StarMade Dev Blog 17 November 2017

[Lecic]

Local shields only work downwards the docking chain. meaning you cannot shield your mothership from your docked entity.

Thank you for displaying a complete lack of understanding of why docked hull is a problem.

 

[Calhoun]

Lancake thought of spaghettis to be problematic before they really became popular here, so we have several measures planned to make it less viable to build in a spaghetti style, even though we don't want to share the plans until the weapons update is fully announced.

Um.

The current meta has always been to fill most of your ship with systems, as empty space would be a waste if it could hold more systems (or armor).

I do not dismiss the issues that people brought up though, such as the 2 part ships with a large distance in between and the spaghetti ships OP brought up (which is also an issue in the old power system as he mentioned).

Just pointing out that the most efficient ship is not always the best one. Or at least, it shouldn't.

 

[schema]

Not sure why you are accusing me of lying :/
I have nothing to gain by doing so. I just trying my best to make the game as good as possible. It is really hard to communicate and to answer questions when things like this are thrown at you.

Gonna catch some sleep now

 

[Zyrr]

Local shields only work downwards the docking chain. meaning you cannot shield your mothership from your docked entity.

That's not really the problem though, even if shields under fire penalty is global, you're only draining shield cap out of specific areas. You can actually test how this would work right now on the normal build if you have a mothership with no shields and dock a bunch of entities that have individual shielding. As soon as one entity loses shielding, you can just angle yourself so that it's less likely to get hit, taking damage on areas that haven't dropped shields and allowing that area to regain its cap. This really really hurts missiles, which rely on that alpha, single hit damage; it really hurts cannons, which work best with many projectiles and many successive hits to the same spot, and hurts beams that don't have as many penetration ticks as cannons nor as much raw block damage as missiles but benefit from hitscan. At typical combat ranges of 5km-10km, hitting the same spot on a ship at all is pretty close to impossible.

Unrelated to balance, we will also implement a solution for docks to no longer be a problem in combat performance wise, specifically things undocking. But more on that and additional balance changes that will address docked hulls in the more detailed news for this update.

Word, that sounds fantastic. Docked stuff popping off is one of the hugest strains on performance during combat, so hearing this is super nice.

 

[GDPR 302420]

even though we don't want to share the plans until the weapons update is fully announced.

So you have no plans, got it.

I hope you understand that I don't really want to share the plans in a post here, as I want to have time to think how to properly format and bring all our notes together, since it's so easy to miscommunicate or say something wrongly accidentally.

Are you serious right now?

This cloak and dagger secrecy is going to kill your game more then its already being killed, constantly keeping your customers out of loop and making them (or at least the ones who are not blind fanboys) lose confidence in your teams ability to develop the product that they paid for.

Just tell us what you are going to do, assuming you even know yourself.

Any
Information
Is
Better
Then
Nothing

Telling us "we have plans but we are not telling" is the game developer equivilent of sticking the middle finger at the community and trying to avoid saying "We have no idea how to deal with X issue"

If that isnt the case then just tell us what you are going to do, listen to the feedback so you can alter it based on feedback sooner rather then later.
Don't get yourself into a sunk cost fallacy where a bad idea makes it into the game because you didnt ask for feedback prior to commiting time and resources to it and just tell us what you are going to do. If you are not doing anything about it or don't know what to do, then just fucking say so.
[doublepost=1510976046,1510975909][/doublepost]

Not sure why you are accusing me of lying :/

Because saying you have something to fix an issue and refusing to tell anyone about it, which would allow for much greater feedback so that you can change ideas to account for player feedback and avoid falling victim to the sunk cost fallacy where you put a system in the game anyway against the players feedback because you spent so much time on it is a pretty clear indication that you are not being truthfull with your customers.

 

[Non]

Not sure why you are accusing me of lying :/

We are not accusing you of lying, we are suggesting you may be misinformed, which are very different things.

I just trying my best to make the game as good as possible

Your effort is appreciated, but ultimately the results could be better if you would listen to the dedicated community which produces a noteworthy number of effective alternatives.

 

[color98dove]

I would believe that any chance of this to be successful we must first see what they have intended the game to be, if it does not work either don't use it, or find another way, star made is about building and figuring things out, its not all going to be handed to you on a silver platter, I for one like the idea that they have plans to deal with all the issues in the game at some point, it is not on our time table, but until its done you can either play or don't play.....the choice is yours.....oh and the game is in ALPHA.......i think you know what that means

 

[Non]

oh and the game is in ALPHA

How many years have people been using that as an excuse?

 

[schema]

I told you when we are gonna tell you about the plans. There is probably nothing worse than me going and saying things that aren't well formulated. There are several options we are looking at for spaghetti ships. For one we plan a new style of damage that will do damage in a way that would hurt line shapes a lot. Not only that but there is also an option to give separated modules a cooldown meaning that having a structural weak ship in terms of modules is bad news. These are only some of the options we came up with.

The reason why I'm so careful with what I'm saying is perfectly demonstrated here.

 

[GDPR 302420]

I told you when we are gonna tell you about the plans. There is probably nothing worse than me going and saying things that aren't well formulated.

Telling us nothing is worse.

