Prerelease v0.200.250

[NTIMESc]

But you still want to spend money on the car once it's fixed

I don't plan on buying OR driving it.

I'm done with politeness

Well, your post isn't really all that impolite, but if I was impolite, I wouldn't be surprised if Schine ignored me.

If a lot of your players want a feature (More that 50-60%). Implement it to what the player-base wants. You guys can have ideas, but DON'T implement them unilaterally.

This assumes that Schines primary goal is to make a game that everyone else likes. I'm not sure if that opinion reflects reality.

And then one day they decide to remove the brakes from said car. Sure you've gotten your monies worth from it, but why wouldn't you be angry if you could keep driving it for many more years if they fixed one simple error? Saying "I've gotten my monies worth so I don't care if the game is ruined now" isn't exactly a good argument for not fixing stabilizers.

They haven't removed the brakes from the prototype I bought. In fact, they provided a new prototype with every modification, as well as allowing indefinite access to all previous prototypes.

 

[HerrColonel]

If they don't fix it

Do you have a master in sophism? It's the most useless posts I answered this evening

 

[NTIMESc]

It's the most useless posts I answered this evening

Me too

 

[[email protected]]

​

Well, your post isn't really all that impolite, but if I was impolite, I wouldn't be surprised if Schine ignored me.


This assumes that Schines primary goal is to make a game that everyone else likes. I'm not sure if that opinion reflects reality.

If their primary goal is to make money, their primary goal is to make a game everyone likes, and therefore one that most people will buy and play. Now, if they just want a game to be proud of, then they have every right to tell the players that they know more about playing the game than the players do, but they won't make much money or get any respect by doing that, and their players will migrate to other games of similar caliber with dev teams that actually listen to them. That's kinda Economics 101.
I chose not be polite because they needlessly took the one agreed upon fix to a problem, and both made the problem worse AND produced a new problem altogether. Generally, you want a game that's as stable and playable as you can get it while still appealing to your audience. For a game like SM, the devs are not doing as good a job as they could be, and my previous post on problems either was misinterpreted OR the devs chose to make these decisions by themselves, but either way, this update wasn't what was intended.
They're trying to be proactive about problems, and while this is healthy mentality in everyday life, it is disastrous when the solution doesn't solve the problem and the devs are unilateral in the application. If they chose to be reactive, and only solve an issue when it becomes an issue, they would in turn make a better game.
It's also important to understand that their new features with their new build are hypocritical to their purposes. Again, instead of solving the problem as asked, they went further and instead became more behind. Their audience is creative people who like ships (simply put), so when they limit creativity, and limit what you can do with ships, they are limiting their audience.
It's good that they attempted, but they have the wrong idea. A creative game should have a malleable base that suits the creativity of its players, so when you make the power system either unworkable, needlessly complex, or both, they are making this game less playable and overall worse. I'd like to play this game more, and I agree with them for having a new power system, but I don't agree with their balancing ideas, and they should stop trying to restrict the power system.

 

[kulbolen]

positive encouragement

there doesnt need to be a block in this game called "decorative computer" because computers fucking do things.
[doublepost=1513986504,1513986313][/doublepost]

they have every right to tell the players that they know more about playing the game than the players do

i mean they can say anything they like, but that doesnt make it true =D

 

[NTIMESc]

If their primary goal is to make money

Now, if they just want a game to be proud of, then they have every right to tell the players that they know more about playing the game than the players do, but they won't make much money or get any respect by doing that

So, before I jump all over Schine for "doing it wrong", I suppose it would be good if I actually knew what their primary goal was.
I also haven't seen them state that they know more about playing the game. Is that an assumption based on their actions of "breaking" the game and exacerbating problems for players who demand that the game is always kept in a playable state during devlopment? The only assumption I would make is that Schine knows more about what they want, which may in fact not be very much. Maybe they have a detailed plan. Maybe they just try random things. Maybe they make a detailed plan, then try random things. Whatever they know about the game's future, it's more than I do.

