StarMade Active Development Timeline

[KiloZulu]

If nothing else, perhaps just make a life support block that works similarly to the gravity module. That is, you don't need to wear a helmet while attached to the ship after having activated the new block. Sure, it means you can wander around the exterior of your ship, but it does limit your non-helmet use to within certain boundaries.

I was also considering the idea of a two-block directional system. By activating the blocks in order you either activate or deactivate the life support. That way, entering a ship through an airlock could activate life support, and leaving would automatically deactivate it. This doesn't do anything to create an "enclosed space," however. You could set up the two blocks (or gates) without any walls and cheat the system.

Taking a page from Minecraft, you could look at the village generation for cues. In order for a villager to accept a home as habitable, it has to have a door and a roof block beyond it within a certain height range. You might enact a similar system to at least get some participation from players - such as stating that there must be a floor, walls, and ceiling beyond the life support block/gate to a particular depth in order for it to qualify for life support.

 

[kiddan]

As a bonus, (we really should be discussing this in a suggestion thread, IMO) the game only has to calculate whether a space has oxygen every time a block is broken, and only when a block is placed if there is already a leak that the block may be patching. This meaning the game will run really smooth unless your in a battle or making huge changes to your ship. Also, gasses don't have to travel extremely fast, leaving us with the allowance to test whether there is an air-occupiable space one step at a time. And it only has to check spaces adjacent to an existing air block, the source being a tank or pipe coming from a tank.

 

[MacThule]

Hi, Bench!
Good info, as always, and much appreciated. Really looking forward to some of these updates.

At no point in that timeline to I see "map" mentioned. Is it safe to assume that it's part of one of the "Galaxy" or "UI" improvement rounds, or is the galaxy map going to remain the same all the way into Beta?

 

[Criss]

Hi, Bench!
Good info, as always, and much appreciated. Really looking forward to some of these updates.

At no point in that timeline to I see "map" mentioned. Is it safe to assume that it's part of one of the "Galaxy" or "UI" improvement rounds, or is the galaxy map going to remain the same all the way into Beta?

The map will definitely need a facelift. With faction stuff we will need to update the map graphics and mechanics a bit. This will probably get touched on before beta.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

As a bonus, (we really should be discussing this in a suggestion thread, IMO) the game only has to calculate whether a space has oxygen every time a block is broken, and only when a block is placed if there is already a leak that the block may be patching. This meaning the game will run really smooth unless your in a battle or making huge changes to your ship. Also, gasses don't have to travel extremely fast, leaving us with the allowance to test whether there is an air-occupiable space one step at a time. And it only has to check spaces adjacent to an existing air block, the source being a tank or pipe coming from a tank.

Trouble with this is battles are already the most performance heavy bit of the game.

 

[Valiant70]

Next

Could you clarify exactly what "next" means? Does it mean all the things labeled "next" are in the next update, the next major update, or just within the next year or so?

 

[Bench]

Hi, Bench!
Good info, as always, and much appreciated. Really looking forward to some of these updates.

At no point in that timeline to I see "map" mentioned. Is it safe to assume that it's part of one of the "Galaxy" or "UI" improvement rounds, or is the galaxy map going to remain the same all the way into Beta?

Map will be revised within Galaxy and UI improvements, it's something that will be addressed as features that are utilized by the galaxy map are added.

Could you clarify exactly what "next" means? Does it mean all the things labeled "next" are in the next update, the next major update, or just within the next year or so?

Within the timeline "Next" denotes what the next group of tasks found below relate to.

For example..

______________________________________________________________________________

Next : INTRODUCE NEW MECHANICS SUPPORTED BY NEW TRADING GUILD ASSETS
______________________________________________________________________________

The above "Next" describes that during this period of development, the focus will be in introducing new mechanics supported by new trading guild assets.

Below the blue section is projects or milestones that relate to achieving that, in this case improving some fleet mechanics and faction generation, adding in trading mechanics, and introducing new Trading Guild assets.

[ in development ][ Fleets ] FLEET MECHANICS
Optimize fleet mechanics and finalize additional mechanics for NPC usage

[ in development ][ Factions ] BASIC NPC FACTION GENERATION
Basic implementation of NPC faction generation to help populate servers with new assets from fleet contest winners. Also improvements to the clustering of factions.
[ in development ][ Factions ] TRADING GUILD
Implementation of the Trading Guild with new assets

[

now in-game ][ Economy ] SUPPLY & DEMAND
Changes to the way NPC-faction shops per star system are handled to better encourage supply and demand with shop stock and the shifting of shop stock between shops either virtually or with a physical trade convoy.

As projects are completed they go green, and so it's easy to see where we're up to with development for looking for where the "in development" projects start. ​

 

[Bench]

Timeline has been updated

 

[Blobfscrazy]

 

[Lecic]

Timeline has been updated

What's new?

 

[Bench]

What's new?

Tutorials went in. Also listed some new stuff.

 

[Lecic]

Also listed some new stuff.

Such as?????????????????????????????

 

[Bench]

Such as?????????????????????????????

Scroll through and find it

 

[Heillos]

Scroll through and find it

It seems to me that it should take a negligible amount of further effort when noting updates to the timeline, to include so much as a brief changelog (ie. which categories have been updated, even). This would save your audience a good deal of time in trying to locate said updates, and as such, I'd like to politely request that, if not for the recent update, future updates come with some such notation, limited or otherwise.

 

[Bench]

It seems to me that it should take a negligible amount of further effort when noting updates to the timeline, to include so much as a brief changelog (ie. which categories have been updated, even). This would save your audience a good deal of time in trying to locate said updates, and as such, I'd like to politely request that, if not for the recent update, future updates come with some such notation, limited or otherwise.

That's a fair request, one i'd be happy to oblige with in future posts.

 

[Blaza612]

That's a fair request, one i'd be happy to oblige with in future posts.

You evil motherfucker

 

[jstenholt]

Regarding NPC faction generation. Will there be a fixed faction attached to each fleet of ships that is developed either from the devs or the contests? Or will the system be more procedural, using a system similar to how planets are named?

 

[Criss]

The npc's tied to the ships will be random and seeing how we have an infinite universe, you might see multiple factions use the same ships.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I don't really remember what's new or not, but I don't remember whether the "reasons to explore" was in the previous iteration. Either way it looks like the new factions are making it in fairly soon, which I'm looking forward to.

 

[serge1944]

A freind asked me if there will be planetary invasion in the game(once planets are big enought).
Will there be planetary invasion?