Prerelease v0.200.250

[Kelpaz]

I tested a custom config where stabilizer distance was always 100% and it made me wonder why have them in the first place.
It just forces ships to take a certain shape unless you love empty spaces and if you need interior, well now you can have 10X more interior on top of what you had before.

Either make the minimum reactor without stabs bigger than 10 or get rid of them completely, we already need space for chamber blocks, which can be next to the reactor, but I don't need half a kilometer of space between them to fit an intermediate reactor to power fighter levels of weapons.

Here are some examples of the freedom of design with stabilizer mechanics:

Spoiler

The checkmarks are backwards go figure

 

[kikaha]

Did you guys ever fix the problem of the ships becoming long sticks because of the new power system yet?

Did you actually read the lenghty text Schema posted ?

 

[Lecic]

Did you actually read the lenghty text Schema posted ?

Are you confusing the fixes for spaghetti ships with fixing dumbbell ships?

 

[Ithirahad]

Now that the prerelease is out, could we finally get an explanation as to how these 'shield hotspot' mechanics work? The shield DPS/alpha type chambers say that they increase/decrease vulnerability to 'high damage weapons' or 'low damage weapons,' but what exactly qualifies as "high damage" or "low damage"? What does any of this mean? Also, will the nonfunctional chambers (cargo scanner, long range scanner, ore scanner, etc) have their effects put in before release, or will this be another one of those things where it takes another year to arrive... :P

 

[Lucidess]

Pretty sure it's because local shield mechanics will stop ships from being gargantuan planets in space with a well protected shield core at it's verrrry center. Hopefully that's how it works anyway, and there isn't some weird exponential shield radius gain to the point where it safely covers the whole ship no matter how many shield blocks you place, making the entire mechanic pointless to implement in the first place

 

[Non]

Why does jump charge time cost so much reactor capacity?

If it takes too long to travel, no one will, lower it.

 

[Ithirahad]

Why does jump charge time cost so much reactor capacity?

If it takes too long to travel, no one will, lower it.

Yeah, the base charge rate is unreasonably slow. I can see why they want to balance out charge time increases and instant travel, but the current base rate is silly.

 

[Kelpaz]

The new shield mechanics were made to discourage "floating island" builds something which I never seen uploaded or made on my server.
I actually thought it was to encourage creating separate shield facings but no, it just makes it more complicated than it needs to be.
Can't there just be one shield bubble "split" into different shield facings?

 

[Non]

Yeah, the base charge rate is unreasonably slow.

In the version CBS is on, turn rate 3 (a 100% balance breaking chamber) costs 5% less than jump charge 2 (almost a necessity).

 

[Ithirahad]

Yup, the turn rate chambers ultimately just let you push most of your thrust out of turn rate if you so choose... They're effectively the thrust equivalent of ion effect passive in the release version.

 

[Neon_42]

Oooo! Beams now change color. I love it!

 

[Valiant70]

Did you guys ever fix the problem of the ships becoming long sticks because of the new power system yet?

Minmaxing still looks rather like a dumbbell.

Very nice.



VERY NICE.

Glad to see steps have been taken against spaghetti.

Doesn't work. They can just increase strand size to 2x2.
[doublepost=1512944436,1512944101][/doublepost]I like the overall way the new systems work. Stabilizers seriously need some work though. The only good shape ends up being long and thin, or a dumbbell if you minmax.

 

[Ithirahad]

Doesn't work. They can just increase strand size to 2x2.

...sort of. 2x2 and even 3x3 long tubes tend to become very structurally unstable very fast, and will tend to shatter after taking enough hits...

...Ultimately, I'd think that moving away from global SHP is enough to partly offset the whole spaghetti issue. "I won't take damage if I can't get hit" isn't quite as big of a factor any more. The only things you want to protect from being hit are reactors and stabilizers, and out of those only stabilizers can be spaghettied out... and probably will be, until something's done about it.

 

[Valiant70]

...sort of. 2x2 and even 3x3 long tubes tend to become very structurally unstable very fast, and will tend to shatter after taking enough hits...

Did I just not make them long enough in my test?

