Some Ideas for the Future! -Tiers, Custom NPC Factions

[SexyWalrus]

Some Possible Ideas for the Future!




Hey there fellow Starmadians!

My name is SexyWalrus, and I have been playing StarMade non-stop the past few days and recently purchased it to upgrade my account.

I have been thinking about some features which some of you might be interested in hearing. I'm going to go straight in with the list of things.

1) Tiers

Now, I always find myself creating powerfull guns to take out the enemy ships, and im sure everyone else does. The thing is that I find myself making these huge 200 piece weapons that fit onto my ship. But, logicly, more/powerfull weapons = more power consumation = more Energy Blocks = More hull pieces to protect them which means a heavier and larger ship.

As far as game physics go, there is an extremely slow turn/maneuver time and is very hard to hit enemies if they are flying around your ship.

My idea, is that the weapons/salvager/repair/power drain/power transfer blocks go up in tiers.

So for example, the tier =1= Anti-Matter cannon would be the one that is in the game now. Very powerful in huge numbers. Then 1 block of a tier =2= Anti-Matter cannon could have the power of lets say hypothetically 5 tier =1= blocks, but would cost a considerable amount more.

The same princable goes with the other blocks and tiers, each getting higher in power and value. This way, players can upgrade ships more efficiantly if they have the credits for it (E.g. Wanting to have a small attack frigate with enough meneuverability and power).

Also, I came up with an idea that lets the player know whether or not to attack a ship if they are unsure if they are going to get destroyed or not. The ship on your screen (Mob or just stationary ship) would have a tier next to their name. For instance, there could be a pirate near your position and you are in a fighting mood, the name would be "Mob_Insanth_Pirate [Tier 1]" Or something like that, just so it tells you what tier thier ship is.

I have also thought of how the ship could be classed in the tiers. Say if you had a ship with Tier 3 Anti-Matter cannons, but only Tier 1 Rockets, then the tier would be =3= as it is the highest tier weapon on the ship.

So yeah thats one idea I had because flying through space is pretty inspiring.

2) Shops

Ok this one is simply more quantities of hull in shops. I've seen the average quantity is about N/A-80 and I find myself flying to countless shops just to layer my ship in hull. Also if the shops could be re-stocked that would be great

3) Custom NPC Factions

I understand that there are much more NPC factions that are to be added to the game, but I thought of a great Idea about user created NPC factions.

How it would work is that you would "Create Custom NPC Faction", give it a name, description and if the faction would be friendly, enemy or neutral. Then, you would select the ships that this faction would use from the local catalogue.

I think this Idea would be suited more for single player rather then multiplayer as space can get quite lonely.

4) Star Systems

Ok this one is simple but could be hard to code (I have no idea really but im just assuming). Planets in a star system would be bigger and act more like planets instead of just flat pieces of land ( Doesn't really bother me but it would be nice), but there would be much less of them, and also the stars that are in the star systems be very large and give of the effects of stars and not just lense flares ( I got very confused when starting the game).

5) High Value Items

I got to admit, the price of cactus really did make me smile, and its great for when you first start on a universe, but it is a bit un-balanced. I would expect ores would be sold at 1000-10000 each but not cactus

6) Salvage Lasers

It would be very nice if the salvage lasers actually had sound on them. That is all for this one xD



Well, if you have read down this far I thank you with a shake of my hand.

Obviously these are just Ideas and don't have to be implimented in any way, I am just really into this game and wish to be part of it's growing community.

Also, a little message for Schema and the rest of the Dev team;

Amazing work on this game, its the game that I have been waiting for, for a long time now, and I will be playing it alot. I would also like to say that you guys deserve more money for this. I will be donating when I can because I want to see this game grow and become even more succesfull than Minecraft.

I hope that what I have said has made you think about the game and what pontential it has.

Thank you very much for reading this

 

[kadzooks]

+1

 

[Bannta]

1) Tiers -Maybe not tier but perhaps adding an advance tech artifact. If anyone has played jumpgate there was artifact to enhance your equipment. Artifact can be found in deep space floating a drift (perhaps in wreckage and very rare) in which you can add inline with your system for a sizable boost. Each artifact would have an random percentage level boost the level of effect.