 

[Lecic]

I don't mind waiting a year or more for crew, weapons, AI, etc. There are plenty of other games to have fun with in the mean time. Also, I just enjoy following the development of StarMade, without any expectations about its current playability. If I had to guesstimate, I would say the game is less than half finished, and as such, while I've logged a few thousand hours tinkering with it, I have avoided serious attachment to any of it's play mechanics. When something changes, I check it out. If it's fun to play with, I log a few hundred more hours. If it's not so great, or unstable, I check in on the forums, maybe make a suggestion or some comments, then go find something else to occupy my free time.

StarMade isn't my broken car that Schine is fixing for me. StarMade is Schine's car they are building from scratch, therefore me trusting them to fix it is irrelevant. To reiterate, if I don't like the modifications Schine is making to their car, I can let them know, and then stop test driving it for them until they make changes I'm interested in.

"Lol, it's ok the game is broken, just don't play! Then you don't have to play a broken game! xDDDDD"




Hey, buddy. I don't know if you noticed.



But we're trying to stop the game from getting broken in the first place.

 

[HerrColonel]

So, before I jump all over Schine for "doing it wrong", I suppose it would be good if I actually knew what their primary goal was.

There's an end goal document. You can find it here: Search Results for Query: end goal | StarMade Dock It's also been Mentionned by Dire Venom previously.
They talk about what they're aiming at and for what kind of players. But You don't care do you? You're a troll and you want to make us waste our time by debating without any purpose. Are you Jojomo?

 

[Dire Venom]

There's an end goal document. You can find it here: Search Results for Query: end goal | StarMade Dock It's also been Mentionned by Dire Venom previously.
They talk about what they're aiming at and for what kind of players. But You don't care do you? You're a troll and you want to make us waste our time by debating without any purpose. Are you Jojomo?

Exactly!!

To curious players and potential investors:

Read through the documents and their vision.
It all looks very good doesn't it?

Now look at the new power system, the modifications they have made to said system, their reasoning and design direction.

It is very clear that these two do not match.
In fact some parts of the current dev build achieve the Exact OPPOSITE of what was orgionaly intended :, (

Two very different people are clearly involved.
We can thus draw the conclusion that a battle in Schemas office is being waged by an Angel and the Anti-Christ.

 

[NTIMESc]

There's an end goal document...

Read through the documents and their vision.

I've read it previously, but I appreciate the search link. I believe hunterelite999 and I were debating over "making money" vs. "a game they can be proud of", not StarMade's design goals.

 

[Captain Fortius]

There's an end goal document. You can find it here: Search Results for Query: end goal | StarMade Dock It's also been Mentionned by Dire Venom previously.
They talk about what they're aiming at and for what kind of players. But You don't care do you? You're a troll and you want to make us waste our time by debating without any purpose. Are you Jojomo?

Normally I'm quite happy to go on a trollhunt, but this time there's no troll to be found.

And don't get me started on that end goal document....... I read it the first time it was uploaded and all I could think of, what an utter waste of everyone's time it was.

It's several pages of nothing in quite particular. If one pays enough attention, he might gleam such deep wisdoms from it's paragraphs such as " we noticed somebody likes to mine stuff while others prefer fighting" or " jump drives be ok now? "

An actual end goal document would look like this:

1.-The game will handle X amount of blocks, Y entities, Z block updates per sec on recommended system specs.

2.- Planets that are:
-Large enough to land on with more than a core.
-Don't kill the server.

3.- Some form of anticheat for multiplayer.

4.- A sound system that produces more and higher quality sounds than the occasional "space wind", core hum, missile / warhead / cannon impact.

5.- Slopes and other shapes for 3/4, 1/2, 1/4 blocks.

6.- NPC system that doesn't litter the database full of entities; No spawning where nobody sees it. Despawning when anybody who COULD see them is gone. Persistent NPC fleets are just a bad idea and a waste of resources.
- Better tools for admins to adjust, disable, enable NPC spawning.

7.- Slightly better AI, with minimal pathfinding so ships won't ram and attempt to fly through shops, or other ships several magnitudes their size like a cognitionally challenged* gouppi who cannot comprehend the existence of the fish tank's walls.

