StarMade Dev Blog 17 November 2017

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    It think it would be best to preserve both power 1.0 and power 2.0 options in future versions of StarMade.

    We can think of (and possibly rebuild) power 1.0 as: Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG, RITEG for short)
    Radioisotope thermoelectric generator - Wikipedia
    All that we have to do is modify the rate at which adding one more block increases power so that power 2.0 looks more efficient at larger scales.
    These RTGs could be the primary power system on very small craft, and used as supplemental power in larger structures.

    We can think of power 2.0 as a power generation system such as a version of a nuclear-steam-electric power plant.
    Nuclear power plant - Wikipedia

    By keeping both systems we maximize Flexibility and Creativity.
    The precise in-game names and explanations don't actually matter so long as both options are available.

    Thank you for reading my post.
     

    Lecic

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    It think it would be best to preserve both power 1.0 and power 2.0 options in future versions of StarMade.

    We can think of (and possibly rebuild) power 1.0 as: Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG, RITEG for short)
    Radioisotope thermoelectric generator - Wikipedia
    All that we have to do is modify the rate at which adding one more block increases power so that power 2.0 looks more efficient at larger scales.
    These RTGs could be the primary power system on very small craft, and used as supplemental power in larger structures.

    We can think of power 2.0 as a power generation system such as a version of a nuclear-steam-electric power plant.
    Nuclear power plant - Wikipedia

    By keeping both systems we maximize Flexibility and Creativity.
    The precise in-game names and explanations don't actually matter so long as both options are available.

    Thank you for reading my post.
    No.

    First off, you just stole these names from From The Depths.

    Second, there is no reason to have two power systems. It's unnecessary. People will just use whichever one is more powerful. We don't have fuel, so it can't be balanced like FTD where one is low power and fuelless and the other is high power and takes fuel. So people will just take whichever works best. Maximum "creativity" is not necessarily a good thing- that's how you end up with broken spaghetti meta.
     

    NeonSturm

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    We could 2 types of power:
    One is used by scavengers and on stations (because low cost and higher mass, but a small bit more output) and the other on good ships which requires special resources.
     
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    Lecic

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    We could 2 types of power:
    One is used by scavengers and on stations (because low cost and higher mass, but a small bit more output) and the other on good ships.
    Why? Power is already incredibly cheap to produce. What would this actually add to the game? People will just use whichever is more mass efficient per power generated.
     

    NeonSturm

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    Why? Power is already incredibly cheap to produce. What would this actually add to the game? People will just use whichever is more mass efficient per power generated.
    Clarified. The pro-ship one would require fertikeen or Rammet or something.​
     
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    No.

    First off, you just stole these names from From The Depths.

    Second, there is no reason to have two power systems. It's unnecessary. People will just use whichever one is more powerful. We don't have fuel, so it can't be balanced like FTD where one is low power and fuelless and the other is high power and takes fuel. So people will just take whichever works best. Maximum "creativity" is not necessarily a good thing- that's how you end up with broken spaghetti meta.
    1. I stated that the name does not matter. You may call the individual block (power reactor) whatever you want to call it just so long as it remains a part of the game.
    2. Other forum posters have noted that you can not eliminate spaghetti ships by changing power generation systems.
    3. Creating or modifying a weapon system specifically as "anti spaghetti" may be the best way to get rid of spaghetti monsters.
    3.A. If the Cannon-Missile-Explosion weapon type is designed and used properly, then spaghetti ships should be highly vulnerable to exploding Flack. Consider what would happen if the explosion radius expands until all of the starting damage is spent? The low density of the spaghetti ship would offer no advantage at all. These flack rounds could also have a proximity fuse worked in to further weaken spaghetti ships.
    3.B. Imagine if a "lighting gun" is added to the game. This gun could be made to do bonus damage to blocks exposed to space and do less damage to blocks which have (5?) or more adjacent blocks. (Zero damage to any block with 17+ adjacent blocks?) It could also be designed to "jump" from one set of blocks to the next set of blocks while partially (or fully) ignoring shields. With the right tweaking, this may be the weapon to end spaghetti ships without preventing someone from building such a ship in the first place. Also, this adds incentives to use more than 1 type of weapon throughout your ship making it harder to optimize the ideal battleship. If you are well prepared for spaghetti, you may not be as well prepared for a "normal" ship.
    4. I play games like StarMade due to the increasing amount of options with each update. If my options are limited for "balance reasons" then I must question the purpose of the game.
    Why have any blocks at all? Why not design 100 ships and 30 stations and say that "These have been balanced and thus there is no need for any further variety." Every other game does this to some extent due to "balance."
    -> To answer my own questions: We have blocks so that we can be inventive and creative.
    -> We have multiple blocks and choices so that each player can proceed in their own way.
    -> Multipurpose ships and specialty ships can both be created and used. I bet that they will balance themselves too while providing variety.

