StarMade Ship Systems 2.0

[petlahk]

StarMade - Devblog May 22nd 2017

 

[GalactusX]

Only in my personal opinion, the new great power rebalance is: Limit the player's creativity.

I explain myself:

• First started with the chain drives ... this way of continuously "loading" the warp system, that created two strands of thinking in the community: to allow or not to allow it. People began to use the "launching rails" to create fast clocks, instead of using these "launching rails" to "launch ships", Which was its main function.
• The solution of the development team was to create rules for "launching rails" that would cease to function under certain circumstances, because players were using a "tool" that they were free to use, to perform a function that was not Thought out.
• Then the developers created a system to have an "energy injector" for the same entity, but the three major drawbacks of using this system were so large that their use was unfeasible: they take up space to be functional, they need to "subtract "Energy to recharge, they are not as efficient in a long-term battle.
  
• Afterwards, players saw that the power generated in the same "entity" was not enough for their purposes (to feed the weapons, to feed the shields) ... then the "docked generators" were created, which contributed an increase in the regeneration Of energy and shields (using systems that until that time had not taken into account, and had never thought about "retouching" them).
• The solution of the developers was to "increase" the capacity of regeneration of energy in the same entity ... but for certain things, the players did not have enough, and continued using the "docked generators" ... after a time, they decided "Break" this "creative use" of the tools given to players.

I know that everything should change for the sake of starmade ... but take the creativity to "adapt" certain systems and their functions to do others things, should not be taken as an "exploit" or "abusing a bug".

A great example for example: "Astrotech Computer + Modules" ... this system "currently" has no function, because it is 99.9999 ...% not efficient, can only "restore" the durability of a block At the same time ... if a player finds an ingenious way to restore the durability of all blocks of an entire ship ... the whole system will be taken as something "negative" or "abuse of a bug / exploit" ... because this System was meant to restore the durability of a single block, not an entire ship ... Tell me, if this happens, it will be taken as something "witty" and taken into account as "something very useful" ... or it will be taken as something negative, against everything established ... and thought to be "totally removed Of the game " so that it is not used again ...

Instead of taking something like "negative", why not work, what users create, and possibly "improve it"?

 

[33Cav]

How does this solve the issue of self powered turrets having effectively no drain on the main ship?

Isn't the point of self powered turrets to have NO drain on the main ship because they are SELF-powered?
Also I mentioned that once the main ship's reactor is disabled the reactors all the way down the tree are also disabled as a measure to prevent spreading out RHP for survivability reasons.

 

[Lecic]

Only in my personal opinion, the new great power rebalance is: Limit the player's creativity.

I explain myself:

• First started with the chain drives ... this way of continuously "loading" the warp system, that created two strands of thinking in the community: to allow or not to allow it. People began to use the "launching rails" to create fast clocks, instead of using these "launching rails" to "launch ships", Which was its main function.
• The solution of the development team was to create rules for "launching rails" that would cease to function under certain circumstances, because players were using a "tool" that they were free to use, to perform a function that was not Thought out.
• Then the developers created a system to have an "energy injector" for the same entity, but the three major drawbacks of using this system were so large that their use was unfeasible: they take up space to be functional, they need to "subtract "Energy to recharge, they are not as efficient in a long-term battle.
  
• Afterwards, players saw that the power generated in the same "entity" was not enough for their purposes (to feed the weapons, to feed the shields) ... then the "docked generators" were created, which contributed an increase in the regeneration Of energy and shields (using systems that until that time had not taken into account, and had never thought about "retouching" them).
• The solution of the developers was to "increase" the capacity of regeneration of energy in the same entity ... but for certain things, the players did not have enough, and continued using the "docked generators" ... after a time, they decided "Break" this "creative use" of the tools given to players.

I know that everything should change for the sake of starmade ... but take the creativity to "adapt" certain systems and their functions to do others things, should not be taken as an "exploit" or "abusing a bug".