8. - More AI settings both for fleets and bobby modules, such as "target ships between x and y mass" "preferred engagement distance (in meters)" "combat patterns: Straight attack run and disengage/ Repeated back-and-forth attack runs / Strafe in circles facing the enemy/ Circle around and broadside the target / Ram" as well as "target friendly" and "target salvageable" options.
-Ability to set min-max rotation and elevation for turrets, negating or at least reducing collision checks.
- Turret AI should ignore targets it can't aim at.

9.- Prevent ships with turrets and docked entities from falling apart in combat, circumventing the lag this is causing.

10.- Viable system for repairing damaged ships in a more player-friendly way

11.- Enjoyable combat system with better controls and hud.

12.- Build-your-own space suit, power armor, hand tools and weapons from 1/10 size blocks.

13. - Customizable male, female and alien player characters.

14. - Connect a camera to one or a group of display module (s) to show a feed of what it sees. Connect a scanner as well to overlay it with tactical /navigational information.

15.- Finish before the end of 20xx.

One can dream...
Note how a new power system or "let's scatter specific minerals to the far corners of the galaxy" is not in my list of top 15 things that would improve this game. Then again, that's just me.

But seriously. Get these things in, call it a day, sell the product. You'd have my money, even at AAA price. Sounds pretty much like an end goal to me.

* changed to a less offensive word, so it doesn't trigger auto-correct

 

[paladin.oa]

If that's what the actual problem is, then I have to say sorry...? Sorry because we can't do everything at once. If this problem is nullified by having a functioning crew system then we will unfortunately have to wait for crew. Yeah we could fix everything according to your specifications right now. Sure. What happens when we add crew and suddenly you want a bit of interior space for them? Well we will be going back and fourth on this issue until every major feature of the gameplay is in...

I know you're going to rate this as funny and complain and say we are purposefully ignoring you, but you just told me that if we want you to build interiors, then we need to add crew. Okay. Then it's going to have to wait. That's the hard truth.

I see, so your development strategy is to make the game as balanced as possible at all times and fix things as they come up. I can see why you would do this as StarMade is an early release game. Also it allows you to experiment with many different mechanics to find the best one. With that said chalk me down as someone not completely sold on the stabilizer mechanic for power. The solutions I favor are (in no particular order):

1. Shorten the distance needed between power generators and stabilizers for 100% efficiency.

2.Use the proposed additive mechanic where stabilizer distance is additive. Stabilizer group 1 is 50 blocks away from the power generator blocks, Stabilizer group 2 is 70 blocks away from the power generator blocks, so actual distance is counted as 120 blocks. Of course there would have to be a minimum amount of stabilizer blocks per group to achieve this effect say 10-25% the size of the power generator block number.

3. Use 3d distance instead of 2d distance, after all, this is a 3d game.

To leave this post on a positive note, I'm excited about the crew planning, just please, please don't forget about the toilets and showers!

 

[Criss]

he game will handle X amount of blocks, Y entities, Z block updates per sec on recommended system specs.

2.- Planets that are:
-Large enough to land on with more than a core.
-Don't kill the server.

3.- Some form of anticheat for multiplayer.

4.- A sound system that produces more and higher quality sounds than the occasional "space wind", core hum, missile / warhead / cannon impact.

A lot of these are a given though. These are all things that absolutely have to happen in order for those areas of the game to be successful. I would never say the sound system is fine as is for a final release. Thats absurd. Frankly I don't know why we would have to state that either. Players have known we have not been satisfied with sound for quite some time.

Expecting to know what specs the game can perform with on certain hardware is tricky. We can make goals, but a game like starmade fluctuates a lot. I wouldn't want to promise anything at this point.

3. Use 3d distance instead of 2d distance, after all, this is a 3d game.

This I do not understand. There are two systems, stabilizers, and reactors. These two systems only have 1 relationship with each other: distance. I do not see how I can use "3d space". It's already in 3d space. If you ask for more than distance, you're asking for either specific shapes, box dimensions or coordinates. None of these three sound any more appealing. The old power system is the closest thing I can think of that would be called "3d" space, as it used box dimensions to calculate power per grouping.

If there is something I am missing I'd like to know. For the record I like the additive stabilizer mechanic.

 

[Lecic]

A lot of these are a given though. These are all things that absolutely have to happen in order for those areas of the game to be successful. I would never say the sound system is fine as is for a final release. Thats absurd. Frankly I don't know why we would have to state that either. Players have known we have not been satisfied with sound for quite some time.