    Please note: I don't really care about "Balance." Let the optimizers find the sharpest knife, the best shield and the best of whatever they are optimizing. If I want to play with/against them, I will just do what they do in my own way. If I'm not playing against them, then why should I care about optimization or balance?

    I'm not going to play PvP unless I feel like it, and then I will watch how the PvP players operate and design my ships accordingly. No amount of balancing will prevent an experienced optimizer from creating a super-ship or an unbreakable station. They will use the tools at hand and outdo every one else almost every time.
    Usually I play PvE or "Player only" - as in I build just enough defenses so that I can ignore all NPCs and just do my own thing. I do look forward to better NPCs and increasing options for quests and other NPC interactions, and shine can get to that after this power system mess is settled.
    Eliminating any option for reason of "Game Balance" looks totally stupid to me. Let me have my less efficient options. Let me make a non-optimized ship / station just for fun. Don't force me to build efficiently. There is no reason why my RP ship should be equally capable to my PvE ship. There is no reason why my PvE ship should be able to win against a proper PvP ship. Forcing the game so that all ship types are equal will never be a happy or successful quest for anyone.
    Don't take things out of the game just because another method is notably better.
    Why not allow "old outdated technology" to exist within the game?
    Why not allow different NPC factions to use different sets of blocks? - Imagine if NPC1 used PS 1.0, NPC2 used PS2.0 and NPC3 used both power systems.

    I want the options to build whatever kind of ship I want to build.
    I want the options to source my power from any number of different generators. Solar Power, Coal Power, Lava Power, Power Reactors, Reactor Power, Etc. Don't force me to only have 1 power source.

    If the ship I build looks stupid compared to your optimized ship, then that is my choice as I designed my ship without considering your optimization abilities.
    Don't limit me "for my own benefit."

    Thank You for your attention.
     

    Lecic

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    2. Other forum posters have noted that you can not eliminate spaghetti ships by changing power generation systems.
    They are wrong. Power system changes alone could entirely eliminate spaghetti. The main problem comes with difficulty in coding a power system that blocks spaghetti and in making sure it doesn't harm "normal" ship designs.

    3. Creating or modifying a weapon system specifically as "anti spaghetti" may be the best way to get rid of spaghetti monsters.
    Best way? Not sure I agree, but it would certainly help.

    3.B. Imagine if a "lighting gun" is added to the game. This gun could be made to do bonus damage to blocks exposed to space and do less damage to blocks which have (5?) or more adjacent blocks. (Zero damage to any block with 17+ adjacent blocks?) It could also be designed to "jump" from one set of blocks to the next set of blocks while partially (or fully) ignoring shields. With the right tweaking, this may be the weapon to end spaghetti ships without preventing someone from building such a ship in the first place. Also, this adds incentives to use more than 1 type of weapon throughout your ship making it harder to optimize the ideal battleship. If you are well prepared for spaghetti, you may not be as well prepared for a "normal" ship.
    I actually made a suggestion for a lightning gun years ago.

    Recognized - Electrical/Tesla Coil Weapon Type

    The balance could probably use some work but I think the combos themselves are still good.

    4. I play games like StarMade due to the increasing amount of options with each update. If my options are limited for "balance reasons" then I must question the purpose of the game.
    Why have any blocks at all? Why not design 100 ships and 30 stations and say that "These have been balanced and thus there is no need for any further variety." Every other game does this to some extent due to "balance."
    -> To answer my own questions: We have blocks so that we can be inventive and creative.
    -> We have multiple blocks and choices so that each player can proceed in their own way.
    -> Multipurpose ships and specialty ships can both be created and used. I bet that they will balance themselves too while providing variety.
    Cool strawman. There is a "balance" to strike between allowing player creativity without damaging the actual PvP game. YOU may not care if the game is unbalanced, but the people actually using the systems against eachother do. The game has PvP and it needs to be well balanced and fun to play like everything else. Roleplaying comes secondary to making the game functional.
     
