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- Jun 29, 2013
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Simple enough idea that I'd like to see as a part of the future Shipyard update. Starmade is absolutely enormous, yeah? We have so much space we don't know what to do with it. Let's overhaul faction combat by making Starmade a little bit more RTS-esque.
Shipyards built by players can be set to automatically construct "waves" and such of AI ships that then patrol an area designated by the shipyard - either "Patrol System" or "Patrol Sector", with "Radius" determining how far from their system/sector they can stray. Waves of AI cost both a set amount of faction points (perhaps a portion of the ship's mass), and the resources used to build the ships. AI waves can be customized, as in choosing a number of each given blueprint you want to spawn. Keep it simple, perhaps, just put the number of each blueprint you want spawned at the shipyard into a storage box GUI or something.
Waves/Fleets get organized into the Fleet Control menu for factions (perhaps make it possible to rank lock fleet control), with organization being a few simple steps - ShipyardName(FleetNumber(ShipName)), and some simple commands - "Go to sector", "Attack Sector", etc.
[ShipyardName] gets some small indicators in addition to the dropdown menu - Power, Shields, and HP bars, with a small flashing icon if the shipyard itself is under attack.
[FleetNumber] gets an HP bar based on the combined HP of all blueprints used in the fleet in question, with the said "Under Attack" icon.
[ShipName] gets the three indicators for Power, Shields, and HP, and the Under Attack icon, too.
Of course, we'll need to have server options for Maximum Faction AI Ships and such, to prevent excessive database bloat.
On the technical side, for dealing with lag and database bloat, Out Of Sector ships should simply run entirely on hard stats. No shots "fired", nothing of that sort - simple average DPS vs. Shield Capacity vs. Regen vs. HP run every X seconds. With this setup, you don't even need to use the actual ships - this could probably just as efficiently be done with cheap stat cards based on the blueprint's stats or something. Move the fleet X number of sectors every X seconds based on thrust force, sector size, and jumpdrive rate of the slowest ship in the fleet in question.
The problem with that is figuring out how to simulate block damage when damaged ships are finally loaded in by a player.
Shipyards built by players can be set to automatically construct "waves" and such of AI ships that then patrol an area designated by the shipyard - either "Patrol System" or "Patrol Sector", with "Radius" determining how far from their system/sector they can stray. Waves of AI cost both a set amount of faction points (perhaps a portion of the ship's mass), and the resources used to build the ships. AI waves can be customized, as in choosing a number of each given blueprint you want to spawn. Keep it simple, perhaps, just put the number of each blueprint you want spawned at the shipyard into a storage box GUI or something.
Waves/Fleets get organized into the Fleet Control menu for factions (perhaps make it possible to rank lock fleet control), with organization being a few simple steps - ShipyardName(FleetNumber(ShipName)), and some simple commands - "Go to sector", "Attack Sector", etc.
[ShipyardName] gets some small indicators in addition to the dropdown menu - Power, Shields, and HP bars, with a small flashing icon if the shipyard itself is under attack.
[FleetNumber] gets an HP bar based on the combined HP of all blueprints used in the fleet in question, with the said "Under Attack" icon.
[ShipName] gets the three indicators for Power, Shields, and HP, and the Under Attack icon, too.
Of course, we'll need to have server options for Maximum Faction AI Ships and such, to prevent excessive database bloat.
On the technical side, for dealing with lag and database bloat, Out Of Sector ships should simply run entirely on hard stats. No shots "fired", nothing of that sort - simple average DPS vs. Shield Capacity vs. Regen vs. HP run every X seconds. With this setup, you don't even need to use the actual ships - this could probably just as efficiently be done with cheap stat cards based on the blueprint's stats or something. Move the fleet X number of sectors every X seconds based on thrust force, sector size, and jumpdrive rate of the slowest ship in the fleet in question.
The problem with that is figuring out how to simulate block damage when damaged ships are finally loaded in by a player.
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