StarMade Dev Blog 17 November 2017

[Lightspeed12]

Lots of the current game problems can be simply solved by modding, so lets make it happen

 

[schema]

bigdude601 That being true or not, I still want to make the game of my vision, and I'll do all in my power to do that.
Other players stopped playing because of various reasons from stability and bugs to not enough content being available and usability. The game I like to make should improve on all of those.
[doublepost=1510985415,1510985228][/doublepost]I'm always willing to take player modded approaches to problems. If they proof the be good for the game, I'm more than willing to put it into the vanilla game. There is a lot that can be done already by simply changing the config. After this update a lot more.

 

[Chckn Wildstyle]

So that took a long time to read every post in the thread up until this point.

schema , my dude, you are going to need to start believing these PvPers that are telling you what will happen with these new updates if they are put out in the permutations that you are espousing. The only reason that I would see you not believing them is that you think they are lying for their own benefit as it has been proven time and time again that the people who play your game for PvP know more about it than Schine ever has (Balancing an Meta). You need to start thinking about it the way people who create war machines think about it: I may be the engineer, but damn the pilot knows a lot more about how this thing works than I do, so I will take his advice. I will qualify my statement once more by saying, to quell your fear of lying, I detest most of the people who have been majority posting here, Lecic ,Zyrr , and the others of their ilk, and I would be the first to tell you that they are lying to benefit their own play styles if they were, but they aren't. Every single criticism about balance that has been brought up by this group is valid and not misinformed. You may not be able to understand what they are saying (which I assume is what is happening as I don't take you the intentionally belligerent type) but that does not mean that what they are saying is false.

I will try to come up with a comprehensive post with pictures and diagrams to show you the criticisms in great detail (not tonight, I am as exhausted as everyone else) as to leave no stone unturned. We are not saying it is bad for you to not understand everything we are telling you as a lot of this knowledge comes from the territory of being a very in depth PvPer. We are saying that you should try to absorb this espoused knowledge for the sake of everyone involved in this game.

P.S. Turret Aiming Mode gave me a stiffy so damn fast I almost broke my table in half.

 

[bigdude601]

Don't get me wrong, this isn't an attack on you or your style and plans for the future. I'm just saying, your game is in a dangerous state right now. I'm still playing myself even though its been in development for what 6 years at this point? There are others like me out there, but they are becoming fewer and further between. Listening to what your players want out of the game is not a bad idea if you want players to play your game. You won't make everyone happy, But you should do your best to make the majority happy at least.

 

[schema]

Chckn Wildstyle I definitely believe that most of it is very sincere. And I'm doing my best to communicate here. But as you can see in this thread, it is very hard to do at times. Other schine members have it even harder because they cannot speak freely about planned things.

I would very much appreciate a detailed post outlying the criticisms in detail, and I will hear and read it all. I'm not someone that stands by his own opinion just because. If I see reasonable reasons to change an approach or a system I will definitely do that. But I will also try to argue for the systems that were created specifically to solve the current problems.

 

[Lightspeed12]

I will be extremely respectul here.

If your whole objective is saying "I dont give a damn, i will make this game my vision ignoring what the only people playing this game are saying" , them everything we are doing here is useless.
Its your vision, we know, but if your current vision is sphere shields that cannot protect, weapons that cannot hit and overall deafness of player concern, well..
[doublepost=1510986044,1510985994][/doublepost]We believe in you and we want to see this game be the best it can be, its on your hands

 

[schema]

bigdude601 I understand that. And still I want to make the game I envisioned. I'm not trying to make less players play the game. The opposite. However there are a lot more reasons why players stopped playing than pvp balance. I have to address those reasons, too.
[doublepost=1510986240,1510986084][/doublepost]Lightspeed12 I only have an overall vision. I didn't mean to say that I wouldn't give a damn about people's input. For example I'm aware that I'm not a PvP player, but I still want a strong PvP aspect in the game, and for that I'm going to look at the concerns of the players. And even though it might have looked differently to a lot of people in this thread, the power update was exactly created because of that. It was to combat a lot of issues that people have with the game, not only PvPers but players in general.

 

[Lightspeed12]

bigdude601 I understand that. And still I want to make the game I envisioned. I'm not trying to make less players play the game. The opposite. However there are a lot more reasons why players stopped playing than pvp balance. I have to address those reasons, too.
[doublepost=1510986240,1510986084][/doublepost]Lightspeed12 I only have an overall vision. I didn't mean to say that I wouldn't give a damn about people's input. For example I'm aware that I'm not a PvP player, but I still want a strong PvP aspect in the game, and for that I'm going to look at the concerns of the people. And even though it might look differently, the power update was exactly created because of that. It was to combat a lot of issues that people have with the game, not only PvPers but players in general.

