Starmade for occasional/unexperienced players

[Muspilator]

Hello Starmade-team and community,

first off, my English is probably a bit clumsy. I hope you will understand most of the gibberish.

a year ago I bought Starmade and played on a server with a number of friends and family members. It was a huge enjoyment and I'm currently looking forward to playing it again when some of the exciting features on the roadmap have been implemented.

However, there were a number of things in the game, that, in my knowledge, haven't been addressed yet and that didn't suit my/our style of playing very well. Many of the things, I want to suggest, probably have little relevance for hardcore-style players but should improve the game experience for newbies and occasional players that build up their resources and ships much slower and still discover the building-possibilities the game offers piece by piece.


1. The standard enemy ships:
My first ship that was actually walkable on the inside and that had a mass of ~25, a weaponry consisting of the 15 weapon blocks you get at the start, 4 shield capacitors and 8 shield rechargers on the inside, was a huge accomplishment to me. I created a large part of the other ship parts (hulls, energy blocks, cameras, containers, glasses, lights, shield generators etc) with manually collected resouces and it really took some discovery to get the needed ores and some unexperienced but honest manufactoring to build up all of it. This little ship with its gravity module, camera, its windows, decorative lightblocks and storages already felt like a home to me and I really played with it for a while.

Later I realised that even the smallest standard enemy ship was far beyond what I had made there. And even in the third iteration of my ship, which featured 40 cannon barrels and many other blocks that I had built up on my own still only had a mass of 65.8 and was considerably weaker than the Isanth-VI with its mass of 74.1 and its 59 cannon barrels.

Before I knew how strong strong even the smallest enemy ships were, there were some pirates attacking a planet I was on with the other people while my ship was parked on the other side of the planet, so I basically ran from the enemy ships and hid behind terrain. In that situation, due to my lack of better knowledge, I was trying to make a difference by shooting at the pirate ships with my little hand cannon. Later I knew that even the bravest engagement with my handcannon couldn't have made a difference.

I figured that you can manually change the blueprints used by the pirates, but for new players that build up their existence in the game in small steps it's probably very much asked to customize their game, before they start with it. And why shouldn't you be able to make a difference with the little bit of weaponry you start with at the beginning? Can't the pirates feature some small enemy ships that are on the level of starter ships new players build up at the beginning? That's not to say I don't want there to be large and challenging pirate ships, too.


2. Loot given by enemy ships:
The last time we played the game, the amount of loot given by enemy ships seemingly depended on the amount of containers added to them instead of relating to the strength of the ship in any way. This created some major misbalance when I added my starter ship with two containers in it as a blueprint and allowed pirates to use it. Now these little ships that were a piece of cake for the advanced ships we already had at that point, dropped a huge amount of loot. Wouldn't it be possible to generate the container loot dependant on the actual strength of the enemy ship?


3. Loot in derelict space stations:
The first time I came across a derelict space station and examined it from the inside was a breathtaking experience but left me a bit disappointed afterwards. I would have loved to find some, even small treasures in the containers that were hidden in the backrooms of the spacestation after having walked around a while. For players that are used to harvesting entire planets, things like these have little appeal, but for others that play the game a bit more adventure-style these loots in hidden places are a big thing, I imagine. Actually, while I think about this, Why not add hidden loot containers within planet caves, too?


4. Equip that needs to be found rather than crafted:
One thing that started to bug me and the others on our server was the fact that you didn't really have resources that required you to go searching for very long, since the different ores and crystals seemed roughly evenly distributed across the game and due to respawning asteroids long journeys started to feel pointless after some time, after you had everything you ever needed in your own system or the neighbour one, at worst. We felt that some kind of counterpiece to the diamonds or the rare bioms in minecraft would be nice. Some kind of resource that you didn't find in planet hulls, but only in some utterly rare asteroids and that would really need to be searched for across systems.

I'm not sure, if the Starmade team really sees that as something they want to do, but in any case, something should be added to the game that lives outside of the regular resource- and crafting-system and that rewards long journeys. I was personally thinking about some of the equipment coming with the equipment system in future not being able to be produced over the regular way, but needing to be found as "dungeon loot" or bought from certain, rare trader npcs.


These are just some thoughts I have been carrying around with myself for some time.

Thanks for reading.

 

[MDJinRoh]

Agree with you.
Nice suggestions.

 

[Madman198237]

Alright, good, the first reply was a nice one. Now then.....
1. Pirate spawning is a joke right now. We'll be getting more logical pirate wave spawning and more pirate ships soon. Once we do, there will indeed be an "easy" wave that will hit you until you're a bit more advanced. Or at least, so I assume.

