The only tedium comes from ships that are "too large" and have hit the soft cap. Again, you should be looking at rebalancing the current system to encourage smaller ships. More soft caps. Harsher soft caps. Players are also mostly lazy / bad with weapon and power use design, moreso than it's too tedious to make a good reactor. Good designs will calculate power needs first, then create reactors/caps after that, and then finish with shields. If anything is tedious, it's not having an "autofill" option to use inside of our ships with a selected module.
How is there "no way to customize" our power systems? Power in any game is always 2 things: regen and capacity. We already have that. Job done. Players can decide between a balance, or all regen, or all capacity. We players can customize the regen, the cap, the dimensions of our power, the layout of our power. We can put power blocks inside or outside the ship. We can change the blockconfg.xml to make it animated, or glow, or whatever we want. We have tons of customizing power, already. We will decide for ourselves just fine. Give us the foundation (which you already have), then let us alone to build on it.
Well, thankfully we now have remove/replace functions in the advanced build menu. It really simplifies the process of removing one type of block and replacing it with another type. I'm surprised you devs don't know about it, since you probably were the ones that coded it into the game. Also, good ship designers for years have already been keeping a rough track of how many blocks their ships have, and can fit, so.... not sure there's actually any real problem here.
Hmmm... seems like a rational person right now would decide that 'maybe ships are too big' and we're trying to force the wrong kind of game upon players and cater too much to a vocal minority that wants to just build massive ships that the game engine and server can't really handle anyways. Hmmm? At least you've got one thing right here, because no, it's indeed not fine when your ship size becomes larger. Balance the game for ships under 200m.
Maybe your ship is just too big, then? Build something smaller that your brain and ADHD meds can handle.
Here's a novel (not really) thought (that players have been asking for, for years): selection options in advanced build mode that select or highlight all blocks of a certain type. Use the same selector drop down that's used for the remove/replace menu. Simple stuff. Don't know why it's taken so many players asking so long and so often. It's a lot simpler and shorter than coding this whole new power system you're proposing. If you're actually interested in helping players, then you have to agree that this might be a better solution to try first.
See above suggestion. Yeah, actually it _would_ be resolved so... um... no other way to say it than "you are wrong". :/ sorry if that's too blunt and insensitive.
Wait... surface area matters in this game for something other than how much graphic lag is caused by rendering a ship with tons of exterior detail and tons of interior? (yeah, that's right, you haven't optimized the engine yet) ... Why are we talking about surface area? AFAIK it doesn't matter. This is totally irrelevant to design and power discussion.
Wrong. Plenty of evidence already above about how we players make gameplay choices both ways between regen vs. cap
...so don't build big ships...
Wrong. Again, plenty of players decide to use capacitors to alpha-strike then bug out to regen, or simply tank while regen'ing power. Why do you devs thing it's a problem that players are making design and balance and gameplay choices? Not everyone wants to play the same way. Don't force us to do so.
It's not boring, because a good designer will often use different systems. Plus, it works, it's simple, and if you DO want to use the same thing on every ship and copy-paste it from a template, then ...so what? Let a player do that, and move on to some other system or exterior design that they enjoy doing more. Not every player may want to have some complex, intricate, mentally stimulating romp through reactor design every single time they start a new ship. I'd wager MOST players don't want to do this, but just want to move on to making sure they have the guns they want, a pretty exterior. It's a tradeoff they choose to make, and are ok with knowing maybe their ship doesn't have the most 100% optimal power use, but that's the choice they make. That's the gameplay they've chosen. Let . Them. Make. That. Choice. You as devs of a voxel sandbox are not here to dictate to us how we have to design ships.
What are you even talking about with this? AI use the same ships, the same way, as players do, except for having the privilege of firing all their weapons simultaneously - eg - without losing or waiting on missile locks while shooting cannons. If you're mad about your AI ships not having enough capacity, then just give them more reactor caps. Very simple solution. Don't waste time coding up a whole new power system to deal with that.
I will defer on quote-bombing the "Solution" segment of the original post, since the point of this reply is to prove false the original premise for overhauling power. Leave well enough alone. Focus on other, bigger, known problems and missing parts of the game first, before overhauling power, which isn't broken at all.
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Right now, it's actually the most difficult way for players to target your reactor system. If this is really your concern, then you will like the current system, and not this new system.
Plus, with the current system, players can make lots of design choices and tactical choices:
- disperse a checkerboard reactor
- centralize an x,y,z reactor
- bury a reactor to protect it, and sacrifice shields or thrust near a ship's surface, or vice versa
- gain more regen/cap by putting reactors near the surface, but sacrifice it first in a big fight
- focus on regen
- focus on cap
- generalize by having both regen and cap
...and this is just merely thinking for a minute. There's many more customizations and possibilities with the current power system, but the problem is that most builders just simply don't take the time. They're not even trying, then they come to the forums or to the council and whine loudly about wanting something else. That's not right, nor fair, to the silent majority.
Rebalance the system first, then we can all talk about an overhaul once that fails.
Speaking of conduits... how about an easy and first fix being to make more decorative blocks actually be functional as well? Give players more ways to customize and mod blocks; to add other stats and functions to blocks. Let us choose to give conduits and charged circuits power regen and capacity stats, or endow them with a %bonus to power regen/cap that is calculated after / outside of the soft caps.
Soft Caps: more of them, at lower levels.
Regen rate/block: increase it.
Capacity/block: increase it.
By doing these things, and extending these concepts to other systems and block types, we will boost the stats that are possible in small ships, we will limit the performance of very large ships, and we will increase the stats of RP ships with more decorations and interior space. These concepts can all be extended even further without any major game engine changes, without extensive coding, and without breaking EVERYONE's ships. This is a win-win situation for everyone. A total overhaul is a losing scenario, right now, with no proof at all.