I am talking strictly in the sense that i am not a PVPer too. I was just voicing my concern because the way i see it, the current issues are clear and its becoming repetitive to voice them everytime. As i said, i believe you will do your best.


Best of luck

 

[BDLS]

well schema

anytime you're getting frustrated/sad from critical forum posts or feel like you're getting bullied by these long time veterans, just remember that they're exactly that. long term veterans. guys who've stuck through because they're so die-hard devoted to the game after all these years through the ups and downs. they know their shit (PvP boys)

at some point we're going to want to know your alts, just for fun. hopefully you have infiltrated at least a few of the major factions by now!

 

[schema]

Overall, my vision of the game aligns with a lot of players, I just didn't have the time to finish it yet. One thing for example everyone can agree on is that the game should be stable and performant.

 

[Lightspeed12]

Overall, my vision of the game aligns with a lot of players, I just didn't have the time to finish it yet. One thing for example everyone can agree on is that the game should be stable and performant.

Godamn right. No " I will swarm you with 100 drones" FPS problems

 

[schema]

alrighty. thanks for talking, everyone. I'm gonna be off for real this time

 

[bigdude601]

Players aren't leaving due to stability and bug issues, Players are leaving simply because nobody wants to waste hours building something that could become obsolete overnight. The player counts started going down right after the update was released, I don't think that is because of pvp balance issues myself but more tied to the above argument. Even some of the rp'ers out there are anxious about building something right now that may not work next week or next month just because its dimensions are a little off or its not just right for shield coverage. I'm not saying be irresponsible with pushing this through but getting it out there sooner rather than later would be a good thing as towards server population. Balancing and tuning can be done in the live build. Also its not bullying, its consumer criticism. :P


My point was with the player base so small right now you really have to try and keep who you have and get newbs in as well.

 

[NaStral]

The experienced PvP players who have stuck it out this long and through numerous low points should be given an open ear by Schine. They may not be the most pleasant lot to work with but they know what they are talking about. Listen to your most engaged people. RPers and PvEers have the luxury of not needing to delve into the play mechanics very deeply to achieve their goals.

 

[ObiShawnKenobi]

After taking some time reading every single post on this thread, I felt it was necessary for myself to say the following:

Thank you schema for taking your time to respond to this dev blog.

While this discussion may get somewhat heated, it is important to remember that this is all meant to improve a game many of us have spent years playing and enjoying.

Personally, I'm very pleased with these notes and this update that schema posted for us. Schine, keep up the great work.

 

[Jojomo]

That's fair, but this sentence is piqued my interest;

"~ Local shields: rewritten shield system to cover a radius rather than global to balance shield coverage between multiple docked entities"

Local shielding actually improves how well docked hulls work by allowing you to individually split your shielding, so a single high damage hit will only affect a very small area that you can turn away from the enemy. This really doesn't do anything to fix docked entity shields, in fact, it kind of makes it unbalanced even further.

Docked hull with the new shield system (assuming you mean a shielded parent with unshielded child hull) will be possible, but typically impractical.
The reason is that the child hull will have to sit outside the shield range sphere. For a powerful shield that range sphere is very large, meaning docked hull that is large enough to sit outside it will be extremely large and heavy.

 

[Criss]

Ability to save and load inventory hotbar layouts

Saber will be so pleased.

In what manner are planets to be replaced?

Aubrun worked on the planets, improving their performance, generation, and terrain. His work will be the basis for all future planet updates. In short, they will be improved, but not necessarily replaced.

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.

I'm not going to say that you are "wrong" about those games and their success in those areas, but comparing it to StarMade in our current state doesn't match. I can explain more in depth during the livestream, since you've popped up there recently the past few weeks.

This is a simple example that allows your ship to keep a large number of shields due to the generator's placement at the rear of the ship

I'm going to try and comprehend this.

Docked armor is bad because players can dock armor to a ship, such as forcefields, and it soaks up damage without dealing damage to system blocks. Understandable. Honestly, it sounds like what armor should be doing. I have yet to entirely see how shield mechanics play into it or exactly how it becomes unbalanced. What makes docked armor more viable than armor placed on the mothership? Does it prevent a loss of armor HP or structure HP? I feel like I brought this up with Zyrr in the past.