3) Custom NPC Factions

\"I understand that there are much more NPC factions that are to be added to the game, but I thought of a great Idea about user created NPC factions.

How it would work is that you would \"Create Custom NPC Faction\", give it a name, description and if the faction would be friendly, enemy or neutral. Then, you would select the ships that this faction would use from the local catalogue.

I think this Idea would be suited more for single player rather then multiplayer as space can get quite lonely.\"

Great idea, also to note there has been countless request for this.

I would also like to see a Role system and progressive Agro range. The Agro range and be set to attack anyone on sight or progressive where as your faction keeps on attacking the custom faction it will get progressively more hostile to you until it will randomly spawn attack on you much like pirates do. Maybe you could pay to lower the agro range down as a form of peace.

Agro range:

friendly=0m, neutral=500m enemy=2km

so everytime you overloaded a core of that given custom faction it would add the mass(or say 1/2 the mass) of the ship to the agro range, thus making it hard to seek up on them.



AI ROLES:

Example let say we and assign role to a the AI like combat, support and transport to keep in simple. When you create your customer faction you assign a percentage to each role on when they spawn a new AI.

example setting for custom faction AI roles: combat: 50%, support: 20%, transport:30%

Each ship assigned to the custom faction would need a primary role set for it. That way a new AI spawn with a role of combat would only select from combat ships and the same with the other AI roles would be limited too.

Combat AI and ships would only use guns and missiles all other system in the ships would be ignored.

Transport AI would be the only AI that would drop cargo when their core is overloaded. When they move, they will move from their faction stations to the next one of their faction station or to a nearby shop to simulate running cargo. They would run when attacked and signal their combat ships to spawn like when attacking a shop would do. It would fire guns if equipment however the user should note in the build design that the ship will be running away most of the time.

The Support role ship would have anything from salvage, astrotech repair beams Powersupply Beam, Powerdrain and pulse beam. The Support AI would only use those devices and if attacked it would use it\'s (if equip) pulse beam, if not if will attempt to keep other ships supplied with power or use power drain on anyone not of the faction within range. Their drop would be anything they recovered with their salvage lasers.

\"6) Salvage Lasers\" - there a few laser system(repair beam, power drain, etc...) that need a sound, I would prefer a very low buzz sound for it not so annoying.

 

[ltmauve]

As far as tiers go, I\'d rather have rare tech upgrades that you plug into your ship for like +5 cannon damage or something rather than upgraded blocks. Artifacts mean that only a few ships can be superior simply based on block ability. Also, in terms of whether a ship can destroy you, that tier rating would be a secondary consideration. An Isanth-VI is poorly designed enough that it would get destroyed even if upgraded. Mass or maybe some sort of combat score might be good.

In terms of NPC factions, Bannta has quite a few points I like. The concept of agro range, which I think could be expanded a bit.

• Aggressiveness - how far away from their base they go and attack.
• Stupidity - how much larger of a fleet will they attack.
• Helpfulness - how likely the faction will send help to an allied faction in combat that\'s getting trashed

And possibly other traits as well.

Also - custom faction homebases as well. I\'m not sure how the randomization scripts for the pirate stations work, but if possible they could be made externalized so we can have not only station that we design, but have different paint jobs, different turret placements, etc.

Could the custom factions also come with their own NPCs as well?

And as for creation, I\'m thinking it should be set up in the folders, so /data/factions/ with blueprints, properties, NPC models and all that there.

 

[NeonSturm]

I got to admit, the price of cactus really did make me smile, and its great for when you first start on a universe, but it is a bit un-balanced. I would expect ores would be sold at 1000-10000 each but not cactus


Same for decoratives like Ice-Crystal. If it is usefull for fuel, true, but not as a decorative/light.

How much do LED lamps cost IRL?



The power of a ship is

* (avoidance-rate / energy-for-avoidance / mass-for-thrust + shield-absorption-rate / energy-for-shield / mass-for-shield)

* ( (%

 

[ltmauve]

By power of a ship, are you refering to some sort rating system for ships that would show up on the nav menu kind of like this: MOB_Isanth-VI_5154141 [Pirates] 752m rating: 20 or Charon 1730m rating: 20,000,000 ?

 

[NeonSturm]

combat power.

Usually it is damage done before it dies. It does more damage if it has more time to do so.