StarMade dev update: Meta items

[schema]

Hello,

Here is a little update on what I'm working at the moment.

The last days were dedicated to fix some bugs and improve performance. I managed to make significant steps in the save/load system, that is responsible for loading in all blocks in sectors. More on that when the update is released.

I made an special thing (similar to pyramids) for earth planets, but I'm not spoiling the fun of exploration by telling what.



I'm also working on a completely integrated (and abstracted) system for having items other than blocks in the game. The neat thing about the system is, that every item is unique and fully synchronized (on demand to save bandwidth), by client and server. This means there is any kind of data structure possible, and as easy to implement as writing a class with 2 inherited methods for de/serialization.

My first example item class was just simple text books, but I will do more in the coming days. They will also come in most handy when doing character-items (like hand weapons, drills, armor, etc)



(I also misspelled the name of my first logbook... oh well)

I can't give an ETA on this yet, since this is a core feature (along with the optimizations, that also are very delicate) that requires testing to check for game breaking bugs.

Thanks for playing StarMade,

- schema

 

[Seth1483]

Very nice, I can\'t wait!

 

[System]

Ill be sure to keep my servers prepared for the updates!

Also just like to say that I have officically mirrored my first TB of bandwith! I hope to do much more in the future.

 

[efhunter]

Amazing, keep up the good work

 

[Ludovsky]

Very very nice

I was curious, but will we see more balance changes in the future so building a ship is less of a linear progression where bigger things are generally better at everything else statistically? Currently, for the examples of weapons, not only are bigger weapons dealing more damages at longer ranges, they also fire faster with faster projectiles.

It might introduces a nice mechanic of choice if indeed larger weapons would deal more damages and have a much greater range, but would see this offset by a slower firing rate. Making them great at range, but making it harder to hit targets once they get too close.

This said, I am very glad for you to make so great a game already

 

[spoonikle]

If a sheild mitigation system was implimented ( where per hit the efficiency of the sheild ( armor rating ) goes up by a fraction of a percent, then there would be a need for heavy hitting slow firing weapons when facing capital ships.

Sins of a solar empire uses this type of sheild system.

Basically, first time your sheild gets hit, it takes 100% damage then the seconds time it takes 99.99% damage... and so on. Up until it only takes 10% or 15% damage is taken per shot. For very small fast fireing guns this could all but elimitate all damage in a matter of seconds, but big slow firing guns would deliver the PAIN.

Else without sheild mitigation, slow and powerful / fast and weak, they would be the same. small guns would fire fast, big ones would fire slow, but the DPS would stay around the same. So players with big ships would just make thousands of little guns.

 

[ultimatemonster5]

Could you address the issue of you being able to shoot docked ships [on your ship]

 

[Defqqon]

I respect your work on this super game, good work! I donate for you!

 

[Nightchaos123]

I can\'t wait for this i\'m so excited!

 

[spoonikle]

Faction cubes. Ships of the same faction do not damage eachother. So if you make all the docked ships and the ship they are docked to of the same faction there will be no damage.

This allows you to have a turret anywhere on your ship and never worry about self damage.

If you dont use faction blocks you are not playing the game right.

 

[RNDChris]

Handheld weapons. *pewpew*. I approve.

 

[Moses69]

ive been waiting for another update to help with performance. the computer i have isn\'t that good, so i want to be able to play at a reasonable FPS

 

[Moses69]

I have had a bug with the advanced building mode, when i enter advanced building mode all of the blocks disappear(Most of the time) but rarely i can use advanced mode without fail

 

[Visitor]

I hope that the armor and handheld wepaonry won\'t be just \'this is gun 2, it\'s like gun 1 but has better stats\'. At least initially, for the first round of such, before balancing comes in and some advanced materials get really rare.

Instead of making better and better stuff, consider adding items that are balanced but fitting different playstyles/situations. Spacesuit that gives even a bit faster speed than normally, but it has light armor and isn\'t overly manveuverable. One that is heavily armored but you need a very patient man to fly anywhere with it - and you certainly won\'t be jumping as high on planets. If there will be ever oxygen demand, that may also result in overall decent spacesuit which you would be risking greatly with if you ever get out of the ship.

Same with weapons - something spraying ammo like mad but not very accurate or damaging? Sure. Slow, powerful pistol? Why not? A rifle that having average power and decent accuracy but you need to wait two seconds of reload every 8 shots? Maybe sniper rifle - great accuracy, great stoppng power, you\'re blocked from shooting while moving and the rate of fire is horrible? If weapons will be using power, there could be also whole spectrum of weaker weapons that put little to no strain on power reserves allowing long gunfights as well as stronger stuff that you will have to stow away and run with if you own\'t kill whatever after few shots as your energy will be out.

 

[Moses69]

Great idea, with the guns that use energy would they require a backpack?

If they did you would need the backpack to recharge at different rates depending on the weaponry

Sniper= slow recharge

Assault rifle = Medium recharge

And pistols = Fast recharge

Of course they would have other weapons as well

 

[un7ucky]

great stuff

 

[Bannta]

Captain Log!

That would make an awesome drop-able item say if the ship was found a drift(contact info to return it) or destroyed as a trophy item to the looter. I could picture a list of details like; Current Captain(player flying it when it went down), ship\'s commissioning engineer(player who spawn the ship\'s core, blueprint designer and date, details on mass, energy, thrust, shield, Turret count and possible log that the player wrote in. Maybe future effect like being able to upload a destroy captain log to a global stats board in which it would archive the log and destroy the log in the player inventory once uploaded.

This would add in a whole new in game system which would be entirely player driven, which is beautiful to the coder and miles of RP for a server hoster.

That would simply be awesome addition to already a beautiful game.

 

[Aemilianus Lopicallo]

WOO PERSONAL DEFENSE YEAH

Hope you add x-ray guns, particle beam cannons and explode-in-your-face plasma guns

 

[justin999888]

woow

 

[ABlackFedora]

Is the earth planet thing going to be on every earth planet?