Ship movement/ship design and how the movement of large ships has effectively ruined Starmade

[Nikinor]

After playing Starmade for months on months now, I've encountered an increasingly more and more pressing problem that could be fixed easily on comparison to the other things that Schema has done with this game alone. I'll try and keep it as short as possible but go over every detail as to why this must be fixed.

Let's face it; in almost every feasible sci-fi universe imaginable, huge capital ships of lengths of over 400 meters can most certainly not do the following:

1. Almost instant strafing with no delay up, down, or side to side with no thrusters even supporting the thrust in said direction



2. Insanely fast acceleration in every direction, this is not only just on servers with high speed limits but on servers with low-set speed limits, this problem is game breaking as it makes smaller ships utterly useless



3. Aren't just big cylinders of AMCs, shields and salvaging lasers that are heaped together and can pretty much destroy everything that moves in the game in seconds with the same manueverability, speed and acceleration as a ship built FOR speed.



These are just a few reasons, but as of now if just these three things were fixed the game would be hundreds of times better. As far as I know, decreasing ship acceleration in directions dependant on size, again, on comparison to the things Schema has done with this game, is as easy as changing several lines of code and it's left at that. Save, export, save, post news, import to launcher or distribution servers, and distribute the files as an update for Starmade. However different that is, I don't know, but there is no way it is so complicated that it can't be worth the time spent. This, honestly, to me and as far as I can tell the rest of the continually dwindling Starmade community, is a problem that if fixed could probably attract a variety of new people to this game. More people, more donations. That'd be wonderful, right? More money to put food on the developer's table and more money to work on improvement of the game.

Onto the next topic is with ship design. Currently, there's NO REASON to build smaller ships. Fighter craft, light frigates, light anything is just flat out a bad idea. Most people that aren't me appreciate flying smaller ships that are easier to build and mass-produce, not slap together a kilometer-long cylinder and "Congratulations, you've won StarMade!". MANY people's ships in this game are beautiful creations, but really, when that small minority uses the superior design to everything, there is no point to even trying.

There's also the fact that ship on ship combat is not like Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, or ANY space-related franchise at that with cool looking space battles. Instead, it's "point at eachother holding down mouse1 while vigorously matching the opponent in the 30-minute game of patty cake with antimatter cannons'". Forward movement during combat is almost none at all unless your shields go down and you're running. To almost everyone, that needs to change.



TL;DR: Ship-to-ship combat is retarded, there is no reason for fighters, every ship, even capital ships move like fighters and ever since starmade was released, every minor problem EXCEPT for this one has been addressed, complained about and fixed by Schema. That's great and all, but these are game-breaking mechanics that need fixing in some way.

This post is mainly aimed at Schema, so hopefully he'll read this and the threads I'm about to list below.

These other people also make great points on this topic, and one addresses FTL and how it could work.

http://star-made.org/content/my-take-ftl - Matt_Bradock

http://star-made.org/content/fighter-capital-ship-distinction - MuilConnaire

http://star-made.org/content/my-top-speed-idea - HerrColonel

Also, build blocks:

http://star-made.org/content/abolish-build-blocks - BeefBacon

 

[NuclearLemons]

a huge percentage of starmade members enjoy good looking ships and RP, if people are making a fleet they will have a carrier because thats what people feel a fleet would have, carriers have small ships. you argue they they have no use, so why do people make them? i understand your point but the argument is not a new one.



also the Q&A noted that warp gates where an option which would mean small ships would be able to use the gates if they are smaller than the capital.

 

[Moraligus]

BUT remember its likely not to stay this way, this is actually one of the things that is more likeley to get changed once a system has been figured out. the problem here is that there is no clear line, no dichotomy for what is big and what is small and whatever system that is implimented will have to compensate for the infinte number of shapes ans sizes that starmade offers and its not always easy to work around infinite possibilities.

 

[Nikinor]

The point of this thread was that this problem must be addressed either now or soon.

It\'s really not that hard to change such a simple mechanic; size/mass/block ratio to length/width would 1. slow down strafing or completely nullify it at a certain size/mass/block ratio or 2. just get rid of it to begin with.

After all this time, yes, many people have brought up the topic, but Schema has answered to every request but this one, and this is quite possibly the most game-breaking thing I can think of.

To add on to that, calculating strafing movements on top of yawwing, pitching and rolling of ships that are 300+ meters long has intense effects on servers. It\'s much more work than it\'s worth.

 

[CyberTao]

But isnt this solved by the new Thrusters being added?

You\'d have to divide Thruster between forwards/back/sides/etc, or invest it in turning speeds

It is sorta an issue, but there is a solution being thought of and considered o -o

Also, I would assume there will never be a line drawn to define a ship, as it would lead to forced classifications of said ships.

