Simpler and faster resource gathering

[Jolly Roger]

Hello,

I am proposing a simpler way to gather resources.


Currently the mining/blueprints/factory system is killing the game.

Mining, getting your factory set up and getting the blocks is way too complicated and takes forever. If you want anything nice, it's going to take you weeks just to get enough resources to bring in your build plus looking at a ridiculous chart on how to build different blocks. If the game needs to be operating in such a way that blueprints require parts, why make the parts ridiculously time consuming to get?

Building & Fighting = fun
Gathering resources = boring

I want to play a game to have fun. why would you set up the game so that it takes you forever to get to the point that you can even build something? Look at the multiplayer servers that used to be full of people, there are now less because of this. Do I want to build awesome ships with a variety of blocks? Not anymore because it takes too long. Maybe I should build out of asteroid rocks. Nobody wants to come home from work to play a game and feel like they are continuing to work for a few months so they can have a ship in a video game.

Really? If it takes this long to make it, how many people do you think are going to take the time to learn it?

I like to build ships and fight with them, not spend 3 months to get my resources before the server resets and I lose everything.

You can get new players who are attracted by the cool videos of what the game is capable of, but that alone is not going to retain them unless they are admins who can spawn infinite resources.

There is a reason there are less people playing than there were last year. I can say it is not because of the concept of being able to build whatever you want or the battle dynamics or the nice bells and whistles being added. Those things may need some tuning, but are awesome on the most part and keep it addicting.

Please make acquiring the blocks you need easier and quicker so that you can bring back most of your player base. I really enjoy building ships and blowing things up, and there's going to be very few people to do that with if this does not change.

 

[Crusade]

Personally, I quite like the factory system. You can see all recipes in-game, it's easy to gather stuff, and link factories/storage blocks together to make a completely automated system.

It does take some getting used to, as it's a rather different system to other games.

The only issue i have with it is how the game handles blueprints, however shipyards are planned, and should take care of this.

 

[Mork2]

Just incase are you mining in a claimed area? Cause the mining rate is multiplied there, its x6 for your faction and x3 if your mining in someone elses claimed area.

Also you can make stuff that your not using or have lots of and sell for credits for stuff you want to buy....I wouldn't use that large chart unless your setting up a an entire system. Get a station up put all 3 different factory blocks up and you can pull up an item to build and see what is required. Rather than searching that massive list for it.

A huge pile of the stuff in that manufacturing list is stuff you only need a couple of or small amounts. I keep basic manufacturing list at the bottom of a text file I keep open while playing. Has design notes, list of stuff I want to do or should be doing and right at the bottom is the basic production list of the stuff I need the most. Like for instance this section of the list contains most of the critical stuff. It is out of date though I think you only need half the stuff for shields now.

each means amount of mesh and circuits

basic factory set to power reactors (20x mesh)
basic factory set to battery (20x circuit)
basic factory set to thrusters (10x mesh 5x circuit)
basic factory set to salvagers (5x each)
basic factory set to grey hull (1x each)

standard factory set to cannon (50x hital 100x circuit)
standard factory set to missile (50x threns 100x circuit)

advanced factory set to explosive (25xjisper 50xsintyr)
advanced factory set to ion (25xhital 50xvarat)
advanced factory set to shield regen (50x parsen 50x parstun)
advanced factory set to shield cap (50x rammet 50x sertise)

Between all of these things its much easier.

 

[Winterhome]

The factory chart you're using is completely outdated.
The only items that require other items to build are multi-tier objects, such as Advanced Armor.

 

[timethatswasted]

One could easily argue that the simple crafting and the ease of making things is also killing the game...

If your having a hard time gathering resources that is probably a "you" problem and not a "starrmade" problem. Not trying to be mean here, but crafting is about as simple and fast as it gets. Most items are just two unit inputs and most servers use high mining multipliers.

There is NO dynamic to the economy, manufacturing or resource gathering at all. With those being so simple there is absolutely no reason to interact with other players in any way reguarding those things. So people get board and stop playing.

If you want to play Call of Duty with voxal space ships that's great, there are a lot of server on which you can do so.

 

[wagfeliz]

I think he just dont know the game and the resources to improve industry. Mining is fun if you have an adequate ship, look for my video on youtube about advanced mining. Producing is fast if you use enough factory enhancers, also do it in stations not in planets. Allways mine in systems you have max bonus, learn how to hunt all asteroids, learn how to use your material wisely.
Personally I think there is so much gaps on this game, but mining is not one of they, there is a few bugs like asteroids re-spaws and bether use for planets ( currently useless ) that needs to be care off, but in general, yes, you can do titans/stations etc with your mining ore if you know what you are doing.
Also, what is killing the game is that pvp is pointless because there is no balance and limits/rules for ships, so after you built your big station and your big ship, there is no point to continue playing.