...Ultimately, I'd think that moving away from global SHP is enough to partly offset the whole spaghetti issue. "I won't take damage if I can't get hit" isn't quite as big of a factor any more. The only things you want to protect from being hit are reactors and stabilizers, and out of those only stabilizers can be spaghettied out... and probably will be, until something's done about it.

Maybe if we could get missiles to target the reactor specifically when combined with a sufficiently strong recon chamber...

 

[DukeofRealms]

Still haven't updated this. StarMade — Translation Project on Crowdin

A lot of strings have been changed/moved around. We've been waiting until the strings are all set in place, now that's done, we still have to manually check CrowdIn strings are matching up with in-game ones.

It'll likely be imported today or tomorrow.

 

[Mr.Steam]

Are stabilizers one dimensional? Is increased efficiency only obtained by moving a stabilizer block further away from the reactor? Couldn't an option be to base efficiency on the distance between stabilizers on different parts of a ship? When I think of stabilization I think of a chair with 3 or 4 legs spaced equally apart. It seems like a chair with three legs closer together would be better than a chair with 2 legs far apart.

 

[Lecic]

Pretty sure it's because local shield mechanics will stop ships from being gargantuan planets in space with a well protected shield core at it's verrrry center. Hopefully that's how it works anyway, and there isn't some weird exponential shield radius gain to the point where it safely covers the whole ship no matter how many shield blocks you place, making the entire mechanic pointless to implement in the first place

I can tell you haven't looked at the shields yet.

There's absolutely nothing in the system to stop large ships from being entirely shielded, and, by the way, that's not really something you would want either. Ablative hull protecting shields is not a fun system to fight.

 

[Valiant70]

There's absolutely nothing in the system to stop large ships from being entirely shielded, and, by the way, that's not really something you would want either. Ablative hull protecting shields is not a fun system to fight.

Y'all just gotta deploy a kevlar umbrella from your snout.

Are stabilizers one dimensional? Is increased efficiency only obtained by moving a stabilizer block further away from the reactor? Couldn't an option be to base efficiency on the distance between stabilizers on different parts of a ship? When I think of stabilization I think of a chair with 3 or 4 legs spaced equally apart. It seems like a chair with three legs closer together would be better than a chair with 2 legs far apart.

I thought of that too. The more I think about it though, it seems like the best way to go would be to put stabilizers at the edges of a ship's box dimensions on all sides and calculate the stabilization efficiency based on the overall box dimension of those stabilizers.

In other words, overall boxdims of all stabilizers around the ship determines their efficiency, rather than distance from reactor determining their efficiency.

As an added bonus, this means it won't be obvious where you put the reactor. Right now it definitely needs to be in one end of the ship.

EDIT: Notably, this favors ships with large box dimensions. Chunky ships will need to place more stabilizer blocks. On the other hand, the weight disadvantage is offset by durability. Someone has to shoot up more stabilizer blocks to nerf your power generation. Durability is what you want on a chunky-styled ship, right?
[doublepost=1512948518,1512947250][/doublepost]

I tested a custom config where stabilizer distance was always 100% and it made me wonder why have them in the first place.
It just forces ships to take a certain shape unless you love empty spaces and if you need interior, well now you can have 10X more interior on top of what you had before.

Either make the minimum reactor without stabs bigger than 10 or get rid of them completely, we already need space for chamber blocks, which can be next to the reactor, but I don't need half a kilometer of space between them to fit an intermediate reactor to power fighter levels of weapons.

Here are some examples of the freedom of design with stabilizer mechanics:

Spoiler

The checkmarks are backwards go figure

The problem is that instead of encouraging larger overall box dimensions, the stabilizers encourage ONE long dimension. It was a step in the right direction, but it tripped over its feet.

 

[Lecic]

The problem is that instead of encouraging larger overall box dimensions, the stabilizers encourage ONE long dimension. It was a step in the right direction, but it tripped over its feet.

Step in the right direction to solve WHAT problem? Stabilizers are a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

 

[Valiant70]

Step in the right direction to solve WHAT problem? Stabilizers are a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

The problem may not exist in the hardcore PVP world, but it’s very real and very troublesome for the rest of us.