 

[oninoni]

We are getting new Thrusters? What have i missed? :D

 

[Dark-life]

If you think holding down the mouse for 30 minutes and not moveing is combat then you have never ,NEVER been in REAL combat. In REAL combat there is weaving forward and backwards and in all direction to try and dodge shoots but stay close enough to finish them.

Sorry just had to say that.

 

[Legolas170]

The new thrusters will require a percentage of thrust to be split up. This means that your ship may move faster foreward, but is total crap moving left. The info is in the dev build.

 

[Ithirahad]

...But that\'s called fighter combat, and so his point still stands.

 

[CyberTao]

Hence why I brought it up.

The problem mentioned IS Ships moving as fast sideways as they do forwards, Er-go; splitting up the thrust into seperate directions is a possible solution, hence I posted and mentioned it

 

[DivineEvil]

In recently brought AMA series of videos, people that are most closely abound with the game developer, Shema, has already specified, that engines will soon embrace the power dividing method similar to what AMC\'s has. You will be able to determine the ratio between thrust/turning and withing those differentiate between different axis directions. By default, without managing those ratios, bigger ship would never be able to do anything remotely similar to what they can do now, and even if you will, you\'d still have to choose between being able to withdraw and being able to use your capital cannons.

 

[Qweesdy]

Hi,

Note that once the thrusters have been fixed, it\'s just going to cause a new problem - massive ships with massive thrusters being able to move better than small ships with worse \"mass vs. thrust\" ratio. This is how it *should* be (realistic physics).

Then there\'s the other problem that has nothing to do with ship maneuverability: everyone using massive ships for everything (e.g. things like exploring, visting friends, going to the shop to buy milk, etc).

I still say the only way to fix the problems properly is to introduce fuel - massive ship, massive thrusters, massive fuel/running costs.

As soon as there\'s fuel and fuel costs; you\'ll have people designing large ships with less thrust and less maneuverability (and get your \"big things are slow\" as a side effect); and you\'ll have large factions placing their capital ships in strategic locations and using smaller ships (run-abouts, transport ships, scouts and fighters) not because of a nonsensical/illogical nerf to fix broken game balance, but because they actually are better for their intended purpose.

 

[NeonSturm]

If you build a 1km long aircraft carrier (in our real world) it will break apart. We don\'t have materials to support these sizes - currently.



In StarTrek Voyager they once used a shuttle, because the small shuttle is more durable in very high gravity turbulences.

It is not impossible to reasonable forbid some size. We just need something everybody likes

 

[HerrColonel]

Wait and see if the next thrusters make us happy

 

[Crashmaster]

It would be interesting if suns had a gravitational effect such that piloting large ships close to their sector would have an undesirable but manageable effect. Smaller ships could transit closer with less effect giving a very small advantage.

 

[Nikinor]

I can\'t help but notice of the replies on this thread are not even related to the topic.



For mentally challenged people, I represent to you a picture of the problem:

 

[CyberTao]

This is mentioned

Thrust will have to be divided, so you cant go the same speed forward as you can strafe, unless you set it to be so. AS well, More thursters = bigger groups = More energy costs, so after a while it becomes counterproductive to keep adding thrusters, cause you\'d need storage to power them.

There is NO defined Big. The is NO small. There is only \"Ship\"

If you looking for a different thruster calculation for large ships, expect it to also affect small ships. And directional division of Thrust will help with your \"issue\" with the game.

If you cant see what I mean... then you may not understand the nature of a Sandbox game.

 

[Comr4de]

they specifically address this issue.

 

[LordChicken]

Hello, I\'m fairly new here and would love for someone to post were they are getting all this juicy thrust information(just checked news but didn\'t find it, a link would be wonderful). Found it thanks.



But the divorce of thrust is a good idea, I always thought of the starter thrusters as more of basic fighter thrusters, and didn\'t think they really belonged on larger craft. An idea I had was to make them loose effectiveness with larger mass objects, making them have to work harder even with more of them on larger mass ships until there was a need for new, mass thrusters designed for moving your battleship around.

Before Starmade can implement fuel or other such wealth dumps it needs to have a working economy, as it stands wealth is meaningless and therefore any fuel cost is so as well.

 

[Bkwrm]

Personally, a 3rd person camera with a targetting reticle would let large ships feel like large ships imo. Choose a starboard missle grouping, than that targetting reticle changes depending on that groupings range, and than use your controls to try to set up broadsides. This would help the fighter feeling aspect at least, as well as enable people to have more cinematic fights. Also no fumbling with 10 cockpit cameras trying to get the best view or find the right one. Any weapons computer with a real person in it gets a damage buff.

Most of the smaller ships vs big ship problems can be handled with easy balance changes though. Or even restricting certain weapons to lower/higher mass ships.