ANY
INFORMATION
IS
BETTER
THEN
KEEPING
YOUR
CUSTOMERS
IN
THE
DARK

 

[Zyrr]

I told you when we are gonna tell you about the plans. There is probably nothing worse than me going and saying things that aren't well formulated. There are several options we are looking at for spaghetti ships. For one we plan a new style of damage that will do damage in a way that would hurt line shapes a lot. Not only that but there is also an option to give separated modules a cooldown meaning that having a structural weak ship in terms of modules is bad news. These are only some of the options we came up with.

The reason why I'm so careful with what I'm saying is perfectly demonstrated here.

Without critiquing too much because of how vague both of those suggestions are, both of those are in the right direction. But I'd STRONGLY suggest you also add incentives to group your systems closer together, so there is a reason to do something rather than a reason not to. It's far harder for me to rationalize doing something when it's more beneficial to do it X way rather than doing something because I'm getting punished for doing it another way.

 

[Crusade]

Great work. Some exciting features and some necessary fixes. There are still issues as others have pointed out - so I won't get into those.

I'm interested in what the next few major updates will bring - I feel they will make or break this game.

Pressure is on.

 

[Ithirahad]

I told you when we are gonna tell you about the plans. There is probably nothing worse than me going and saying things that aren't well formulated.

Actually, in my experience the worst thing is not saying anything at all, and the second worst is saying something that isn't definitive in a way that makes it sound definitive. People are generally capable of understanding "we are looking at possibly adding [something], though it may not pan out".

 

[Lecic]

For one we plan a new style of damage that will do damage in a way that would hurt line shapes a lot.

This wouldn't be something like the "electrical" style damage Robocraft has, would it? I really hope I wouldn't have to "triforce" an entire battleship to minimize damage.

 

[schema]

There is a reason for that RedAlert. There has been plenty of times where we said things in normal conversations and those things have been taken as face value. We are only humans and we speculate, me included. I say things that then later turn out to be wrong or not doable. In the past that has always lead to huge drama, and therefore I avoid doing it now. It's not that I want to do it particularly, but from my experience and nerves it seems to be better to be able to write my thoughts down at a point of time when I'm sure that it's 100% what I'm going to implement. Before that, even if I'm 99% sure already I avoid sharing it, because if that 1% turns out to be breaking, it will be an upset.
[doublepost=1510976818,1510976631][/doublepost]and Zyrr that is also in our options, and will be likely part of it

 

[Non]

Great work. Some exciting features and some necessary fixes. There are still issues as others have pointed out - so I won't get into those.

I'm interested in what the next few major updates will bring - I feel they will make or break this game.

Pressure is on.

Fight me.

My vote is still for Lecic's power suggestion

 

[Ithirahad]

There is a reason for that RedAlert. There has been plenty of times where we said things in normal conversations and those things have been taken as face value. We are only humans and we speculate, me included. I say things that then later turn out to be wrong or not doable. In the past that has always lead to huge drama, and therefore I avoid doing it now. It's not that I want to do it particularly, but from my experience and nerves it seems to be better to be able to write my thoughts down at a point of time when I'm sure that it's 100% what I'm going to implement. Before that, even if I'm 99% sure already I avoid sharing it, because if that 1% turns out to be breaking, it will be an upset.

Huge drama happens anyway. You release an update with a contraversial feature? Boom, huge drama. You don't release an update for some reason? Massive drama and whining. You tell the community about something before you're certain about it? Everyone goes nuts. You don't tell the community about something until it's going into the game, and there're perceived or actual issues with it? Lots of drama. There's no avoiding it, really, but at least an open discourse might save us all from unexpected issues down the line. :P

Also, again, people can understand "we're looking at doing this, but it might not make it into the game."

 

[thatothermitch]

Thanks for the update about what's been going on behind the scenes! Even if all questions are not answered, and all future changes are not revealed, it's nice to know that you're still hard at work!

 

[schema]

Ithirahad exactly. That's why i rather avoid it or stay out of it, since I rather save my power to work on the game.

 

[GDPR 302420]

oh and the game is in ALPHA.......i think you know what that means

6 years, same excuse from fanboys.

Alpha stopped being a valid excuse to sweep any and all criticism of this game under the rug ages ago.

There is a fucktonne of voxel space games out there that are in alpha, and this product is falling behind.

One such example is Avorion, smaller development team then StarMade has managed to make a space voxel game with more content, more optimisation and less bugs them StarMade.

Go play avorion, take a look at how those build tools feel. Go spend a few hours in empyrion, see how the survival mechanics work. Go play starpoint gemini warlords, see how well fleet mechanics work.

There is no defending Starmade when you compare it to games that work.

There is a reason for that RedAlert. There has been plenty of times where we said things in normal conversations and those things have been taken as face value.

This isnt a normal conversation.

I say things that then later turn out to be wrong or not doable.

So the solution is a total information blackout on any changes until the last minute?

Have you considered something like, I dunno:

Disclaimer:
All ideas and concepts presented in this are not final and are subject to change, nothing said here should be considered confirmation of any new features in an upcoming release unless otherwise specified.

In the past that has always lead to huge drama, and therefore I avoid doing it now.

And you keeping your customers in the dark has created drama AND mistrust.