A great example for example: "Astrotech Computer + Modules" ... this system "currently" has no function, because it is 99.9999 ...% not efficient, can only "restore" the durability of a block At the same time ... if a player finds an ingenious way to restore the durability of all blocks of an entire ship ... the whole system will be taken as something "negative" or "abuse of a bug / exploit" ... because this System was meant to restore the durability of a single block, not an entire ship ... Tell me, if this happens, it will be taken as something "witty" and taken into account as "something very useful" ... or it will be taken as something negative, against everything established ... and thought to be "totally removed Of the game " so that it is not used again ...

Instead of taking something like "negative", why not work, what users create, and possibly "improve it"?

Keeping and maintaining incredibly broken, laggy, and unintended mechanics for the sake of preserving "creativity" is not good for the game, for server owners, or for the developers. It is much better for the devs to either kill outright broken exploit mechanics (ionized SSUs, stacked ion, docked and/or clipped armor, stacked power, etc) and to replace the decent ones with more stable, easier to rebalance mechanics (docked reactors -> auxiliaries, chain drives -> JD reactor chambers, push pulse drone launching -> launch rail drone launching, etc).

Isn't the point of self powered turrets to have NO drain on the main ship because they are SELF-powered?

Yes, that is the point of them, and that is the issue. An active system should have more drain on the ship it is mounted on than the cost of needing more thrusters to move its mass.

Also I mentioned that once the main ship's reactor is disabled the reactors all the way down the tree are also disabled as a measure to prevent spreading out RHP for survivability reasons

Why would a turrets reactor function perfectly fine on its own until the ship it's docked to goes kaput? If it just matches the RHP effects of the main ship, why not just go the full step and make it only draw power from the main ship?

 

[refirendum]

i just kind of think that this proposal is more complex and confusing than the first proposal. it's just getting worse and more convoluted.

 

[DrTarDIS]

I'm just gonna go out on a limb and point out the next gen exploit I'm going to try right away:
main ship will still have docked armor, turrets, etc, all self powered, and the moment it's sheilds drop below 90% will "explode" in a sudden launching of all it's docked entities into a drone-swarm of doom.

Take that "planned single reactor" phooeyness.

 

[Levarith]

Yes, that is the point of them, and that is the issue. An active system should have more drain on the ship it is mounted on than the cost of needing more thrusters to move its mass.

I'm just curious... if i put the extra effort into the system itself to make it self sufficient why should it be more of a drain? i made the thing bulkier to free up ship systems to focus on the ship itself and because of the additional bulk i had to add more thrusters... why should it be even more of a drain to my main vessel?
[doublepost=1495625522,1495624339][/doublepost]Also, just had a thought... with internal power storage on a weapon system... would that make it possible for a 50 block fighter to not only carry but fire 1 time a 12 block nuke system... since it would get fully charged while docked to the main ship then launched with enough power to fire once... i know i read about replacing the subsystems but through chambers i feel like that would still be a real possibility since it would be based on the size of the on board reactor...

 

[MacThule]

For a turret to be self powered it either needs to be big and usually underpowered for its size.

I dont see an issue tbh.

Under-powered compared to an unpowered turret, absolutely.

And compared to an undocked ship of similar size that also requires 10-20% of its mass allocated to thrust, plus jump?

Still underpowered?

 

[TheOmega]

Yeah, there could be so many exploits with having entities docked use their own reactors. I believe I have a solution, but I probably don't. What if only the entities docked to turret axes had their reactors disabled? That would allow drones that are actually drones and docked ships to have their own reactor-chamber system active constantly, but disable their ability to draw power from the ship it is docked to. Not only does this solve a major problem about how drones would work while docked, and solves the other half of the equation assuming self powered turrets should not happen.

Most major concerns about self powered turrets are centered around the ship's ability to power them, however, with a linear power scale I do not believe it would be that hard to add power, considering there is no specific group shape required for the reactors.

