Recipe System is a Miss

[racingspider]

Sorry to say it, while it is slightly on the right track, the recipe system blew out manufacturing completely. Personally I liked the old system, but a 'recipe' based system is also fine. The problem is in the execution of the system itself.

Random ingredients make ALL ingredients worthless. Essentially, you can make anything out of anything (if you get the 'right' random recipe), thereby completely nullifying any inherent value or scarcity of resources.

Secondly, requiring, 10,000 of an item to obtain a recipe to make that item is ridiculous. Manufacturing is no longer a viable and FUN way to build your ships and be self-sufficient. The reason I wanted to play this game is to manufacture the items I need by resource gathering - with the current system it is just random nonsense.

Please reconsider the way manufacturing is done. It was a thousand times better before.

 

[MrFURB]

Greetings, Racingspider!

Welcome to the Starmade alpha, where Schema and friends will be testing things, squashing bugs, and changing core gameplay mechanics every few days with little warning.

Keep the fact that it is an alpha in mind. Things are being implimented before they are complete because they need people to mass-test them for stability and bug-finding. The current crafting system is a good example of this. There have been hints and teasers out and about of how, once complete, the new crafting system will make people \'think like a scientist\' in order to craft things efficiently, and how Schema plans to base the economy around crafting as much as (if not more than) random pirate loot.



For now try to look for ways to improve the system, find bugs, and leave feedback. I promise Testers and/or devs do look through the forums for people\'s feedback.

 

[racingspider]

That\'s actually what I\'m attempting to do. The current direction of \"random recipes\" is a bad idea. I completely understand the game is in development. This is actually the perfect time for these discussions - especially to say \"I think you\'re on the wrong track\".

Crafting is definitely the way to drive the \'economy\' over loot, though, being a sandbox, a balanced approach should probably be taken, i.e. some loot and some crafting.

As far as improving the system, I\'d probably suggest a \'base requirement\' for each recipe:
A cannon always require X basic resource (ore) + X refined resource (capacitors, etc) + a random resource. That way you could have a logical recipe. A recipe that makes 1 hull out of 5 sand is sort of silly and breaks the resource harvesting portion of the game, in my opinion.

 

[Nootau]

As far as improving the system, I\'d probably suggest a \'base requirement\' for each recipe:
A cannon always require X basic resource (ore) + X refined resource (capacitors, etc) + a random resource. That way you could have a logical recipe. A recipe that makes 1 hull out of 5 sand is sort of silly and breaks the resource harvesting portion of the game, in my opinion.


Why not post this as an idea people can talk about?

 

[Stakhanov]

Previously , the manufacturing system made sense - ingredients from specific planet and asteroid types were required for each block , giving them purpose. Now it doesn\'t matter.

There\'s nothing to gain trying to get that new system to work , when basic tweaks to the old one would be trivial to playtest. No need to sink more time into compromise solutions.

Assuming infallibility is not a responsible attitude , just this once you have to admit Schema got it wrong :p

 

[racingspider]

The old system made more sense, though requiring a few tweaks, more components for a completed product, etc, but this new system is just plain silly. Makes resource gathering useless and breaks what was actually a pretty good suspension of disbelief.



Schema, PLEASE reinstate the previous manufacturing system. This new one is no good. It happens, don\'t take it personally.

 

[Morhe]

I think the reason Schema switched to the recipe-based system was because before, there was no way for a new player to learn what materials are needed to craft what items without alt-tabbing to a wiki window, which is bad for immersion and for training new players.

The system we have now is just a placeholder; a test for simplifying the system in such a way that you find a recipe in-game, look at the ingredients in-game, and then craft the item in-game. At the moment, a recipe can contain any item that can be purchased in the shop (by default), but this is a placeholder system that will be changed sometime over the course of the next several updates.

When it\'s finished, the crafting system will be a lot closer to the old manufacturing system than the current system, except that instead of having many different factory blocks to perform different tasks, you will have a single factory block that you can \"turn into\" whatever you want simply by changing what recipe is loaded into it.

 

[Morrigi]

Randomization is garbage, not sure if high or just wrong. Recipes per se are fine, but the randomization just ruins everything.

 

[Dire Badger]

I dunno, I sorta like the idea of having a whole lot of factory blocks...I want that space in a big station to have MEANING, and the more subsystems available to fille that gigantic, hollow shell, the cooler it looks.

