Starmade just got 0wned...

[kulbolen]

yeah unity lets people who know nothing build games, but i dont see that as a rpoblem. other people perceive unity to have issues just because the developer didnt know what they were doing... but this is only half true cause like someone said above unity DOES have mem management issues that are difficult and tedious to try to fight.

about java, all depends on the project i imagine, but at the top end, even the most experienced professionals who know a lot more than i do and have the skill to "work around" java problems, complain about the wasted time and efficiency fighting java instead of just using another language.

but in general i recommend using whatever you want and learning how to work with it unless youre doing a particular niche project...

 

[Criss]

Devs can we have this doom laser, compact logic and holograms

I'm not even sure the doom laser in the trailer works. How is that setup? What process does a player have to go through to tell the game that four lasers on four separate moving parts should combine and form one mega laser? Watch the trailer again. Does the ship actually blow up or was it covered up with the explosion animation to hide the fact that it's still there. The trailer proves that you can build these things, but not that they really work. It's a "what if" sort of thing. Of course it's early to claim the game will deliver or not.

I just wanted to point that out. Aside from that, compact logic is likely never happening. Compacting logic will decrease performance. There are players that would have every door on their ship change, every display swap text. Denser logic = performance impact. Also, there is little actual gameplay impact when it comes to logic. Logic is good for automating weapons / jump drives right now. But sliding doors and the like mean very little in the way of how you play the game. What is the difference between opening a door block, and pushing a button to slide the door open? Not much. Compact shapes would be great, but we would rather keep things straight forward. One size fits all.

Holographic maps sounds nice and we thought about it at one point. It's a cosmetic rp thing for the moment until we integrate it with gameplay, so something like that is put on hold while factions/npc's/the universe gets fleshed out.

 

[Scypio]

The "doom" laser can be made in sm btw. SkylordLuke did one iirc.

 

[takethispie]

I think the laser of doom is made up as is the explosion animation or else I am missing a big thing when I am testing the game xD
also I am pretty sure the game is not an infinite world like in starmade meaning it is like Elite where you can't reach (or more precisly you reach your destination but the game does not render the objects) a destination without going to warp to load the game world around you, because the dev stated in one of his video that the warp take approx. 20sec to get the time to recompute the skybox

EDIT: I am not saying skywanderers is bad, just that it is different and will not follow the path of starmade

 

[El_Poulpy]

I'm not even sure the doom laser in the trailer works. How is that setup? What process does a player have to go through to tell the game that four lasers on four separate moving parts should combine and form one mega laser?

Apparently it works. Ask Raiben, he built that ship.

 

[Lecic]

Devs can we have this doom laser,

It's perfectly possible to build a "doom laser" with the same intersection mechanic in Starmade, and it will actually be capable of doing damage too. I don't even think Skywanderers has functional weapons yet, and if they do, they certainly don't look like how they look in the trailer. That explosion is CLEARLY after effects.

 

[Criss]

It's perfectly possible to build a "doom laser" with the same intersection mechanic in Starmade, and it will actually be capable of doing damage too. I don't even think Skywanderers has functional weapons yet, and if they do, they certainly don't look like how they look in the trailer. That explosion is CLEARLY after effects.

I believe they do have weapons. However I have not yet seen major difference in weapon scale. Seems to be a combination of space engineers fixed sizes, and starmades customization. So a small weapon platform that one can attach different components to.

Not sure how the damage system works either, or if it is optimized/makes sense/scales well.

 

[Calhoun]

There are players that would have every door on their ship change, every display swap text.

You rang?

 

[ZombieMouse]

Starmade hasn't been owned by Skywanderers, with its inherently flawed Unity engine choice, and it never will be, because it cannot and will not ever be able to handle the extreme. This is true for every other competitor of Starmade- their focus on fancy graphics and special models for every block are ultimately their downfall.

This is one of the main reasons my friends and I stopped playing From the Depths and came to StarMade instead. At 50,000 blocks ships lagged badly unless you had a monster PC. In StarMade we've built things 10 times larger without problems. Don't get me wrong, FtD is a great game, very complex, with many interesting engineering challenges, but it got to the point where endless new features made the game unplayable in terms of performance. The optimization is the number-one thing StarMade has going for it.

The other main reason for switching to StarMade was a fully working multi-player, however 'unfinished' people say it is.

 

[GalactusX]

Starmade has good things and bad things, other games can other good and bad things too, they can be very similar or very different, but the only thing they have in common, is that players who like and amuse them, do not care what others Games can offer them.

I have been playing starmade for more than 3 years in a row, and yes, I have played other types of games, but I always go back to play because what I find in it always motivates me to keep playing it.

 

[kurosawa]

You rang?

I build using templates all my doors uses logic and displays that changes
so adding 1 block that contain it all sure would save space

 

[NeonSturm]

Also, there is little actual gameplay impact when it comes to logic.

Sorry Criss, you might be wrong here.
Logic isn't useful now because we can't access target vectors/sizes or scroll through targets,
but it might allow us to build our own AI if we could access all variables and functions SM exposes to the player-UI.

 

[Criss]

Sorry Criss, you might be wrong here.
Logic isn't useful now because we can't access target vectors/sizes or scroll through targets,
but it might allow us to build our own AI if we could access all variables and functions SM exposes to the player-UI.

Okay, but until that is a thing in the game, my point still stands I think. Is this programmable logic-based AI expected from the community? This is the first I've heard of it. Increasing options for the bobby AI module is one thing, but programming it is an even farther step. No plans for this as I know it.

 

[NeonSturm]

Criss
REGAI - Blueprinting regex-AIs

I think AI's work like pathfinding.
A → B → C → D
A → B = distance of 1
A → D = distance of 4

If the AI follows the shortest path, and searches a path between A and D, it will result in A→B→C→D in the processor register / cache / short term memory.
If you search a path between ADJECTIVE and A, you get A's ADJECTIVE linked between A and ADJECTIVE, which allows you to form sentences.

