Some important changes to Starmade

ne3zy · Jun 28, 2013

Hi, first of all I have to say I'm in love with this game, it's really cool ! Since it's alpha I think I have to give feedback and that's what I'm going to do :

I think you progress too quickly on Starmade, I mean you begin with a ship, lot of credits and then you can just harvest space stations or pirate ones and have like 2 billion credits in 20 minutes.

You could improve the game a lot if you made things go more slowly. What I would like to see is, spawning the first time on a planet with almost nothing (0 ship core), from there you will have to harvest minerals to somehow craft factories which makes you able to craft things which will make you able to craft ship cores, etc...

Of course if you don't want this to be boring we'll need some improvements on planets (like double sided planets Donut's suggestion) ! I don't think I have to talk about that since we got a lot of suggestions concerning planets.

Something interesting we could have is energy management, I mean actually you place blocks and that's all. But what we might need are things like solar panels, watermills, combustion generator, etc... this blocks will make you able to fill empty power blocks (forever or not, that's for you to decide).

If fuel (or plasma or whatever you want from the future) management is implemented space stations will have a real role, which is refuel all your ships, max speed won't be a problem anymore since if you go faster you use fuel faster therefore you won't be able to travel through the whole universe in 5 minutes. AI spatial gas stations could also be implemented so you can still travel a lot, but not for free.

Most of the energy will be situated on the planets so they will really be useful now. As for example on your main planet you could have : lot of (improved) factories which craft all the blocks you need, energy extractors/producers, refuel systems, repairing systems, docking systems, defense systems, etc..

Some Bobby like AI ships could make convoys between your main planet and your space station so they bring the fuel to it making you able to refuel your ships on your space stations.

Anyway neutral space stations and pirate stations must be nerfed, really how is it possible I'm playing for 5 minutes and I'm already building the Death Star (without cheating). I think you don't have to be able to build 50.000 block ships unless you played Starmade for 3 months.

I think you get the point feel free to improve my suggestion and give your opinion about it !

Sorry for my bad english !

sonicboom714 · Jun 28, 2013

I think you\'re just trying to make spacemade more like Minecraft, (At least in the mining and making factories, I mean) which is definitely something I would not like to see. Spacemade is nice in the way that it involves blocks in all, but transforming it into Minecraft is not something that would work out well. In general, spacemade is definitely not about mining, unless you\'re talking about salvaging. Also, spacemade is in the future, so it would be ridiculous to implement solar panels, etc. when by the time humans have already gotten this deep into space travel, we would have a much simpler energy source (IE energy that you can just build and forget about -.-). This goes for the fuel issue too (We would DEFINITELY not be using gasoline in the future). I guess I\'m open to nerfing the space stations (or at least adding defenses to people who try to break the stations) because that\'s pretty much free money. However, the pirate stations aren\'t that easy to get into, so I think those are fine the way they are.

I hope you don\'t take my comment badly, as I\'m just trying to give you my opinion. I respect your view on how you think the game should be, but in my opinion the parts of the game that are already implemented are fine the way they are, and the only thing that could change for the better is new additions to the game (and bug fixes of course).

Trollerbobman · Jun 28, 2013

i think the game is fine. they just need to add more things for the ships.

ne3zy · Jun 28, 2013

Fuel and solar panels are just examples you can invent whatever you want as energy, and why solar panels couldn\'t be futuristic ? Also why there won\'t be fuel issues in the future, machines don\'t work with magic...

You don\'t get it, the point is the evolution, you begin with nothing and you progress until you make 100.000 block ships, that\'s what I\'m talking about. And no, I\'m not too in love with minecraft since I don\'t play it (I did but only 1 week... lol).

So you agree with having 2 billion credits in 30 minutes (just seen a youtube video where the guy do that) ?

Balduran · Jun 28, 2013

Thing is... If you don\'t find a station, you\'re going to be very broke most of the time, especially after you get blasted by pirates when your starter shop has no cannons.

Plus... Is it really so necessary to take it so slow? I don\'t want to grind my butt away to be able to build a bigger ship. I\'m having the aforementioned situation in SP and it really gimps what I can do - I can only mine for ores, which is a long and tedious process. I can\'t do any combat because the shops never have enough blocks, while I don\'t have the money.

TheSavage0ne · Jun 28, 2013

If you start out on a planet and have to mine, how would multiplayer work? I don\'t think it could. the planet would be destroyed within a few days leaving new members stranded...

However you can get credits really easily, i agree with that. It is an amazing game, and the only real fix i know of for that would be to have the hulls sell for much less than they are purchased, making looting a station not as fruitfull.

