Revised Power Proposal

[Amadeus]

After watching both the stream and the highlight reel concerning the power update, I have a couple notes that I think would help address some of the concerns of the community:

• Concerns over gigantism and complexity:
  • The new system seems to favor larger ships for more power; there isn't any complexity as far as reactors go due to the linear nature of the system.
  • To address this I would suggest a combination of both old and the proposed systems. The old system allows for complexity due to different shapes having different amounts of power. The new system has great features concerning balancing and efficiency per block. I think that adding a sort of shape based efficiency [or other system that allows for more depth in the construction of ships] to the new system would allow for a much more immersive power system. This would fix the trend towards gigantism because you would be able to engineer, through your own research and ingenuity, a power system unique to your own ships, meaning that with the proper set up a smaller ship would be able to have more power than a relatively larger ship due to proper engineering.
  • Regardless of whether or not a shape/dimensional efficiency is implemented, a system to allow for greater customization is needed; non-linear power allows for more depth and increases the viability of smaller ships.
• Concerns involving chambers:
  • I absolutely love the idea of chambers and how they will impact the way that we play the game. I do think that there are a couple issues involving them that should be addressed.
  • I am not sure why chambers will continue to operate as normal after being physically disconnected until the ship is rebooted. I think that the real time consequences of having certain aspects of your build fail in battle will add an incredibly interesting element to the game. Not only would it add feasible realism, but it could also add depth in the form of crew repairs. If a crew member could repair the conduits between chambers, it would add yet another function to crew in addition to a legitimate reason to have functional interiors.
  • While not directly mentioned in the videos [at least to my knowledge] I am rather curious as to how crew will be integrated with "chambers." I think that adding a new block, some sort of interface or terminal that could connect with the chamber, would make the system as a whole much more cohesive.
• Concerns over things changing:
  • I think that this is a particularly inflammatory issue, but one that still needs to be addressed. While changing aspects of the game and rebuilding ships can be annoying, I think that it is MORE than worth the result. As someone who has bought this game, I am perfectly content with waiting for this project to be completed. All of these changes, while painful and bothersome right now, will be more than worth it in the future. I will admit, I too have been annoyed and greatly frustrated with waiting, but I can recognize the benefits of delayed gratification within the context of the game as a whole.

Feel free to comment with suggestions on how to improve the power system as a whole based upon the new information that we have received!

As a side note... I can't help but get excited about the little peeks at what is to come revealed at the end of the stream, hovercrafts and increased station mechanics are going to be an awesome addition to the game.

 

[Asvarduil]

I prefer to criticize in the format of, "What Works" and "What Doesn't Work", in regards to me. I think for this topic, I'll stick to that format - there's a lot of good in what I saw, but there's some notable downsides I'm seeing too.

TL;DR
This is ultimately a good update, though it falls woefully short of what this game needs to truly improve. Aspects of this update are unnecessary, and fail to fix fundamental problems that are holding this work back.

What Works
As a small ship builder, and someone building a server that limits you to small ships for gameplay reasons, I have to say that the system scaling down so well is a very welcome note. To use schema's RPG metaphor - if a 600k supercarrier is Lv.99 with all sorts of spells and a sword that deals infinity + 2 damage, small ships may well be Lv.1-Lv.5. The Dragon Ball Z "power levels are B.S." rule applies, though.

I like that, with a minimum of blocks, you can achieve powerful setups. Reactors - small numbers, no less - increase generation, while chamber increase capacity and allow you access to potent ship capabilities. I'm curious to see how one will control these - for instance, do I need a general computer in order to interface with my power system and activate a given effect? Indeed, can we retire "Capability Computers" and just link up individual 'generic' computers - or, even generic consoles - to specific chambers?

In the end, this will make some welcome changes to shipbuilding - you can have interiors without sacrificing performance, you can focus on making ships more powerful, without overly worrying about power generation, and because the power system requires fewer blocks, you can get to gameplay more quickly, which for me is most important. The reason you build a starship, is to do something with it, and this system seems like, in some small manner, it will accelerate that. Thus, I applaud this system all-around.

This is a positive change, and I welcome it, and I look forward to it. Yeah, rebuilding my ships might suck for about the first five minutes...but this is absolutely worth it in the end.

What Doesn't Work
I particularly like the idea of hovering vehicles, though frankly I think it's a waste of time at the moment. Planets are limited in size, by the game's performance. Servers will have a hard time generating them if too big, and clients will have a hard time rendering them if incorrectly tuned/hardware is too weak. Stations are a possible answer to 'places where I can use hover vehicles', but those too have limits and design considerations, and performance caveats associated with them. Hovering is sort of like having a gold-plated toilet - it's awesome, but impractical. In the amount of time it took to create hover capability, we could've had all manner of other game improvements instead.

I'm also concerned about the cost of the system. In the video, I think schema notes that the materials for chambers isn't cheap/trivial to get, and if so that could be a bigger problem than some might realize. Starting on a new server as a new character, if chambers and the power system is too hard to buy/craft, then you're making it difficult for a new player to get into the action.

In the game right now, you have really two options when it comes to establishing yourself - go mining for materials, to craft and/or trade, or attempt to seek out combat and loot your enemies. Because the chamber system touches literally everything, a new player will find that they're ineffective and starting from a position of extreme weakness no matter what they do, if they can't access the power system at the earliest opportunities.