 

[MrFURB]

The current factory system is a first implimentation meant to test the stability of recipes and their random-ness as well as a proof of concept and code base to work up to the new system, where you will working with atomizing blocks and isotopes as much as regular materials.

When completed, the factory system won\'t be based upon completely random components, but there will be some randomization involved, and when combined with a good research station, those factors could yield some very impressive recipes. Beetlebear has said that it will require you to \'think like a scientist\' in order to get efficient results.

I think it would be better to give Schema/Calbiri some time to get their actual content out before yelling to put it back to the way it was. The Devs and Testers are listening, and I alone have heard a ton of feedback which I make sure to bring to the higher ups, so I think we\'re better off moving towards the new, unique system.

 

[Dire Badger]

Just so long as it leads to bank after bank of beeping, buzzing, flickering factory arrays, with the potential for conveyor belts, pipes filled with glowing, pulsating fluids, and jacob\'s ladders to satisfy the mad space scientist in all of us, I will be happy.

 

[MrFURB]

You know exactly what I want, sir. When I walk into a research lab or factory building I\'d like to smile seeing all the busy little machines and their glowy lights working overtime for free to produce the galaxy\'s next server destroyer!

 

[beetlebear]

you guys are only seeing half of what the system is. Stay tuned :D

 

[Royboy94]

I very strongly agree.

In my honest opinion, I loved to gather ores from planets and asteroids and gather other materials such as Yhole and whatnot to make it into those components to then make blocks with.
I also liked the mineral seperators, having to seperate your higher level minerals first before being able to use it.

Like some people already said, now it\'s a complete random mess.
I have tried working with the new system, but I just am getting in an infinite loop.

For example: I want to produce power blocks, so I spend my precious 5k power blocks that I gathered over a long time to buy a schematic for... Turns out I need hulls and other stuff for it. Well then now I have to get schematics to make hulls. Not to mention also schematics for the other 2 ingredients that I need. Heck, maybe the next hull schematic will require power blocks to produce? The block that I wanted to produce in the first place... It makes no sense for me, and for me ruins the fun of the whole system. Now you have to keep trying and trying, and spending many blocks to get a schematic of a block you needed in the first place, which you aren\'t going to spend because you need them, so you would probably already have used them for your project.

Obviously I much rather liked the old factory system.

Ofcourse I am aware of the game\'s state, and that things are being tested. That\'s why I am giving my feedback.

I hope you will use my feedback, and the feedback of the other players, to implement the right thing that will be best for this game. And I have a lot of faith that the right things will be done to make this game as enjoyable as possible.

 

[racingspider]

We may only be seeing half of it, but we can only comment on what we can see, and we\'re saying we don\'t like it - and not just because. We\'ve given excellent game-centered reasons on what the random recipe system does. Not to mention the ridiculous cost in the resource you\'re wanting to create - if I want to build a block, I should ALREADY need 10,000 of that block. Yeah, it is set on the server side, but that\'s still a silly system.

I really liked multiple factory types to make different things. That fills up the void of the giant stations nicely. It doesn\'t have to be super-complicated, but requiring recipes + multiple factory types = win (as long as the players can GET the recipes for the things they want to make WITHOUT having to trash X amount of the desired item).

 

[cswvna]

Here\'s a recipe suggestion, buying a recipe for a wanted item with a smaller ammount of that item (500~1,000) plus a commonly available \"junk item\" (5,000~10,000) to be used (inefficiently) in the recipe as the major component. If I want power tanks and I have a hundred thousand grey hull from stripping stations, I\'d be all for a recipe that costs five hundred tanks and ten thousand hull to buy and uses forty or fifty hull per cycle plus odds and ends to produce a power tank.

Besides, once I have manufactured five hundred power tanks I can buy another recipe that uses purple, blue, or black hull as the major component, plus different odds and ends...

 

[squib]

I agree that the old system was more logical...

If the idea is to stop new people having trouble finding how to make things without having to jump to the wiki, make it that recepies are available for purchase, which can then be read from your inventry.

I think the new system makes it harder. How can a new person make hull if they don\'t go and happen to find a hull recipe of buy one with 5000 hull pieces - that is a bit overwhelming. Then if hull requires plexglass now how do i get that unless i buy or get another recipe....

Recipies could still be used but not randomised, and can be \"discovered\". So if I put the rock and plextanium and it works I get a recipe for it, which speeds up the process for next time or makes more per unit of ingredients.

Just some quick thoughts.