 

[Olxinos]

What if only the entities docked to turret axes had their reactors disabled?

Then you can still have a "self"-powered turret by docking a dedicated reactor with a regular rail basic, and dock the turret on this reactor.
Actually, it's sometimes the preferred option as you have lighter and smaller moving parts (the downside being the additional docked entity, potentially causing more lag and adding an extra weak-point)

Edit:

Also, just had a thought... with internal power storage on a weapon system... would that make it possible for a 50 block fighter to not only carry but fire 1 time a 12 block nuke system... since it would get fully charged while docked to the main ship then launched with enough power to fire once... i know i read about replacing the subsystems but through chambers i feel like that would still be a real possibility since it would be based on the size of the on board reactor...

IIRC, weapons were said to slowly decharge when they aren't provided with enough power. If you haven't enough power to charge your nuke, it's likely you haven't enough power to keep it charged [Edit2: if not, that's something that could actually be abused, depends on the numbers, it might be possible but I wouldn't rely too much on it].

 

[TheOmega]

Then you can still have a "self"-powered turret by docking a dedicated reactor with a regular rail basic, and dock the turret on this reactor.
Actually, it's sometimes the preferred option as you have lighter and smaller moving parts (the downside being the additional docked entity, potentially causing more lag and adding an extra weak-point)

I thought about that, and it isn't a bad idea. Why don't we do this now with mass enhancers? A stationary platform with its own enhancers is much more efficient than stacking them all on the main ship. Why do we even need mass enhancers? Get rid of them and make turn and travel speed based purely on mass. While we're at it, why does turn rate factor in the ship's bounding box? If anything having a larger box would mean you could turn faster with the same mass.

ANYWAY back to the topic. There will always be exploits. We should have somebody make a post with all the pros and cons of having self powered turrets versus non powered turrets from a gameplay, balance, and implementation standpoint. Then everybody could vote. THEN Schine could add a config option for whoever it is who would get butthurt, and have the default be what the community wants.

 

[kulbolen]

d generally non cubicle design,

cubes are very weak compared to some other designs.

And compared to an undocked ship of similar size that also requires 10-20% of its mass allocated to thrust, plus jump?

Still underpowered?

yes. with equal engineering, mass for mass, smaller ships will easily outpower a larger ships regardless of how perfectly tuned its turrets are... youre zooming in on the variables that agree with you. the larger ship, with perfectly tuned turrets that do more dps than equivalent sized ships, also needs to carry tons of significantly less efficient blocks like thrust, aux, shield caps, etc. while large ships are convenient and easy to use compared to fleets, they are significantly weaker. cip i can make a 3k drone to 380k dps while retaining thrust and shielding, but i cant make a 300k ship do 38 million dps without gimping its stats entirely or making it unplayable on servers. im betting you cant either.

also, a capital ship turret thats as large as a small fighter SHOULD do a lot more dmg than the fighter does. otherwise capital ship turrets would be kinda pointless, you could just use the fighters guns in the turret instead, which for some ludicrous reason is more powerful than the cap guns in that scenario.

that said, i think the game needs some kinda stability fix and the current raildock spamming method of ship optimization is part of the instability problem. 1 small part of a massive inherent issue in the games design. i dont care about peoples complaints that my ships are unfair or too strong, and i think good engineering should be encouraged and rewarded... but for the sake of the game being playable and marketable, it probably needs to change.
[doublepost=1495651592,1495651360][/doublepost]

Then you can still have a "self"-powered turret by docking a dedicated reactor with a regular rail basic, and dock the turret on this reactor.
Actually, it's sometimes the preferred option as you have lighter and smaller moving parts (the downside being the additional docked entity, potentially causing more lag and adding an extra weak-point)

this is not a good option. mass enhancers are far better compromise than docked gens. its a last resort when you want to retain your ships looks, because the generator can form to the ship hull and make it look however you like. its weaker functionally, because most shots will aim for the main ship, not turrets, so the docked generator will break quicker than a self powered turret sticking out the side of the ship wouldve. and the big one you already mentioned, it multiplies lag a lot.