Expecting to know what specs the game can perform with on certain hardware is tricky. We can make goals, but a game like starmade fluctuates a lot. I wouldn't want to promise anything at this point.


This I do not understand. There are two systems, stabilizers, and reactors. These two systems only have 1 relationship with each other: distance. I do not see how I can use "3d space". It's already in 3d space. If you ask for more than distance, you're asking for either specific shapes, box dimensions or coordinates. None of these three sound any more appealing. The old power system is the closest thing I can think of that would be called "3d" space, as it used box dimensions to calculate power per grouping.

If there is something I am missing I'd like to know. For the record I like the additive stabilizer mechanic.

Dodging my question, Criss?

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.

Answer. Stop fucking around. What breaks? Give us the consequences.

 

[Dire Venom]

A lot of these are a given though. These are all things that absolutely have to happen in order for those areas of the game to be successful. I would never say the sound system is fine as is for a final release. Thats absurd. Frankly I don't know why we would have to state that either. Players have known we have not been satisfied with sound for quite some time.

Expecting to know what specs the game can perform with on certain hardware is tricky. We can make goals, but a game like starmade fluctuates a lot. I wouldn't want to promise anything at this point.


This I do not understand. There are two systems, stabilizers, and reactors. These two systems only have 1 relationship with each other: distance. I do not see how I can use "3d space". It's already in 3d space. If you ask for more than distance, you're asking for either specific shapes, box dimensions or coordinates. None of these three sound any more appealing. The old power system is the closest thing I can think of that would be called "3d" space, as it used box dimensions to calculate power per grouping.

If there is something I am missing I'd like to know. For the record I like the additive stabilizer mechanic.

Thank you for your reply.
To clarify on what is ment by 3D vs 2D Distance for power (not exactly a clear way of stating it):
-Currently Stabilization distance is dependent soley on one dimension.
-Ship Width of height doesn't matter as long as the ship is... well long. You could change that to ship length and width don't have any impact on power generation, only height does.

What is desired:
-More than one dimension is used for power gen.
-Does not favour one ship design over another.

This is the issue:

Similar Image:

Is this balance as intended???
[doublepost=1514002809,1514001825][/doublepost]OR To put it invery simple terms, this is the new power system and why we don't like it (A few small changes and we could love it though!)

 

[Criss]

Dodging my question, Criss?

Honestly yeah probably. When every other question I have for you is responded with "omg do you even read our posts?" I have to ask myself why I bother trying to communicate. That's a shame. I should want to communicate with our players. I've been excited to do so before.

Thank you for your reply.
To clarify on what is ment by 3D vs 2D Distance for power (not exactly a clear way of stating it):
-Currently Stabilization distance is dependent soley on one dimension.
-Ship Width of height doesn't matter as long as the ship is... well long. You could change that to ship length and width don't have any impact on power generation, only height does.

What is desired:
-More than one dimension is used for power gen.
-Does not favour one ship design over another.

This is the issue:

Similar Image:

Is this balance as intended???
[doublepost=1514002809,1514001825][/doublepost]OR To put it invery simple terms, this is the new power system and why we don't like it (A few small changes and we could love it though!)

Okay, that makes sense. What I need to know is how you would change this from a one dimensional issue into a multi-dimensional solution. I'm not sure I could see it any way other than the three examples I gave earlier. Additive stabilizers does not seem to do it for me. It makes non-needle ships more attractive shapes, but I still feel like needle ships using that system would be the best solution.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Here's a thing, Criss and I suppose you should tell Schema about it too (your discretion, he seems really occupied or simply reclusive enough not to want to directly communicate with the community.)

The game is getting more complicated every major update. It already had a steep learning curve to start with, but in its current state it's starting to get completely overwhelming for a new player.

