Remove or streamline systems to make it a game (again) (broad suggestion to slim down features)

[JinM]

Introduction
What's happend? We don't have enough sales? I think this can easily be solved: Make it a game again by sticking to already known concepts of game-design.

This suggestions are small config changes or small additions/removals that should change Starmade by slimming it down and streamlining its content to what the game actualy is about.

Let's focus on multiplayer first:

Trade

• Remove all shops
• Remove credits
• Introduce money as item -> cant be transfered via commandss

PVP/Factions

• Allow multiple Homebases in the owned system (up to 4 or something - boosts creativity)
• Shrink the universe down: less systems, smaller spiral diameter

PVP/Weapons

• Top fly speed-> 100m/s
• Cannon speed/Missile speed-> as much as posssible
• Weapon Range: the general ship size is roughly up to 500m, starting at 20m. So maximum 2km for missiles, for beams I would prefer 500m with diminishing returns starting at 200m (independend of sector size!) Cannons should not loose damage and hit up to 5km
  • >beams strongest, missiles at around 80% as effective as beams of the same block size, and cannons around 50% as effective as beams
• This heat / kinetic system makes not alot of sense to me - remove it - the weapons are very distinct simply by its behaviour (beams hit instantly, missiles need to find target and so on) - it only adds complexity (=requirement to calculate it) but not enough depth (=fun to think about it because alot of things and strategies are possible) if I have to take into account that weapon xy is better suited against shields and yx is better to melt down system blocks or armor.
• Remove any system that does not work (I am not sure if homing missiles work now, if they still can't hit a moving target of 50m diameter I would say this is an example for a not working system)

Singleplayer/but should work in multi too:

• Only spawn in NPC stations that a player would use too (working factories with the correct amount of slaved enhancers, docking pads that are suitable for a more commonly used ship size of 50-100m - seriously no one uses a landing pad if its only able to carry 20m long/wide ships) - remove the other stations no one is going to check them out anyway after locking at them for 30 seconds in spectator mode
• Spawn in building stations: A variety of platforms that allow players to build their own houses / modules onto them. Examples: Cookie planet, Habitat Sphere, Abandonned big hangars, empty platforms with one or two square houses, a very basic modular station with walkways.

I could go on. I just think it's possible to make Starmade a very good game without adding alot of content.


Some features are more complex to implement, but should still be easy enough to add:

PVP/Factions
Have a killboard, but also invent a "maximum reactor size allowed for the fight" system: If you are in a given system the kill does not count if you exceed for example 1000 blocks of power generation blocks - Make the maximum allowed size dependend on how close your are to the universe center: no restrictions in the central 9 systems, maximum 1.000k power generation at a diamter of 5 systems, and 100k at 10 systems diameter, some spots in the outer rim should only allow 100 power blocks.

Trade

• Allow/Disable cargo draining from rails via logic blocks and remove the UI configuration feature (this popup message "allow drain cargo" that you can only find via the radial gui), e.g. place a cargo block next to the rail/docker, and if the cargo chest is powered you cant drain or pull cargo
• Invent block against block trade UI -> Use a chamber for this feature to enable it on ships/stations -> After docking to another entity you can trade with it (even if one participant is not online)
• Invent a way to trade ships even if you are not online - but you must visit the ship that you want to purchase

Character
Get messages displayed in chat broadcasted from the station - if a display module is next to a wireless logic module it broadcasts its chat message to players near it as soon as it gets activated - cooldown of 1 minute
-> but only to characters/ships that are near it -> make range dependend on slaved action modules to the wireless logic module (1m/2m/5m/10m/50m/100/200/500/1000/2000)
-> ships should be able to broadcast too, but the receiving player has to enable it via the entity list (add a checkmark box: allow broadcasts from this entity)

Singleplayer

• A player should be able to place NPCs characters somehow
• ->maybe by placing a cryo chamber/bed and setting a maximum diamter that the NPCs can walk around in from that block (maybe by slaving it to activation modules)

 

[JinM]

After thinking about it I came to realise, that at least one of my suggestions is not conform with the long term scope of this game.

The plan is, that NPCs trade with each other and with the player by using the shop block.

To be honest on the one hand the big trade scope is nice, on the other hand I am not sure if its so great to have no reason at all to physically dock a ship to another players /NPCs station.

 

[Crashmaster]

I agree that the (not-working-properly and/or outdated) feature bloat has been a constantly growing problem.

On the subject of reasons to dock to another's station: Does docking a large reactor'd ship to a station still crash the station's power supply?

 

[falco708]

I agree that the game lack of game design that it need to be playable in a more common way.
But most of those change are probably too importants to keep the core of the game.

I would rather change quality of life stuff like camera position when fighting or stability to make decent fights. Also new character model and fps view that give less motion seek.

 

[IchSehDich3000]

Well let's see how the universe update will perform.

On the subject of reasons to dock to another's station: Does docking a large reactor'd ship to a station still crash the station's power supply?

You can adjust the priority ist for systems on your station, so docked ship are less important