Prerelease v0.200.250

[Jeffenuva]

You may think you're doing something to help with performance by putting a hardcap on ships, but you're actually making things worse. 1 50k mass ship causes a lot less lag than 5 10k mass ships. Non-linear systems in Starmade correlate directly with lag.
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Oh, also, bigger doesn't always win. Bigger is generally worse even with pure linear systems just on a basis of how many targets and how many places a number of ships can be at one time.

EDIT- A quote from my friend Comr4de on the matter
"between two forces of equal weight, the one made up of more ships is more efficient. Say that you have 2 100k mass ships vs 10 20k mass ships. if the force of smaller ships takes out one of the larger vessels, that force has lost 50% of its firepower, whereas the loss of one ship in the other fleet is only a loss of 10%"

Where I'm going is that if power is uncapped then shield regen is uncapped, and 1 on 1 you have to keep escalating size to overcome shield regen. If both players are capped, there is more strategy.

I wasn't thinking about 10 on 1. You are probably right about that.

 

[Lecic]

Where I'm going is that if power is uncapped then shield regen is uncapped, and 1 on 1 you have to keep escalating size to overcome shield regen. If both players are capped, there is more strategy.

I wasn't thinking about 10 on 1. You are probably right about that.

You can always bring more ships. Balancing on a 1v1 is a beginner's mistake.

Besides, is the shield regen really even an issue? Any ship with enough regen to permanently tank a much smaller ship's DPS probably either has massively underpowered weapons and can't compete with ships of its own size, or is so big that it has enough weapons to instantly vaporize that small ship anyway.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

You can always bring more ships. Balancing on a 1v1 is a beginner's mistake.

Wow. You actually managed to say that with a straight face, knowing how much human resources are limited in the plummeting playercount Starmade has, and how poorly fleet AI behaves. Sorry, but in the current environment, the ship with the better stats and better pilot counts. You can't bring more ships than pilots as is. So yea, size does matter.

 

[Deserea]

Just gonna through my opinion up here while im able to, though it doesnt seem to matter much to schema.

I tried really hard to like this update, but...stabilizers kill it for me. The amount of creativity they remove is impressive. I *Loved* this game because i could build whatever i wanted to build, however i wanted to build it, and at least make it work..i..cant really do that anymore. I tried to update my pride and joy after updating...and i cant. The way i build ships no longer works, because you have to layout systems *first* now. Its completely idiotic, and i hate it.

The power update to me, actually sounded good, before i got to use it, and play around with, now its just awful...i can barely bring myself to try playing anymore, let alone building. Because i know that none of my ships will ever be functional with the new "improved" system. Shame theres really no other game out there like this one..but hey, maybe there will be someday, at least i hope so.

 

[Lecic]

Wow. You actually managed to say that with a straight face, knowing how much human resources are limited in the plummeting playercount Starmade has, and how poorly fleet AI behaves. Sorry, but in the current environment, the ship with the better stats and better pilot counts. You can't bring more ships than pilots as is. So yea, size does matter.

1) Player counts in battles between factions has remained relatively consistent over the years regardless of total player counts plummeting.
2) Balancing off 1v1s is a mistake because the game will (hopefully) have better AI and more players in the future and it is extremely shortsighted to balance the way you are suggesting.
3) Fleets may not be able to pull off any fancy maneuvers or do things like combat jumps, but they are plenty acceptable as gun platforms and target spam against enemy AI. You 100% can bring more ships than you have human pilots and they will do the job, perhaps not as well, but they will do it.

 

[kikaha]

I for one believe that you're all mistaking in defining how powerfull a ship is by using its mass as reference.

in the new power system its not the mass that count. its how much power you can supply and how its being used.

So for exemple, if i was to organize a little fighter contest i'd tell people that want to participate that ships are allowed to enter with ships with no more than a level 5 reactor (for exemple purpose only).

 

[Toshiro]

In the publication of December 22, you announce the possibility of diverting the flow of energy using knot blocks, I tried many attempts to achieve it but without result, the flow continues to take the most court path without take into account the presence of the nodes.
Please, would you be kind enough to tell me what to do to make it work?
Thank you.

 

[JinM]

"Most of its mechanics will already be done by the time the power update is out and should make it likely to release both updates within this year. We definitely want to start to work on the universe update in 2017 still, and we are excited to share the details with you right after the weapon update release."

Gnaaaaahhhhhhhhh. I got my hopes up and now I should've been less optimistic.

 

[Zoolimar]

So for exemple, if i was to organize a little fighter contest i'd tell people that want to participate that ships are allowed to enter with ships with no more than a level 5 reactor (for exemple purpose only).

So what in this case would stop people from building a level 5 reactor inside a 5M tons asteroid and fighting from inside it?

 

[kikaha]

In the publication of December 22, you announce the possibility of diverting the flow of energy using knot blocks, I tried many attempts to achieve it but without result, the flow continues to take the most court path without take into account the presence of the nodes.
Please, would you be kind enough to tell me what to do to make it work?
Thank you.

press C on the block next to the power and V on the node you want your stream to pass by next. Then C on the last one and V on the next. And so on...
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So what in this case would stop people from building a level 5 reactor inside a 5M tons asteroid and fighting from inside it?