Fuel? Just my opinion but fuel is sortof a thing of the past, but some reason i like the idea, maybe not regular fuel though something else like plasma or something would make more sense. So in the end i guess i suport this idea.

It seems that advancing so quickly will turn off some of the members, makes it not as interesting in the long run which is why i think there should be more things added, which there no doubt will be

ne3zy · Jun 28, 2013

Station spawning (and fuel consumption) can be balanced and you won\'t need the shops as much as you need them now since you will craft almost all the blocks by yourself.

I think the evolution side is a lot more interesting, because actually once your big ship is finished what do you do ? you make another one, and another one, and you don\'t play anymore...

All the planet/space station/fuel management can add a very interesting side to the game in my opinion. I like to play this for the moment, but once I\'ll finish all the project I have, I think I\'ll just stop playing, if this was implemented, I wouldn\'t for sure, since there will be so much things to do.

And if you want things to be faster /giveid name id amount.

EDIT : @TheSavageOne Every player will respawn on a different planet at the beginning and we could add like a protection system, similar to faction one, there\'s a lot of solutions.

Belone · Jun 28, 2013

I\'m confused a bit, are you suggesting an enhancement to the exisiting factory system in the game? Because you seem to be implying that there is currently no way to \"craft\" blocks, because there is a factory system in the game, and is really the only viable way to get blocks in a vast quantity.

As for fuel this has been discussed so often on here it\'s almost getting boring reading the same thing over and over, I think it just boils down to people that enjoy the realism and the people that enjoy the fantasy (for lack of a better word), the realism people want to know what is making their ships fly and those that prefer the fantasy are happy to imagine their ships are running on pixy dust.

Comr4de · Jun 28, 2013

You guys do know that factories already exist in the game? I\'ve noticed a couple of people saying that they\'d be a bad idea to add.

Also the economy is purposely imbalanced by default right now. Schema\'s main priority is stability, not gameplay.

BeefBacon · Jun 28, 2013

I like the fuel idea, though I think there should be two engines; the current engine which runs on energy and a new engine that runs on fuel. The fuel engine is much more powerful and should be the only viable way for large ships to move with any speed. This would cut down on massive warships roaming around and dicking on smaller ships. Also adds a new gameplay element for the larger ships.

Also, piss easy to find a station. Fly in a straight line for half a dozen sectors, odds are you\'ll come across one. Has it already been mined out? Carry on. They\'re everywhere.

Charlie_ · Jun 28, 2013

\"Thing is... If you don\'t find a station, you\'re going to be very broke most of the time, especially after you get blasted by pirates when your starter shop has no cannons. \"
-Balduran

Them public servers start point...

DreadedEntity · Jul 13, 2013

First of all, I like how you guys actually are working together to improve an intitial idea, worthy of being implemented. Anyway:

It really is easy to progress in this game. I built a small fighter ship with like 30 blocks in total, capable of fighting 3 pirates simultaneously, destroying 2 before shields drop, and finishing off the last one with negligable damage (this is also before the shield update a few days ago). Even looked ballin\'. Adding some plex storage on-the-fly, and picking up the drops, I was able to get maximum cash in one trip. Didn\'t even bother stealing the rest of the pirate blocks. I already beat the game at 0% progression. Adding this to the catalog, I found out that it costs just over 25k. Not a big problem since the server default spawn cash is 25k and you spawn with like 10k worth of useless blocks. Now every server I join, I know I am capable of defeating pirates and able to build massive ships within 20 minutes.

Also: Go to desert planet. Find pyramid. Dig inside. Loot container. 5billion. Close starmade. You win.

The problem with this game is that it\'s so early in alpha a lot of things that should be standard aren\'t implemented yet. For example when you first start out you build a little crappy ship and the first pirate you find butt-touches you super hard, probably killing you. But after you build your first \"real\" ship, pirates are way too easy (and drop epic loot for a ship with 4 shield blocks on them).

What I want to see is leaving the \"sandbox\" mode like it is, a sandbox. Pretty much meaning a creative mode for starmade where you have an enviornment you can build in, and spawn enemies to test. Then have another, seperate, mode for the \"actual\" game. Loot tables reworked, more enemy designs (I could help

), bobby AI doesn\'t suck, etc.

Final thought, progression is completely broken in this game with the creation of the catalog. As long as you have 1 block, you can turn that in 99999999 blocks. I don\'t want to see this go, or re-\"imagined\", but basically you can duplicate items with it. Progression = none.

EDIT: Actually not true, the factory system is the only one with any kind of progression at the moment, and it\'s being reworked so I wouldn\'t mess with it for a while.