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    Cool strawman. There is a "balance" to strike between allowing player creativity without damaging the actual PvP game. YOU may not care if the game is unbalanced, but the people actually using the systems against eachother do. The game has PvP and it needs to be well balanced and fun to play like everything else. Roleplaying comes secondary to making the game functional.
    We can both get what we want:
    1. Create balanced higher performing systems for PvP players. (power systems 2.0, etc.)
    2. Create parallel lower performing systems for other players. (power system 1.0, etc.)

    I can have my increasing variety and you can have your PvP balance. We all win.

    Don't remove features or options from the game just because a newer feature is "better."

    I think that most players would enjoy seeing "older, outdated tech" on some abandoned ships/stations.
    Imagine if ships/stations from every design phase of StarMade could be found as derelicts?
    Wouldn't it be neat to see how "past generations of space travelers" did their thing in the the StarMade universe?
     

    NeonSturm

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    I think that most players would enjoy seeing "older, outdated tech" on some abandoned ships/stations.
    Completely agree. It would be far better than to yield scrap materials.

    Also I would use a power system with 50% efficiency on a station as long as I can reacah 100% with 5x as much mass and 3x as much blocks.
    But on ships, I would care a bit more...
     
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    Ftfy

    "I think that most players would enjoy seeing "older, outdated tech" on some abandoned ships/stations.
    Imagine if ships/stations from every design phase of StarMade could be found as derelicts?
    Wouldn't it be neat to see how "past generations of space travelers" did their thing in the the StarMade universe?"

    Yeah, this would actually be okay with me. Other than approaching the maximum number of blocks we could allow in the game and possibly script bloat or whatever from having multiple systems available at the same time, it seems like a neat idea. But i assume any of these systems that get to keep their functionality simply end up being less efficient versions of modernized systems so theres only one set of coding governing how things operate.

    In terms of allowing a second system to exist as a means to accomplish the same goals, thats great too. Its not like they cant be balanced against each other in different situations or both viable depending on what resources you have available. That would be a refreshing change from only having one option at a time, honestly.
     
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    Valiant70

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    Our current approach tries to span the distance between non pvp and pvp building.
    In the past, the HP update probably did the most for that. Before armor mechanics, RP builds were instant swiss cheese in PVP. Since then, they've been less than optimal but at least somewhat usable. They are always heavier than dedicated PVP builds and smart builders tended toward armor tanking to take advantage of the HP provided by the hulls in their interiors, and the extra "skin" they have to use to cover the additional volume of the interiors. The new systems have made it somewhat easier to shield tank in RP builds since you don't need as much volume for shields, but the issue isn't completely solved and there are other problems.

    In power 1.0, there were two sources of excess weight: Interior blocks and the extra hull needed to cover that volume. Power 2.0 attempts to justify the extra hull, but makes the interior decoration blocks worse because they still add mass, but no longer provide HP. Replacing my plain hull walls with cooler blocks? Might need to reconsider since I'm trading armor for dead weight.

    Either decoration blocks need to be weightless or they need to provide some other kind of bonus. Providing other bonuses could open up all manner of exploits, and weightless blocks are weird, so I'm not really sure what to do here.

    As a temporary solution, you could make all deco blocks add armor HP instead of structure HP. Even then, we're back to pressuring RP builds into armor tanking, and into tanking in general. Ideally, decorated builds should be able to be armor tank, shield tank, balanced, or glass cannon equally well. I'm not sure how close the game can get to that ideal, but I'm hoping to at least get closer than it's been in the past.

    Basically the main idea behind the stabilizers is to tie ship size to reactor size. The problem in the old system is that you can always fill your complete ship with power. Now if you put on any limit on that, you effectively put a limit on ship sizes as well.
    As stated by others, all this does is promote making a ship as long as possible in one dimension. Stabilizers will have to be reworked so they serve their intended purpose, or else removed. If they're removed, system stuffing will come back at least to some degree.

    In short, they will be improved, but not necessarily replaced.
    That's disappointing.
     