I wanted to introduce some of my friends to this game recently. They aren't complete newbs to space builders; every one of them played Empyrion, or Space Engineers before.
They found Starmade extremely unintuitive and complicated, starting with finding where's what on the GUI to building things. And this isn't even the new power system.
In my honest opinion, the game was easiest to learn pre-WeaponUpdate, although the weapon combos added an exciting kind of complexity, as they allowed a lot more options to create viable designs.
Everything since rails was more limiting than encouraging. We have more and more blocks to work with, for features that were there before. Splitting shields into 2 blocks, then splitting rails into a metric ton of blocks, then now splitting power generation into the stabiliser-reactor-node-chambers thing where half the chambers are already redundant as there used to be defined mechanics (effect systems) that scaled with mass already, in place, to do what they do.
Instead we have completely new mechanics that scale completely different, a completely new GUI to figure out (chamber setups), stealth went from 2 single blocks to more than a dozen different chambers, same for scanners and jump drives, and the "Here are the blocks, arrage them however you like, some scale better one way than the other but you can still get away with deviating from that" concept was thrown straight out of the window, and everyone who doesn't build their ships EXACTLY how Schine imagined with the update, will suffer greatly.

Usually, complexity should positively correlate with creative freedom, as it should give MORE options to create new stuff.
In this game, right now, there seems to be a NEGATIVE correlation. And if that's not a warning sign, then I don't know what is.

 

[Zoolimar]

Okay, that makes sense. What I need to know is how you would change this from a one dimensional issue into a multi-dimensional solution. I'm not sure I could see it any way other than the three examples I gave earlier. Additive stabilizers does not seem to do it for me. It makes non-needle ships more attractive shapes, but I still feel like needle ships using that system would be the best solution.

•Remove stabilisers - Now by power every ship shape is equal and you could stuff the systems everywhere.

•Allow multiple reactors - with linear scaling most docked power shenanigans would be gone, but you still could make self powered turrets.

•If you absolutely hate island ships you may penalise them in some way. If you are really evil.

•With integrity present systems should be pretty reasonable targets.

After this all, we wait for crew and build the crew-quarters, workstations and so on, only after they start giving some benefits or before that because we like how they look.

P.S. There are a lot of ways to use the stabiliser block in actually "stabilising" way but current one is not one of the good variants. For example making reactors volatile as a base (as auxiliary power) and stabilisers blowing up instead of reactors while you have them on the ship (no special space/distance restrictions) seems like a much better one.

 

[Dire Venom]

Honestly yeah probably. When every other question I have for you is responded with "omg do you even read our posts?" I have to ask myself why I bother trying to communicate. That's a shame. I should want to communicate with our players. I've been excited to do so before.

I love communicating with you too :P

Okay, that makes sense. What I need to know is how you would change this from a one dimensional issue into a multi-dimensional solution. I'm not sure I could see it any way other than the three examples I gave earlier. Additive stabilizers does not seem to do it for me. It makes non-needle ships more attractive shapes, but I still feel like needle ships using that system would be the best solution.

Good point!
It certiantly is a bit of a head scratcher.

Just throwing some ideas out there (From various places on the forum or out of thin air, but maybe there could be something of worth in them).
(I will probably make a variety of assumptions here as well)

Stabalizors do not have distance penalties, and instead create "Low Energy Fields".
I address common concerns near the bottom of this post, such as Ship Size to Reactor Size relations, and how this does not encourage Islands, Needles as design choices, allowing a regualr ship to beable to be just as effective, or more than them.

Forward:
An important part of designing these Base Game Mechanics (I feel) is to make them easily understandable by even the simplest of players. On screen prompts, Pop-up windows with simple visuals telling you how the system works would be a fantastic addition with a new power system!
Whenever a player has a Reactor, Shield OR Stabalizor block selected it would help a lot if there were some simple, yet clear instructions/infographics on how the system works and how to add it to your ship. This would do wonders for new players in particular and help them immediatly engage with the game!

I digress, onto the (I spent quite a few hours so I hope it has something of worth) hopefully not a fail stabalizor concept:

The Concept: (Based off the new Shield Coverage Bubbles)

• Stabilizors placed in multiple or single groups contribute the same ammount of stabilization regardless of distance.
• However, each Stabilizor group generates a (Low Energy Field, Low Stabbalization Area or something like that) around it, which grows with the size of the group. This could be represented using the cool new Shield Bubble coverage.
• The Reactor could also (Potientialy) create a Low Energy field around it (But not a singnificant distance like the current Stabilization distance, just so the reactor isn't encased in a stabilization bubble)
• Any stabalizor group which crosses too much with another stabilizor bubble is "switched off" and provides 0 Stabilization, just like Crossing 2 shield bubbles (with the lower value bubble being switched off).

