You are amazing, pls, get a better excuse.I can't even begin to see the problems that Schema sees if we removed stabilizers entirely.
You are amazing, pls, get a better excuse.I can't even begin to see the problems that Schema sees if we removed stabilizers entirely.
They're going to say something about "volume tanking," which I'm not sure is even a problem. It sounds a lot like spaced armor, which also shouldn't be removed because the spaced armor concept helps RP ships that have interior spaces around important things.This I agree with. I will see why changes were made that rendered them useless.
That wasn't me. In any case, that particular arrangement doesn't really align with a 'meta'. I remember someone posting a stabilizer ring and insisting that it's some kind of good alternate arrangement, that we should be 'creative' in using the stabilizers, and that it's not a sign of the mechanics being bad, which (predictably) ended in more experienced players jumping on him/her. :PFor instance; Ithirihad showcased a stabilizer ring around their power core, and claimed it was a work-around for the new energy beam system. The stabilizer ring is easy to hit since it's a giant ring, and hard to shield since it isn't localized. If the player has a knowledge of the mechanics, they will know the reactor is dead center of the ring and will fire on that area.
I was not being serious about that as a system, I was making an example of this concern:That is not how the system would work. It would be too heavy on performance to read what blocks a wall is made of. There is a good chance areas on the ship will be designated in a similar manner to how the new copy paste works. That's a guess however, based on our last discussions on it, and whether we find a better system.
Which you did not acknowledge in the least.You don't know what the final balance for crew will be, and WE certainly don't. WE are going to have to refit our ships again anyway.
Pls dont be dumb, actually talk to pvprs about this.We aim to reduce the blocks needed in order to be effective, in both their power and how damage is distributed. Perhaps these should have been introduced in tandem, but that is sadly not the case.
But thats not meta.return to a meta where ships are filled to the brim with system blocks.
Yes you can, which is what I'm assuming happened with this update.I can't just turn around and say "You're 100% right" and change things without looking at potential consequences.
...Yeah, I wasn't going to respond to this, but actually filling ships to the brim, while common, isn't really 'meta'. Leaving open spaces helps a lot with mitigating missile damage, and often a ship that's less filled is no less viable than one that's completely filled. Maybe it's nominally less powerful, but against another ship of the same mass it may well perform better if anything, at least if it's well designed.The problem is that removing or reducing stabilizer requirements on a ship means we return to a meta where ships are filled to the brim with system blocks.
Give us the consequences. What breaks if you remove stabilizers? Plenty of people have been testing configs that remove stabilizer distance or even completely remove the need for stabilizers with no ill effects, and they haven't noticed anything breaking. So please, enlighten us.Lecic, I can't just turn around and say "You're 100% right" and change things without looking at potential consequences. I can't even begin to see the problems that Schema sees if we removed stabilizers entirely. I have brought information to them, and they've explained why certain suggestions break things or how certain meta isn't as clever as you claim it to be.
Filled to the brim? Unlikely. However, it would allow more than one option for reactor placement while still allowing efficiency. How the new power works and how systems were "compressed" (meaning you can reach the same result in a much lower block count in both the shields and guns department), filling ships to the brim with systems is already unnecessary or downright impossible if someone wants to be able to power all said systems.I'm not opposed to this. The problem is that removing or reducing stabilizer requirements on a ship means we return to a meta where ships are filled to the brim with system blocks. There will be no cap on power inside a confined volume until you fill that volume. That is why Schema does not remove them. It's the exact opposite of the goal we set out to accomplish.
Stop thinking in terms of volume, think about maximum power gen (aka combat potentia) per mass. You're not going to be able to "force" people designing their ships the way you think they will.I'm not opposed to this. The problem is that removing or reducing stabilizer requirements on a ship means we return to a meta where ships are filled to the brim with system blocks. There will be no cap on power inside a confined volume until you fill that volume. That is why Schema does not remove them. It's the exact opposite of the goal we set out to accomplish.
If you guys would just build a solid power system, adding crew (or any other mechanic for that matter) should not necessitate any major revisions. Only minor number adjustments.If we make changes, then add crew, we will need to revert those changes.