Nothing. But try and move that asteroid... AND that asteroid still has only a level 5 reactor and the power that goes with it. Pretty much a sitting duck.

 

[Zoolimar]

Nothing. But try and move that asteroid... AND that asteroid still has only a level 5 reactor and the power that goes with it. Pretty much a sitting duck.

Why would I care that it's a sitting duck, when my weapon range is the same as that of my opponents but to destroy the asteroid they'll need much more time than for me to crush them ? Why would I need to move it that much at all ?

 

[kikaha]

Why would I care that it's a sitting duck, when my weapon range is the same as that of my opponents but to destroy the asteroid they'll need much more time than for me to crush them ? Why would I need to move it that much at all ?

Er...

1) What's to say your weapon's range is the same as your opponent's ?
2) How can you turn around fast enough with 5 millon tons and a level 5 reactor facing a 5k tons "fighter" with the same reactor ?
3) With you not moving i'll have all the time in the world to destroy all those blocks slowly but surely.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

1) Player counts in battles between factions has remained relatively consistent over the years regardless of total player counts plummeting.
2) Balancing off 1v1s is a mistake because the game will (hopefully) have better AI and more players in the future and it is extremely shortsighted to balance the way you are suggesting.
3) Fleets may not be able to pull off any fancy maneuvers or do things like combat jumps, but they are plenty acceptable as gun platforms and target spam against enemy AI. You 100% can bring more ships than you have human pilots and they will do the job, perhaps not as well, but they will do it.

Sorry, but I'm a practical guy, I can only work with what there is right now, not with what there should or will be. And right now, fleet AI is a nice, large, steaming pile of fine Black Angus bullshit. Of course, when that changes I'll take it into account, but right now, even moving an AI fleet to a desired sector is like f***ing a porcupine: extremely awkward, extremely painful and you really wish you didn't have to do it.
Since you can't order a fleet to jump, you have to move it there manually, and if you give it a target that's more than 2 sectors away, they will try to move in a random direction away from you first to unload for fast travel. This may even result in flying into a sun right away. So, you're left with 3 options:
1. You go with them sector by sector, which will last your entire day and by the time they get there your opponent will get bored and move on.
2. You go there ahead of them, risking running into your enemy and being outnumbered without your AI backup.
3. You send them first, risking them running into the enemy without you there, and dying because they are stupid.

BUT you are right, once they are actually there and the battle actually starts, they might be a little more than useless.

 

[Zoolimar]

1) What's to say your weapon's range is the same as your opponent's ?
2) How can you turn around fast enough with 5 millon tons and a level 5 reactor facing a 5k tons "fighter" with the same reactor ?
3) With you not moving i'll have all the time in the world to destroy all those blocks slowly but surely.

1) Because installing short ranged weaponry on a mostly unmoving target is somewhere below the Darwin award level.
2) Why do I need to turn? What stops me from embedding AI controlled weapons deep inside the rock facing all sides ?

 

[kikaha]

1) Because installing short ranged weaponry on a mostly unmoving target is somewhere below the Darwin award level.
2) Why do I need to turn? What stops me from embedding AI controlled weapons deep inside the rock facing all sides ?

1) You have long range weapon ! Great ! I have short range weapons (like one of my fighters and one of my corvette) i go fast around you (even with AI) and keep shooting at you while you keep turning trying to catch me.
2) A 5 level reactor is not going to give you much powerfull AI turrets to do me any harm. First, you'll have to hit me. Then, well first.
3) Sitting duck.

 

[StormWing0]

hmm why not balance for 1v1 and NvN size battles?

 

[kikaha]

Because size don't matter.

 

[LoSboccacc]

2) Base ship "power" off of its size (which Schine thinks should mean dimensions in a single direction)

you can't have doom cubes if only one dimension is important

f(ಠ‿↼)

 

[Nosajimiki]

1) Player counts in battles between factions has remained relatively consistent over the years regardless of total player counts plummeting.
2) Balancing off 1v1s is a mistake because the game will (hopefully) have better AI and more players in the future and it is extremely shortsighted to balance the way you are suggesting.
3) Fleets may not be able to pull off any fancy maneuvers or do things like combat jumps, but they are plenty acceptable as gun platforms and target spam against enemy AI. You 100% can bring more ships than you have human pilots and they will do the job, perhaps not as well, but they will do it.

Fielding enough AI to pose a threat to a good player flown ship typically means introducing 3x as much mass and 10x as much lag. Enough drones to begin to threaten a decent 500k battleship is also enough to crash most servers and clients which... I guess is a way to win a fight, but not really healthy to the gameplay experience.

you can't have doom cubes if only one dimension is important

Umm...
A: doom cubes suck, they always have. The only reason ppl have ever lost fights to them is that you can re-system them very quickly based on what you learn from fight to fight.
B: new doom cubes will just be very long boxes.

 

[Deserea]

Okay...is there a way to just edit out stabilizer distance? i could live with the update if theres a way to do that ;-; im dumb and cant seem to find it, if it exists

edit: nevermind, im a dumbdumb, found it. Now to get it to work right.