 

[Jolly Roger]

I know you guys think it's okay. Otherwise you wouldn't still be playing or be on this forum. I haven't played on a server for a year. Ask around for why other people stopped playing. They still hang around on teamspeak and mumble servers which were originally set up for starmade. Just go to the starmade server list and find some ts3 and mumble servers. Go and talk to them. Those people are usually on there playing other games. I don't see the Minecraft community drying up like this losing 90% of thier players.

Maybe a variation of what is existing is fine, it just takes too long. I am pretty sure that I dont' suck as a builder and my builds are pretty detailed so I think I know what i'm talking about.

 

[CyberTao]

Maybe a variation of what is existing is fine, it just takes too long. I am pretty sure that I dont' suck as a builder and my builds are pretty detailed so I think I know what i'm talking about.

Building skill is not relevant to Dekko. I've seen some nice ships that are shit at systems and would probably trip over themselves to try and perform basic tasks.

The first crafting system we had was too complex. The 2nd was exploitable and too easy. If you have a suggestion to change the current crafting, perhaps you could give a suggestion? Just saying "It's bad" doesn't help, because this was weight against all other known options and was chosen as the best of them. Hilariously, people are still saying resource gathering is too simple (Is everything is everywhere, than economy = dead).

If you think the current system is passable, but the requirements/recipes are bad, then try your hand at creating your own batch of recipes. There are files somewhere (I forget where atm) that would allow you to change almost any recipe, so that option exist. If enough people agree that your setup is superior, then mayhaps the Council can bring it up with Schine.

Just remember that crafting and collecting is suppose to slow you down. No one wants everyone to get titans in the first week, so you have to keep in mind how collection speed relates to that.

 

[HolyCookie]

Hello,

I am proposing a simpler way to gather resources.


Currently the mining/blueprints/factory system is killing the game.

Mining, getting your factory set up and getting the blocks is way too complicated and takes forever. If you want anything nice, it's going to take you weeks just to get enough resources to bring in your build plus looking at a ridiculous chart on how to build different blocks. If the game needs to be operating in such a way that blueprints require parts, why make the parts ridiculously time consuming to get?

Building & Fighting = fun
Gathering resources = boring

I want to play a game to have fun. why would you set up the game so that it takes you forever to get to the point that you can even build something? Look at the multiplayer servers that used to be full of people, there are now less because of this. Do I want to build awesome ships with a variety of blocks? Not anymore because it takes too long. Maybe I should build out of asteroid rocks. Nobody wants to come home from work to play a game and feel like they are continuing to work for a few months so they can have a ship in a video game.

Really? If it takes this long to make it, how many people do you think are going to take the time to learn it?

I like to build ships and fight with them, not spend 3 months to get my resources before the server resets and I lose everything.

You can get new players who are attracted by the cool videos of what the game is capable of, but that alone is not going to retain them unless they are admins who can spawn infinite resources.

There is a reason there are less people playing than there were last year. I can say it is not because of the concept of being able to build whatever you want or the battle dynamics or the nice bells and whistles being added. Those things may need some tuning, but are awesome on the most part and keep it addicting.

Please make acquiring the blocks you need easier and quicker so that you can bring back most of your player base. I really enjoy building ships and blowing things up, and there's going to be very few people to do that with if this does not change.

Personally, I quite like the factory system. You can see all recipes in-game, it's easy to gather stuff, and link factories/storage blocks together to make a completely automated system.

It does take some getting used to, as it's a rather different system to other games.

The only issue i have with it is how the game handles blueprints, however shipyards are planned, and should take care of this.

I actualy think this system is ruining starmade yea
but then totaly in a different way.
because of this system, starmade became much more a building game. without much of a challenge.
it m8 sound weird but i think this way of mining is way to OP
i mean like you start, build salvage ship, simply aim at the ore and sell the ore, buy more salvage modules and mine more and so on untill you can mine a planet within 5 minutes (without lag). this process is way to easy, mining isn't a challenge at all. then you have the factory system, thats perfectly fine to me especialy that you can link them.

take a look at this video of space engineers: (skip to 1:30)

now that, is a true challenge mining, then picking it up, then transporting it.
ours is aim click click click sell.
i'd like to see a more inovative mining way making mining fun instead of holding a button and watching.
because man, space engineers already has like 4 basic ways how people mine with tricks.
also all sorts of machines are invented because of the harder way of mining.

also the shops make it a bit too easy. you can exualy get everything in starmade by playing about 5 hours.