What's more, what happens if you die/your ship gets shot down? You have to build another one, and that means seeking out materials or buying new chambers to have a competitive ship. Expensive chambers prevent you from doing that easily, and if things are bad enough, can lead to a situation where a player simply can't catch up to their peers. This situation leads to ragequits, angry forum posts, and hastily-written, poorly-considered Steam reviews.

While joining a faction is a good idea to mitigate the early disadvantage of being unable to access the Chamber system, factions may be unwilling to take on resource-needy newbies - and, indeed, we still have problems with servers having many super-small factions. While a server administrator (like me) can do things about this within reason, many server-runners respect this game enough to try to cleave to as 'vanilla' of an experience as they can. Until 'vanilla' changes in certain ways to discourage this sort of behavior, factions won't meaningfully solve any problems imposed by making a beneficial system super-expensive, and current counter-productive player behaviors will continue.

As much as all of those thoughts concern me, I have to re-iterate something I've noted in the past: these power changes don't provide an impetus to use your starship to do anything. Worse, if the expense thing is accurate, it makes it more reasonable to sit at your home base and do nothing, or to just do something else entirely. The risk-reward calculation is just plain bad in this work of fiction, and the game's developer is providing no good reason to risk that awesome ship I just built, to do anything - because there's nothing to actually do, in the first place, and the things I can do may lead to losing hard work for no good reason!

Until that situation changes, expect to continue to see StarMade bleed users. This power update is good, but it just doesn't change that. Worse, this game's weaknesses constantly, and consistently, render all the well-crafted parts moot - yes, that includes the updated power system, this is incredibly well-crafted and good, and I weep for it. I implore the developers to reconsider their focus, even factoring in the mod I'm working on now. Yes, server owners can fix certain things, but there's endemic problems in this work that need fixing, and hover vehicles aren't addressing that.

And, yes, 'there's a plan'...having a plan isn't keeping those Steam ratings up, though. Do better than having a plan, fix actual issues that are repelling people from your game.

 

[JumpSuit]

After watching both the stream and the highlight reel concerning the power update, I have a couple notes that I think would help address some of the concerns of the community:

• Concerns over gigantism and complexity:
  • The new system seems to favor larger ships for more power; there isn't any complexity as far as reactors go due to the linear nature of the system.
  • To address this I would suggest a combination of both old and the proposed systems. The old system allows for complexity due to different shapes having different amounts of power. The new system has great features concerning balancing and efficiency per block. I think that adding a sort of shape based efficiency [or other system that allows for more depth in the construction of ships] to the new system would allow for a much more immersive power system. This would fix the trend towards gigantism because you would be able to engineer, through your own research and ingenuity, a power system unique to your own ships, meaning that with the proper set up a smaller ship would be able to have more power than a relatively larger ship due to proper engineering.
  • Regardless of whether or not a shape/dimensional efficiency is implemented, a system to allow for greater customization is needed; non-linear power allows for more depth and increases the viability of smaller ships.
• Concerns involving chambers:
  • I absolutely love the idea of chambers and how they will impact the way that we play the game. I do think that there are a couple issues involving them that should be addressed.
  • I am not sure why chambers will continue to operate as normal after being physically disconnected until the ship is rebooted. I think that the real time consequences of having certain aspects of your build fail in battle will add an incredibly interesting element to the game. Not only would it add feasible realism, but it could also add depth in the form of crew repairs. If a crew member could repair the conduits between chambers, it would add yet another function to crew in addition to a legitimate reason to have functional interiors.
  • While not directly mentioned in the videos [at least to my knowledge] I am rather curious as to how crew will be integrated with "chambers." I think that adding a new block, some sort of interface or terminal that could connect with the chamber, would make the system as a whole much more cohesive.
• Concerns over things changing:
  • I think that this is a particularly inflammatory issue, but one that still needs to be addressed. While changing aspects of the game and rebuilding ships can be annoying, I think that it is MORE than worth the result. As someone who has bought this game, I am perfectly content with waiting for this project to be completed. All of these changes, while painful and bothersome right now, will be more than worth it in the future. I will admit, I too have been annoyed and greatly frustrated with waiting, but I can recognize the benefits of delayed gratification within the context of the game as a whole.

Feel free to comment with suggestions on how to improve the power system as a whole based upon the new information that we have received!

As a side note... I can't help but get excited about the little peeks at what is to come revealed at the end of the stream, hovercrafts and increased station mechanics are going to be an awesome addition to the game.

1. Just read up until you said mix old and new systems together, that is a no no.
2. Till schine can develop ship mechanics that detect when blocks aren't actually attached to said entity, chambers will operate like any other block, only thing is POWER CONDUITS...
3. People don't like change, some do. In this case most don't community wise but, what can ya do? Patience is a virtue.

 

[Daro_Khan]

This new system that's coming out is fine. How about we all just sit back relax and test it when it comes out instead of theory crafting fixes when you have no hands on experience with said new system.

There are many reasons this updated started with power and chambers. and its not just for ships. its rooted into the core of the game for larger things. Like the universe update and many more core foundations (I watched the wholes Stream live)

Large scale ships? benefiting Linearly? they always have old system or new dont matter!!
However all ships are getting OPTIONS to add to the character with this system
In the future we all be laughing at ourselves once we get the NPC UPDATE, CREW UPDATE, Universe update and gazillion improvements that will make AI control fleets and AI in Combat not suck.

When this happens, I Will laugh at large unsupported ships as my fine tweaked fleet of combine sizes and roles shreds them apart