And sentences are nothing else but program code. Each word, letter or sentence is a little program.
And (A & B)
sentence (struct {typeA, typeB, …})
are (1, 2 = …)
nothing 0
else (all options - previous)
…
​

In the above thread, I have written everything I have learned.
Ofcourse I also learned how to mathematically express human behaviour, but that's a thing for the database, not the cpu-design.​

 

[navy3000]

does the skywounders thing have Fleet Controls?

 

[Alphajim]

I'm not even sure the doom laser in the trailer works. How is that setup? What process does a player have to go through to tell the game that four lasers on four separate moving parts should combine and form one mega laser? Watch the trailer again. Does the ship actually blow up or was it covered up with the explosion animation to hide the fact that it's still there. The trailer proves that you can build these things, but not that they really work. It's a "what if" sort of thing. Of course it's early to claim the game will deliver or not.

Maybe the same way we link two warp gates ^^

I just wanted to point that out. Aside from that, compact logic is likely never happening. Compacting logic will decrease performance. There are players that would have every door on their ship change, every display swap text. Denser logic = performance impact. Also, there is little actual gameplay impact when it comes to logic. Logic is good for automating weapons / jump drives right now. But sliding doors and the like mean very little in the way of how you play the game. What is the difference between opening a door block, and pushing a button to slide the door open? Not much. Compact shapes would be great, but we would rather keep things straight forward. One size fits all.

If it impacts that much performance then yeah I prefer the actual mechanic. But it can save so much space if made really well optimized (think about a complexe station without a whole logic area...)

Holographic maps sounds nice and we thought about it at one point. It's a cosmetic rp thing for the moment until we integrate it with gameplay, so something like that is put on hold while factions/npc's/the universe gets fleshed out.

Sounds really cool, I'll wait :D

 

[NeonSturm]

Compacting logic will decrease performance. There are players that would have every door on their ship change, every display swap text. Denser logic = performance impact.

Sorry that I missed it earlier, but this is another point which is only half true.
Compact logic can be more efficient - it's topological complexity which hurts performance.

A simple complex example:

If someone can store 8 bits in a logic block for it's 8 corners (which can individually light up) …
… then schema could use it like a byte value in java.
Which means that instead of simulating a complex rebuild of an adder, you use the hardware-resources directly to do that.
​

A topological complex example:

using BINARY_AND for bit0 and BINARY_OR for bit1..7
But even topologically complexity can be optimized.

3+3 blocks can do any operation on 3 bits as long as they are linked to a logic-core in a way that it knows which operation to perform.
3 doors which have a area-sensor, a door and another area sensor "(3 inputs) to (1 output) each" can share the same logic-core.

This helps the network code (you don't have to transmit intermediate results, only start→end).

The network code/cpu operates with multi/bytes and now you have up to 8 bits bound together and grouped into tasks instead of having them loose.​

 

[Criss]

Sorry that I missed it earlier, but this is another point which is only half true.
Compact logic can be more efficient - it's topological complexity which hurts performance.

A simple complex example:

If someone can store 8 bits in a logic block for it's 8 corners (which can individually light up) …
… then schema could use it like a byte value in java.
Which means that instead of simulating a complex rebuild of an adder, you use the hardware-resources directly to do that.
​

A topological complex example:

using BINARY_AND for bit0 and BINARY_OR for bit1..7
But even topologically complexity can be optimized.

3+3 blocks can do any operation on 3 bits as long as they are linked to a logic-core in a way that it knows which operation to perform.
3 doors which have a area-sensor, a door and another area sensor "(3 inputs) to (1 output) each" can share the same logic-core.

This helps the network code (you don't have to transmit intermediate results, only start→end).

The network code/cpu operates with multi/bytes and now you have up to 8 bits bound together and grouped into tasks instead of having them loose.​

I am sorry friend. You are talking to the wrong person about this stuff. I don't have enough knowledge on how logic works, the game stores it's block data, or possible solutions. What I do know is Schema has no intention currently to reduce logic block size. I'm not saying it's never happening, but I am sure that we won't be investigating it anytime soon either.

 

[takethispie]

Criss
REGAI - Blueprinting regex-AIs

I think AI's work like pathfinding.
A → B → C → D
A → B = distance of 1
A → D = distance of 4

If the AI follows the shortest path, and searches a path between A and D, it will result in A→B→C→D in the processor register / cache / short term memory.
If you search a path between ADJECTIVE and A, you get A's ADJECTIVE linked between A and ADJECTIVE, which allows you to form sentences.

And sentences are nothing else but program code. Each word, letter or sentence is a little program.
And (A & B)
sentence (struct {typeA, typeB, …})
are (1, 2 = …)
nothing 0
else (all options - previous)
…
​

In the above thread, I have written everything I have learned.
Ofcourse I also learned how to mathematically express human behaviour, but that's a thing for the database, not the cpu-design.​

pathfinding is a part of AI, it's a search algorithm not an IA by itself
sentences are anything but program code, programming langages are context free, natural langages are not

 

[GalactusX]

Schema has no intention currently to reduce logic block size

Ok... Instead of reducing the size or adding new logical blocks ... what about "adding new functions-interactions" with other blocks? For example:
- Display Block: Allow change the text color using the same system like rails. You know, color light + logic block + display block, instead of enter the css/html color.
- Delay Block: Press R to config the "cicle time", instead of have the 0,5 sec by default, why not enter the desired time you want?
- Sensor Block: We right now, we have no way to know the number of items inside a storage box, why not press R and enter an item number to detect if it is located next to one?

With only that 3 things, we could greatly reduce our creations.