 

[Jolly Roger]

"Building skill is not relevant to Dekko. I've seen some nice ships that are shit at systems and would probably trip over themselves to try and perform basic tasks."

Building skill is definitely relevant, If you only build crappy ships with 30 block types that look like crap, you don't need to gather all of the different type of resources to get the blocks you need. I said "detailed" I didn't say anything about looks or systems. You would think that would be included in "detailed." You need blocks for building systems also. The whole point is, you need more block types if you know what you are doing.

Here is a suggestion: have only 3 types of resources and build block types based on how many of each you need. Not, oh look, i'm going to have to go cruising around for 3 hours to find some of 1 block, and then go look for another one.

"Just remember that crafting and collecting is suppose to slow you down. No one wants everyone to get titans in the first week, so you have to keep in mind how collection speed relates to that."

I don't care if someone else gets titans the first week. It shouldn't take a 40 hour week full time job and a month to build something big. As if anyone wants small ships to begin with. I didn't think the sole purpose of the resource collection and factories was supposed to "slow you down." It takes long enough to build a ship. You were saying some people build shit systems, if that is not enough to differentiate people, then is it going to come down to the amount of time spent in the game doing tedious boring labor to differentiate us?



"I actualy think this system is ruining starmade yea
but then totaly in a different way.
because of this system, starmade became much more a building game. without much of a challenge.
it m8 sound weird but i think this way of mining is way to OP"

Of course starmade is about building. If they took that out, nobody would play. Do you think this game would be more fun if they just focused on only mining and gathering resources for points? That's about as fun as organizing my sock drawer over and over to see how many combinations I could make.


Anyway, my whole point is, lots of people have stopped playing the game, and this is why. I am not saying we should revert completely back to how it was, but a lot more were playing when you could just buy your ship from a shop instead of only the blueprints.

 

[CyberTao]

Anyway, my whole point is, lots of people have stopped playing the game, and this is why. I am not saying we should revert completely back to how it was, but a lot more were playing when you could just buy your ship from a shop instead of only the blueprints.

Sounds like you're gonna hate the shipyard update even more, when ships are built overtime in a station's structure.
[DOUBLEPOST=1432920945,1432920704][/DOUBLEPOST]

now that, is a true challenge mining, then picking it up, then transporting it.
ours is aim click click click sell.
i'd like to see a more inovative mining way making mining fun instead of holding a button and watching.
because man, space engineers already has like 4 basic ways how people mine with tricks.
also all sorts of machines are invented because of the harder way of mining.

also the shops make it a bit too easy. you can exualy get everything in starmade by playing about 5 hours.

I missed this, but SE has a shitty building system that is far more grindy than SM's. The only advantage it has is that it requires very little effort to throw together components, it just takes a shit ton of time.

I'm not even joking, I spent 3 hours in SE once and ALL I did was pick up and carry shit. That is far to slow and is basically padding; making the game longer than it really is.

 

[Jolly Roger]

"Sounds like you're gonna hate the shipyard update even more, when ships are built overtime in a station's structure."

No, I think that would be okay as long as the parts you put into the shipyard doesn't take 3 months to get.

Personally, I'm all about building, but you add more complexity to it without fixing the resource issue, and sounds like there will be even less people who want to play the game.

 

[wagfeliz]

Ok, this thread is starting to be confusing...
What do you mean with "I actualy think this system is ruining starmade yea but then totaly in a different way." ?
What is your real suggestion ? What is the problem with building ? Do you think today is too easy to gather resources ? Or too hard ?
About this game is about building, not really, I consider myself good on this game, and I am not a builder, normally I use blueprints to produce my ships, you can download it.
I dont get it.

 

[FullMetalFox]

First thing, there is a quote function, so you dont have to copy stuff into quatation marks.

I don't care if someone else gets titans the first week. It shouldn't take a 40 hour week full time job and a month to build something big.

Well i dont know how you mine, but right now, mining is ridiculous.

Why? Because of planets, build some tiny salvager, claim a system, salvage some stuff on a planet to craft cannon barrels and stop modules, sell the rest, buy some logic and push modules, build your first automatic salvager. Then either enlarge it after each mining trip, or just create a new larger one.