I honestly do not believe that power 2.0 was intended to force interiors on anyone. It is however definitely a consequence of its implementation. No, I believe it was supposed to be a way to limit energy output relative to ship size. A bigger ship producing more power than a smaller ship is naturally the way things should behave but the root cause of ALL problems with power 2.0 is the devs' definition of "size."The problem, or at least one problem here seems to be that we are forced to waste space between stabilizers and reactors.
Can confirm this to be true and I will continue to do so if power is implemented the way they want it. At least until the moding api is a thing and someone mods in a proper power system.Plenty of people have been testing configs that remove stabilizer distance or even completely remove the need for stabilizers with no ill effects, and they haven't noticed anything breaking.
Lancake says so:But then again, what's wrong with a hull "filled to the brim" with systems?
The current meta has always been to fill most of your ship with systems, as empty space would be a waste if it could hold more systems (or armor).
We moved away from that with this power system, as it's impossible to get a good oversight what is in your ship and where all of the groups are if it's filled to the brim. Adjusting the end result of your systems is also a frustrating experience as you need to find a specific system (which could be placed in multiple locations, in different amounts) and either removing them, or replacing them with other systems till you find the proper balance.
The stabilizers allow us to up the regeneration per block for reactors without allowing people to fill their ship with as much power and power consuming systems it can fit.
Now you're limited by the dimensions of your ship and this would define the "maximum" regeneration of a given ship. Allowing us to define that, if a ship has all of its systems inside, you can only use 20% or so of its volume dedicated to systems before running into power problems.
*Sigh*.........The stabilizers allow us to up the regeneration per block for reactors without allowing people to fill their ship with as much power and power consuming systems it can fit.
No puns intended for sure =PWhy the love of sticks???
This is very, very accurate. And even sadder. Funny and sad enough, the metaships never caused an uproar nearly as large as the measures intended to eliminate them. That is because it puts more limits on the non-meta builders than on the meta builders. But oh well.Starmade for me is like a girlfriend going stupid and me not being able to keep up with her bullshit. I really want to dump her but since I love her in the first place, I'll give a couple tries fixing her. I'm almost out of patience and I want to quit. You have no clues how much players think like me
Or... Instead of forcing empty space between all our systems...If I may,
I see Criss/Schine coming at this from the perspective of wanting to promote ship interiors by making efficient design requiring that free space. Which I think sounds like a reasonable goal.
I also see those who want to min/max their ship builds seeing the mechanisms in the pre-release causing these issues:
* Efficient ships are overly constrained to be elongated 'Dumbels'; Which is unappealing aesthetically and limits design choices more so than the currently released system.
* Efficient ship design is also constructed in a highly vulnerable fashion. Each 'end' of your ship must have a system critical to it's function. Thus this limits the ability to protect those areas in a way that helps ship efficiency.
These also look like reasonable concerns.
Requirements from this Topic
From looking at the desires and concerns, I don't think they are mutually exclusive.
So our requirements for ship systems are (as I see them from reading this thread):
Please let me know if anyone disagrees with these goals or thinks something should be added to it.
- Efficient design should promote design of a wide variety of ship 'shapes'
- Efficient design should discourage excessive use of empty space.
- Efficient design should innately provide some amount of free space in ship
- Efficient design should be buildable in ways that protect critical systems
- The general mechanics of said system should be relatively strait forward, and not require a great deal of reading for a new player to build a basic ship.
Original Design Goals
For reference the original design goals(from Power System Overhaul Proposal):
- Systems (weapons, thrust, power, etc) will take a considerably smaller amount of space on your ship. This could be ranging from 5% (large ships) to 50% (small ships) of your total block count. The way we will achieve this is described in the section below.
- Due to systems being a lot smaller, there will be a lot more empty space the larger a ship gets. The player is free to leave it empty, or put in decoration and interior at a very low cost to mass.
- We will also offer a block to serve as an “inner hull”, which will be a low mass, low HP block. You could use it to fill empty areas in your ship, or replace it with real interiors without making the ship weaker by doing that.