2. Pirate loot drops are the bad joke with no punchline that just won't go away. They're utterly random an illogical, based on nothing. And I truly mean nothing. No nothing as in nothing of importance, I mean that a titan-sized pirate is as likely to give you 1 plant and some grass as a 5-block mini-vessel is likely to give you 1000 advanced armor (Pink advanced armor heptas, even). So yeah, something needs to be done.

3. Yeah. We would also like to see this improve. The problem is, you're suggesting these things and they've been suggested before.

4. Suggested before, so very, very many times. So many times.


Might I refer you to the Frequent Suggestions Megathread, a helpful resource where you'll find everything you suggest, in easy reach of a kudo and/or minor necro for discussion?

The devs have heard all of this before, but still, everyone (Almost) agrees with you----improvements are necessary.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Madman gave you a pretty good outlook on the current state. A good portion of your issues are widely known and are (as far as I am aware) on the list to be fixed. Mostly due to added features. The Dev's have stated before they want a more dynamic spawning system. IF I remember right, once they get the ship "Stats" sorted out they want to use that to spawn enemies that are about your ships level.

Your first experience with a ship and going against the pirates seems very much like mine. I was playing on a server with some old minecraft buddies, and got my rear handed to me while I was still constructing my first ship. I didn't even know shields existed ! Lucky for me the few people I played a lot with on our server knew a lot about the game (at that time) and were willing to get me up to speed fast on all the basics.

SO I can sympathize with the initial pirate woes. Being an occasional or casual player right now is a bit hard. Once you get past the learning curve though, the in game pirates are almost laughable. Unless they attack shortly after spawning into a new game... then they are still rage inducing spawn campers!

 

[sayerulz]

Lol git gud 5krub, rekd cus u have no 5kills n00b.

But in all seriousness, a dynamic spawn system for pirates- which is somewhere or another on the to-do list, will help a lot with this game. Right now, past a certain point, pirates become totally laughable. Before that, they are unstoppable. Loot also needs a revamp- because who actually wants 100000000000 purple advanced armor corners?

 

[Muspilator]

Thanks for your agreements here. Makes me see I'm not an exception.

IF I remember right, once they get the ship "Stats" sorted out they want to use that to spawn enemies that are about your ships level.

I have mixed feelings about enemies being adapted to your level. I was thinking more along the lines of single or small groups of aggressive but weak scout drones roaming the galaxy, which you can defeat with your start equipment or maybe, when they are in a group that you could defeat them with a little bit of additional armor and having advanced to 30 cannon barrels or something along those. Ideally you would be able to defeat single drones with your handcannon, even.

This would already make people like me happy. The fact that I need to flee from serious ships is a thing were I can experience some progression when my ship grows stronger over time. Nevertheless, a smaller enemy ship with about half the strength of the Isanth-VI would be ideal for another, slightly stronger enemy that you could fight when you have just grown past the drones.

I think my critizism on the system boils down to that the game is not really catering for casual/beginner/roleplaying characters that like to have a slower progression at the beginning. I'm not a player that likes to go massive right away with dozens or hundreds of mining lasers and factory enhancers (which you have to figure out as a new player anyway) from the beginning needed to get to the needed strength quickly. And if I read you others right, the game, on the other end is not providing a challenge for highend-players either, yet. I hope that both things will be addressed in future updates.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Well, there has also been talk of making the universe "Harder" the further from the center of the galaxy you are in. So I would imagine that the start of the enemy's would be pretty week, and scale up in the beginner areas to a point. Then if you wanted bigger challenges you would have to travel out further. This would also come with better resources / rewards further out. But that can't happen until they get enemy spawning working a bit better, instead of almost totally random.

I doubt you will ever see an enemy ship you can fight with your personal weapons. Those are really there for future boarding / NPC / Alien threats. So more for the flesh and blood enemies that should exist at some point. For a while they did have spiders spawning in the abandon stations. That was removed however and was only a test.

But as it stands right now, it is not easy starting for a new/casual player, and not challenging for an experienced player. You bring up some very valid points, and unfortunately the answer is "The issues are known, and will be fixed eventually".

Alpha games (IMO) Aren't something that is geared to the casual. Because the learning curve can be all over the place, Things change at the drop of a hat or the whim of a single Dev. You can't really keep up very well if your casual. It is nice to get a fresh perspective on the game from less experienced players though. Don't take this as me saying "Don't play if your not hardcore". I'm just pointing out that for the time being, it may be much more difficult to learn, and keep up with then when the game is closer to release.

I do hope you stick with the game until it becomes something you can enjoy even more. And feed back like this does manage to remind us that the game is not nearly as accessible as it needs to be.

 

[StormWing0]

Yes we need some weaker enemies for starting players to deal with. Been working on some loot Pinata ships that aren't nearly as dangerous at the millennia old Isanths. XD Never mind what custom pirates servers have or the new defaults that are coming.