Never seen an automatic salvager?
Here, two good, small and dirt cheap to build examples.
DSY Inc. Type-S Maverick by Drakkart
And
SCF "Mercer-B" Automated Mining Platform by Thalanor

Thalanors Automatic Salvager in action:

Essentially maybe 3-5 hours work and maybe 10-15 hours being semi-AFK, and you can already build a salvager than can mine whole large planets in les than half a hour, and after that point, resources become a none issue.

 

[HolyCookie]

"Building skill is not relevant to Dekko. I've seen some nice ships that are shit at systems and would probably trip over themselves to try and perform basic tasks."

Building skill is definitely relevant, If you only build crappy ships with 30 block types that look like crap, you don't need to gather all of the different type of resources to get the blocks you need. I said "detailed" I didn't say anything about looks or systems. You would think that would be included in "detailed." You need blocks for building systems also. The whole point is, you need more block types if you know what you are doing.

Here is a suggestion: have only 3 types of resources and build block types based on how many of each you need. Not, oh look, i'm going to have to go cruising around for 3 hours to find some of 1 block, and then go look for another one.

"Just remember that crafting and collecting is suppose to slow you down. No one wants everyone to get titans in the first week, so you have to keep in mind how collection speed relates to that."

I don't care if someone else gets titans the first week. It shouldn't take a 40 hour week full time job and a month to build something big. As if anyone wants small ships to begin with. I didn't think the sole purpose of the resource collection and factories was supposed to "slow you down." It takes long enough to build a ship. You were saying some people build shit systems, if that is not enough to differentiate people, then is it going to come down to the amount of time spent in the game doing tedious boring labor to differentiate us?



"I actualy think this system is ruining starmade yea
but then totaly in a different way.
because of this system, starmade became much more a building game. without much of a challenge.
it m8 sound weird but i think this way of mining is way to OP"

Of course starmade is about building. If they took that out, nobody would play. Do you think this game would be more fun if they just focused on only mining and gathering resources for points? That's about as fun as organizing my sock drawer over and over to see how many combinations I could make.


Anyway, my whole point is, lots of people have stopped playing the game, and this is why. I am not saying we should revert completely back to how it was, but a lot more were playing when you could just buy your ship from a shop instead of only the blueprints.

i never said how much they should nerf it, i mean common i don't want it to be like SE thats to crazy
but it is a challenge.
in a different way atm yes mining is as fun as organising your sock drawer. i want it to atleast be changed.
something like more exiting that you exualy need to look what you are doing.

 

[Effane]

All kinds of wrong going on in this thread. Almost walked away from putting anymore into it. This thread is 95% complaint and 5% suggestion so far.

Mining even with the base multiplier is pretty simple. So many forms and methods to mining anything. Beyond the 'Quest for more Blue Asteroids' its really simple. Then you have automated factories to reduce the complication of block making to a single click. Then it can be automatically sorted and filed away even. Automated factories are a bit tough, but I am sure the dock has a few that work well enough. And that chart is ridiculously out of date.

So the biggest two things from this thread is that PVP is not balanced and mining is boring. The outdated chart did not substantiate anything so that part of the topic needs proof/clarification.

Short of making asteroids more dangerous to mine (Space worm or something in the asteroid?) you are stuck with pirates being the major risk. Sadly the full PVE Faction system is still in the land of the devs, but that would be the solution. There are a few dozen suggestions on that topic alone. If the pirates would hunt you down and attack you while mining that should make it more exciting.

PVP balance is another thing. I don't think the Devs are looking at balance for a while. But that is something we as a community can do on a basic level at least. They gave us quite a bit of control there and some people have looked into it. Unknown how much people will bite into that apple, modded servers usually have a bad reputation when it comes to balance changes. Too many Uber cannons of the chicken god or something.

To make an solve a real engineering problem you guys need to follow some basic guidelines. One of the reasons these suggestions are such a mess is a total lack of logical format.
You can't just come into the design office and yell "We need to make all planets blue, because the purple and red ones are OP!"

It should be more so:
Problem: "Purple and Red planets offer too many OP solutions and cause issues with balance in the game."
Background: "The color red and purple alone is OP, but in addition purple and red attract all the shops, money, eligible single people and spicy cheetos. This is mostly causing a spicy cheeto imbalance."
Solutions: "We can either rebalance the planets, or just make more blue planets. Making more blue is easier so lets do that."

Generally you try to offer many solutions and eliminate ones off the list. Usually most ridiculous ones first till you end up with a superior solution.