• There is a base size of the Low Energy Field per Stabilizor group (to be balanced) that would mean ships that spam multiple small Stabalizor groups simply would not beable to acheive much Stabilization. (This is exactly how the Shield Bubbles Work atm, using the same concept for both would likely reduce development time)

(I know, a bunch of badly explained mubo Jumbo. Please do point out any holes!)

Basicaly Stabilizors "Require Area" to stabalize a ship.

For a worked example: (Probably a lot easier to understand!)

Here is a beautiful Yatcht ship (Props to the creator!).
It has a reactor that has been lavishly designed and built near the center of the ship. It doesn't matter where the reactor is, however you would want to protect it.

Now we want to start adding Stabilizors. Like always the ammount we need for 100% is fixed by the largest reactor.
Say we create a small stabilizor group part way down the ship.

Just like with shield bubbles:

This stabzlizor group creates a "bubble" around it that can be seen when holding Stabalizor blocks.
Just like Shields they have a set minimum size.
You get what we're getting at here :P????

Now, you might ask, why not spam them all across your ship?
Well, just like Shield bubbles that doesn't quite work.

What if we went for larger groups?

Ah ha! There we go.
This ship:

• Looks like a ship.
• Does not need to expand in only one direction to support a larger reactor.
• Does not spam stabilizor groups.
• Does not need to build them off as islands.
• Increasing the size of the ship in any direction allows for more area for Stabzlizors to make use of (Think of it as Stabilizors using the intergrity/holding together the surrounding blocks for lore or something) and thus a larger reactor.
• Wings, Spikes, Warp Narnacles etc would actualy be benifical for a ship short of stabalization space rather than just making the ship longer.
• As Schema wants, there is a relation between Ship and Reactor Size.
• Ships are not forced into needle or island designs.

Concerns:

• But why wouldn't players just create islands to house stabilizors groups on to ignore the bubbles? Good point you ask!
• Potiential Solutions (or a combination):

1.System groups within a stabalizor bubble are granted a bonus. Thus players WANT to put stabilizors inside their ship.
2.Stabalizor groups could stop working if they are too far from the reactor

• Wouldn't players just create one large group so there is never any overlap??? Another important point. We want this system to work for ships of all sizes.

1.We do not want to hurt small or large ships. Thus Stabilizor groups could have an Effciencey stat. How this could work: The larger the reactor the lower the effciencey. To counter act this loss of effciencey you need to add additional Stabalizor groups with at least (x%) the ammount of blocks of your reactor. This would be to prevent small group spam to get past this.

An info graphic on solving scalability of this system:
(Just to make it clear Stab. Eff caps at 100%, maybe bonus for more? Idk. Mainly intended as a buffer zone so you don;t have to add more Stab groups every 5 blocks.

Small ship with this system: (1 Stab group does just fine!)

Slightly bigger ship with a larger reactor, but only 1 stab group. (Blue Circle= Reactor, Orange square=Stab Group)

We are losing Stab. Effciencey due to only having one Stab group for this larger reactor! This means it requires more blocks and thus wastes space to get back up to full stabalisation.

A far better option than adding more blocks to the exsiting group would be to create a new group!

Now we are back up to full effcicency for our Stab. Groups!
And thus the Cycle continues round and around as the ship gets bigger and bigger!


Any feedback is appreciated.
Maybe this is a stupid suggestion imo. But if it encourages some other potistive thought then I won't have wasted my time :P
Just exploring options!

Thank you for discussing this with us Criss , I really enjoy it :3

 

[Zoolimar]

Any feedback is appreciated.
Maybe this is a stupid suggestion imo. But if it encourages some other potistive thought then I won't have wasted my time :P
Just exploring options!

Seems like a lot of wasted blocks, calculations and effort to do something that could be easily rolled into reactors for the same effect. And the effect is not very good due to how it encourages highly spread out ships and makes dense ships even more vulnerable.