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    As a temporary solution, you could make all deco blocks add armor HP instead of structure HP. Even then, we're back to pressuring RP builds into armor tanking, and into tanking in general. Ideally, decorated builds should be able to be armor tank, shield tank, balanced, or glass cannon equally well. I'm not sure how close the game can get to that ideal, but I'm hoping to at least get closer than it's been in the past.
    Hrm. One solution is to make everyone decoration block have a secondary purpose of some sort in addition to being decoration blocks. This would be similar to how the medical bay is basically decoration but also heals astronauts (thought it's usefulness is moot considering boarding isn't a thing despite attempts by the devs to make it a thing). I agree that making decorative blocks have no mass makes no sense, though I would also wanna point out that they still take up space just by being a block. Really, my response to this is: I don't think giving them an armor value would contribute to armor stuffing as you called it. RP builders will use deco blocks for deco regardless of whether or not they give armor. Armor will probably still be used for armor regardless of whether deco blocks contribute to AHP. All that happens when you give deco blocks armor is that they don't just become dead weight.

    I personally would prefer for every deco block to have a purpose. It may not be the ideal solution, but I don't think there is an ideal solution. In addition to that, some deco blocks might just never have a purpose. Grates might be the hardest, but they could be given a decent purpose as "window supports" just by giving them the same stats as advanced armor. I for one would prefer every deco block to have a purpose. From fans being required to shift oxygen around the ship, to tubes needing to move blocks around. Yeah, I understand that this might just be another form of system stuffing. But really, if deco blocks performed minor functions that you didn't need oodles of they would have purpose for ships while still contributing to "roleplayeriness". Maybe you could argue "but pet, this forces roleplayeriness on everyone." to which I respond that if anything it contributes to the immersion of the game. Immersion being a thing that the game severly lacks and the devs have been painfully slow on. (Despite promising years ago that NPCs would have a purpose, AI would be good, and the universe would be fun.)

    As a side note that isn't as related to the above argument. I understand both sides as to why we should have fuel VS why we shouldn't have fuel. In a sense that argument also extends to such concepts as food, oxygen, item transport pipes, animals, and trade. To all of which, including fuel, I argue that as long as the systems are reasonable they only benefit the game. They benefit the game through immersion. Which, if this game is going to be what it seems to want to be (an accessible sandbox style space-sim.) are necessary.


    As stated by others, all this does is promote making a ship as long as possible in one dimension. Stabilizers will have to be reworked so they serve their intended purpose, or else removed. If they're removed, system stuffing will come back at least to some degree.
    Note: I tried to quote both Valiant and Schema but couldn't

    I understand that stabilizers are necessary at this point in time so that RP players aren't shafted. However, I think that a better solution than stabilizers would be to give interiors actual use rather than encouraging them through arbitrary means. This goes along with concepts related to oxygen and food systems. Additionally, interiors would be useful if things like animals could only be transported by physically being on and in your ship as opposed to just shoving them in a crate in meat or some other form. (Though that argument is somewhat moot seeing as no animals are in the game as of yet.)

    Now, to be fair, this wouldn't stop PVP players from going as weight efficient as they possibly can and still outclassing RP ships, however it might be a slightly more amenable solution than stabilizers.

    Really, I think that the solution required might , in conjunction to those above, something that makes more sense regarding stabilizers, and less removal of the block and initial concept.

    I do think that limits on ship size are implemented through the use of diminishing returns on weapon arrays, and how much it costs to run them. However, I think that a slightly better way to achieve the goal you quote schema as having above would be to have power taper off in the reactors as well. At least, if the goal is actually to limit ship size.

    In actuality, schema's goal was to encourage empty space and make RP builds not suck, which I believe schema has stated in part in the past, and everyone knows.

    However, even with that goal in mind, the current stabilizer system is... less than ideal. And I say that considering that I actually like stabilizers. And although I do think that the idea that stabilizers will lead to the massive spaghettification of ships is somewhat exaggerated, I do not disagree that it is at least somewhat a problem.

    One way to better accomplish both of Schema's goals (The one quoted in your post, and the one related to empty space.) might be to make the calculation of number of stabilizers dependent on some relationship between reactor size, ship blocks, and ship interior space. However, this would really just result in a massively laggy and obtuse calculation.

    Additionally, I would like to point to the original reactor concept - the one to which the community thoroughly bitched a fit - of having stabilizers themselves have a bubble detection of, and effect on, system blocks, the reactor, and/or armor. This would probably still be a preferred solution. It would avoid the spaghettification problem, while allowing for more freedom in placing stabilizers, while tying ship size to reactor size, while also not making empty space useless.

    However, if there is one thing I've learned about this community, it's that it will literally never be satisfied.
     
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