- Normal hull (armor) will add enough mass so it would not be viable to fill your ships with it.
- Making sure that most systems are usually clustered together and not spread out all over the ship in small amounts. This makes defending specific areas of your ship more important and could be incentive to add more inner armor to those locations.
- As the amount of blocks involved is a lot less than before, we can add extra mechanics to the placement of system blocks. That will introduce complexity on a small scale since every block you place is equally important.
- Provide context based information to the player and add “logical” mechanics to a ship to make it easier for players to get started. Also keeping the new system easy to use for small ships.
- Change armor so that it scales accordingly for weaker and larger ships, without adding extra thickness to your ship.
Strawman Solution
- Weapons will also be adjusted although that’s for another thread.
With the above goals in mind. Let me throw out a straw man that I believe would meet all of the mentioned goals, and people can tear it apart:
First off I would remove current stabilizer distance requirement. Then we add a general system distance requirement between all of the different types of systems. For example shield capacitors would need to be x distance from thrusters, reactors, chambers, etc but not other shield blocks. We would use the current structural integrity system to keep system blocks of the same type grouped together so our ships don't turn into a mad attempt to fit blocks in lots of different groups(Should also help with processing time). The distance between the said systems would be based on either the total number of system blocks on the ship, or perhaps the number of blocks in the given system.
This would be balanced to say have fighter sized ships have no space requirement (as hey all fighters really need is a cockpit anyway). A frigate sized ship would have a space requirement of 5-6 blocks (enough for rather spartan but usable interior). Likely have it level off at about 10 blocks for your really bug ships so you don't have stupid amounts of free space if you build that full sized super star destroyer you've always wanted. I'm being intentionally vague on exactly what a fighter/frigate/titan in size would be, but from the mechanic's of the game perspective, It would be determined by the total number of system blocks. These numbers mentioned here may need to be tweaked depending on testing.
I would also suggest making the space requirement a soft requirement similar to what the stabilizers do now. So if a player did place two different types of systems immediately next to each other on a non fighter, they would be penalized, but not heavily. Perhaps a 20% hit in the system's effectiveness when immediately next to each other scaling down to 0% when reaching the correct distance? Again that number may need to be tweaked.
Advantages:
- Players would be able to build any shape of vessel they deem fit
- Empty space would no longer be determined by how 'thin' a ship is. This would be more constant for efficient ships of different shapes.
- Ships would need to have the free space available to it to maintain full efficiency that could easily fit interiors
- Critical Systems could be buried and protected in any way the ship designer wanted
- New players could build a functional ship ignoring this mechanic, it just wouldn't be as efficient as it could be.
Things to keep in mind:
- Armor/hull would need to be effective enough to warent players wanting to surround their ship with it.
- Distance between systems would need to be small enough to not make players just want to wrap their individual systems in armor instead of around the entire vessel.
- Once systems are large enough to require a distance between them, we may wish to consider having that distance have a starting number of something like 3, because a 1 or 2 block distance requirement wouldn't really promote interior and may just be awkward.
- I'm not familiar enough with starmade or even any real game design to know if this would be difficult to implement or a performance issue.
I think all of the mentioned goals are good ones. Even the free space. I've always thought it a bit odd to fill ships systems in like insulation in a house. Generally if these where real spacecraft, I would expect said systems to be fragile pieces of equipment that would need repair or maintenance and thus need human accessibility. I suppose it could be some sort of foam that one puts a hole in the wall and pumps into it, and vacuums it out when it's broken. (not promoting required ship maintenance more than what'a already there, more just promoting fee space).
WHY?I see Criss/Schine coming at this from the perspective of wanting to promote ship interiors by making efficient design requiring that free space. Which I think sounds like a reasonable goal.
Instead, they added extra mass to motherboards and normal/charged curcuits which were already serving that purpose. Making interiors ACTUALLY COST MORE MASS THAN THEY USED TO.We will also offer a block to serve as an “inner hull”, which will be a low mass, low HP block. You could use it to fill empty areas in your ship, or replace it with real interiors without making the ship weaker by doing that.