 

[Forgedrake]

my miner can kill a planet in like 12mins. . . but I much prefer my high speed asteroid farmer - thing his 600ms and can eat a asteroid in 2-3 secs

I think however mining isn't hard - compared to games like wurm online - the repopulation - space engineers - eve - WOW - everquest - and even minecraft these games have just as many items to build - but you don't even have to write all this down as the game tells you what you need - simply mine it and grab and go

 

[aceface]

my miner can kill a planet in like 12mins. . . but I much prefer my high speed asteroid farmer - thing his 600ms and can eat a asteroid in 2-3 secs

I think however mining isn't hard - compared to games like wurm online - the repopulation - space engineers - eve - WOW - everquest - and even minecraft these games have just as many items to build - but you don't even have to write all this down as the game tells you what you need - simply mine it and grab and go

is that miner up for download?

 

[HolyCookie]

my miner can kill a planet in like 12mins. . . but I much prefer my high speed asteroid farmer - thing his 600ms and can eat a asteroid in 2-3 secs

I think however mining isn't hard - compared to games like wurm online - the repopulation - space engineers - eve - WOW - everquest - and even minecraft these games have just as many items to build - but you don't even have to write all this down as the game tells you what you need - simply mine it and grab and go

lol to be exact, minecraft is the hardest crafting system i know, all the recepies, the worst developers drinking more cups of chocolate milk than writing program lines. this mining is the easyest and also most boring one, but i can't come up with a way you can exualy make it fun to mine, it Always seems as a punichment if your faction asks you to mine :p

is that miner up for download?

not sure if the admins will like that... :D

 

[hunterRAE]

All kinds of wrong going on in this thread. Almost walked away from putting anymore into it. This thread is 95% complaint and 5% suggestion so far.

I must agree, you guys have made this thread a rage fest over something and not even give a solution for what I say is not broken. From what I see, the opinion is that the factory system is to complex and the mining system is way to easy, to the extent of being boring, so I will talk in detail about both, warning though, I am going to bash some other games in the process and may upset you slightly, just take my words as a personal opinion, but listen to what I say.

Factory System: factory system is to allow those who prefer to get specific materials for the cost of base materials (sintyr to orange advance). This is by far the easiest system I have yet seen in a voxel-based game. I completely understand that it is not the most exciting thing in the world to setup a red advanced armor factory, I should know because I had to produce 5 million for a ship, but it is better than having to shop-hop for hours to barely get a million. I personally believe this is less cumbersome than minecraft or space engineers, which do not give a tutorial on crafting or give the recipes or even make it chain-able between other systems like storage without mods, plus you do not have to remember recipes or even stay with it constantly (when I did the 5 mil manufacturing, I went pirate farming for fun and came back in an hour). Finally, if you do not like this, just go pirate farming, it makes for easy, quick profit.

Mining System: So, it comes to the biggest topic found here. Mining is meant for those who can not pirate farm or base raid and to allow for the factory system to start at the base material level, allowing for everything to be made in moderation. I see here that most believe that the resources available is too much, which for many, it is somewhat true. Though, take in consideration, what happens after you have made your latest design or finished a remodel? Well, you find another thing to build or to improve, usually bigger and better than the last. This is where the shocker comes into place, what do you need to make that design? Raw materials, which can be processed and incorporated into the latest build. I have gone system farming to build my first mothership (which I'm still building), and I have run out of material on the exterior 4 or 5 times, and that's just the exterior. The resources are so abundant, because people tend to build bigger and more detailed, which requires a higher mining threshold, which I truly believe the devs took this into perspective when making the default settings. People are going to find a way to shorten this process, because at a point it starts being difficult, which is why this game is fun. If we had a harder time finding this like what is in minecraft or space engineers, which is overly annoying and makes people like me to get bored farming for hours when I could be building or using my creations for their intended purpose. I truly think that what we have is great and really for the scale, which many have forgotten quickly, it is perfect. Bare in mind, this is space, people build big. It would be boring also if people would have to search for hours looking for resources like in minecraft and the systems would not be scaling up for the amount of work put into it, because that would make people not want to fight out of fear of losing precious resources and start again from nothing. So, quit whining that there is so many resources or that it is boring, it is equally boring for minecraft and space engineers, which in my opinion, space engineers and minecraft are nothing in comparison to this, because of scale. To stay competitive in starmade, people have to adapt and put in effort to go more grand, which is why it is fun.

In the end, if you are going to make a thread on the forum, please think it through a bit with current, up to date data and make a suggestion, because this forum is about suggestions as the name implies. I hope you guys after reading my post understand that starmade is meant to be easy to get resources and craft, because otherwise it will be pure frustration to make anything to do anything, given the game is based off of making ships to battle, explore and mine. Hope you guys have fun and keep being inspired.