Somewhere, someone mentioned how pierce and ion are effectively useless with these shield changes. I'm assuming because of your diagram, you can create a ship that becomes harder to penetrate either the shields or the armor due to the shield mechanic, and the layer of armor in front of it. Why wouldn't a player simply use both effects until they got through whichever obstacle was in the way? If the first thing you hit is going to be the layer of armor, why is pierce useless when it's not even hitting a shielded structure?

Personally, I do think the shield mechanics are strange. It's unique. I'm not sure I've seen shield systems that could be so localized in a game such as this, so I am open to the possibilities they present.

Hopefully you can answer. This isn't an area I delve into often, and if I can understand the issues I'd be more capable of finding solutions with you and the team.

 

[aceface]

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.

awwww yiiis, thanks, it'll be very useful in situations like this:

 

[Jojomo]

well schema

anytime you're getting frustrated/sad from critical forum posts or feel like you're getting bullied by these long time veterans, just remember that they're exactly that.

Bullies?

A very emotional thread, this one.

There's a noisy little group of players who ignore the fact that Schine/SM is first and foremost a business and a vision (of those two I don't know which comes first), not a toy designed specifically for them personally.
Catering to the whims of every player who has their own personal vision of what SM should be like (and that's probably every single SM player), or even just every noisy player with a personal vision, is both impossible and a recipe for disaster.

People come to feel possession of things they use a lot (some of the things I've seen referred to as "ours", meaning the player's, is ridiculous), and that makes people feel like their personal approval and opinions are worth more than they actually are (not implying they're worthless, just worth a lot less than their owners think).
Presumably only final release/publication of SM, if that, will stop these people thinking "Schine should be listening to me and building my vision."

People who've invested a lot of time building knowledge about something (a system) feel personal loss when that system is abolished (it's just human nature), and predictably try to stop that happening, regardless of whether or not it was bad, and regardless of whether or not the replacement is better.

I wasn't very happy when power 2.0 was announced, I thought I preferred 1.0, but I think because at that point I had less than 200 hours on SM it's been easier for me to accept the change and see 2.0 for what it is: a really interesting and exciting system (from a design point of view) that will make the game better.
It looks like it's been designed by people who actually have experience in sandbox spaceship design, instead of being designed by people just making stuff up without experience to base it on (which is presumably what power 1.0 was).

Keep going Shine, it looks great, and there are plenty of less vocal players who seem to agree (not implying I'm quiet myself).

 

[Coyote27]

I'm going to try and comprehend this.

Docked armor is bad because players can dock armor to a ship, such as forcefields, and it soaks up damage without dealing damage to system blocks. Understandable. Honestly, it sounds like what armor should be doing. I have yet to entirely see how shield mechanics play into it or exactly how it becomes unbalanced. What makes docked armor more viable than armor placed on the mothership? Does it prevent a loss of armor HP or structure HP? I feel like I brought this up with Zyrr in the past.


Somewhere, someone mentioned how pierce and ion are effectively useless with these shield changes. I'm assuming because of your diagram, you can create a ship that becomes harder to penetrate either the shields or the armor due to the shield mechanic, and the layer of armor in front of it.

More precisely, what the docked armor does is protect the shield from anti-shield weapons, while the shield protects the ship itself from anti-hull weapons, and this results in a far stronger defense than a shield exposed to ion alpha attack over a hull that simply can't hold enough armor to stop the pierce/punch beta attack.

Why wouldn't a player simply use both effects until they got through whichever obstacle was in the way?

If the first thing you hit is going to be the layer of armor, why is pierce useless when it's not even hitting a shielded structure?

Because the pierce cannot possibly damage a system block; it's only hitting hull and making a small hole in it, and the rest of the hull layer is stopping the ion weapon from passing through. For the price of a few hull blocks you're stopping both ion and pierce effectively at the same time.
The firepower and DPS of these weapons don't even matter for the effect here, so it's a stronger protection against high-powered weapons with slow recharges given that it'll take many shots to open up a path through the docked hull and tear down the shields.
You can't put all of your weapons onto the same hole at different times, so knocking a small hole in a docked layer of hull is not going to expose the shielded portion to ion attack.


You need to be aware that this is /significantly/ stronger than putting armor on the ship's hull itself, because armor is both massive enough to slow a ship down and too weak to stop any realistic weapons reliably.
How many blocks in a layer does Schine think an armored ship hull should typically have? 20? 50? And how would the ship move while carrying all that? Docking hull is the only effective way to armor a ship as the game is right now.