 

[MacThule]

take the creativity to "adapt" certain systems and their functions to do others things, should not be taken as an "exploit" or "abusing a bug".

Using tools creatively is definitely not an exploit.

Creatively using tools to consciously arrange conditions that are predictably laggy with the intent to dominate human reflexes through liberal use of AI (which is not affected by the predicted lag) is an exploit. As is anything similar.

Tell me, if this happens, it will be taken as something "witty" and taken into account as "something very useful" ... or it will be taken as something negative, against everything established ... and thought to be "totally removed Of the game " so that it is not used again ...

If it's being used in a way that negatively impacts gameplay for all but a tiny minority, then you can be pretty sure that any development team worth their salt will take action to fix the negative impact by whatever means necessary.

Celebrating player creativity cannot take priority over developing a fun final product. One of the primary goals of Alpha-stage Playtesting is to uncover such unforeseen potentials so they can be addressed - either by removal or formal incorporation in a balanced manner.
[doublepost=1495654563,1495651641][/doublepost]

youre zooming in on the variables that agree with you.

Just questioning; it's almost impossible to reliably compare the two (your assertions aren't 'fact' but rather arguable personal estimations), but it should be considered. Have you seen a Large Mobile Defense Platform used in game? No thrust, just a small auto-charging jump drive and bristling with turrets the size of cruisers? When it jumps in, everyone within sight is crippled by lag and its AI turrets shred everything unless someone has larger, faster AI turrets active within range to shred it first. It creates a 100% AI meta.

My concern is not an issue of turret effectiveness. It's an issue of lag-predicated building, and that is not unique to Starmade - I've been randomly teamed with SC2 players who openly talk about their build being a lag build explicitly meant to overwhelm an opponent's ability to micro. It's a common meta, but it's also always an exploit and needs to be checked in every way possible unless the intent of the game is to be an AI simulator (a la Robocode). Starmade multiplayer is particularly heavily hit by it.

Lag+AI is always OP and always will be OP inside a digitally simulated environment. IRL humans are immune to lag and AIs experiencing any kind of slowdown in processing or transmission would be easily dominated by humans. In digital environments the reverse is true.

Getting rid of the absurd reactor turrets is an important step in the right direction and is long overdue, in part because turret reactors multiply power base to a degree that cannot be balanced for. There's no apparent precedent for them anywhere and they seem to unbalance the game. I'm glad to hear that you are also concerned about stability... do you feel that Starmade's extremely unique, self-powered turrets are somehow 'necessary' to balanced gameplay?

Because I'm not hating on turrets in general, I love my turrets and using turrets isn't abusive. I just hate docked reactors that allow abusers to override caps and scale entities beyond the game's ability to process relatively lag-free. Honestly, if docked power dynamics hadn't been the means of bypassing softcaps for so long I probably wouldn't be opposed, but given the history I think that priority should be given to stabilizing combat rather than preservation of this bizarre little game feature (guns with reactors inside them) that will almost certainly continue to act as a window for exploitation later if not closed now. Near infinite potential to scale power on a ship means that no performance optimizations can ever check the lag potential and the game's meta will always be about planning for AI simulations under heavy lag. Installing variables for servads to set limits on fleet sizes, members, and child DEs as well as individual ship & station DEs would be another good provisional step, IMO, but I'll be happy for now to see entity scalability fitted with some kind of maximum that can be adjusted to game optimization to limit players' ability to purposefully overbuild performance capability.

 

[kulbolen]

your assertions aren't 'fact' but rather arguable personal estimations

they are fact, and i have and can prove it. you just havent figured them out yet, so you treat them as opinion.

i agree about the lag issues, as noted at the bottom of my post. doesnt mean its intentional. youre treating what players do to gain power to mass as an exploit because you assume theyre purposely lagging you, when 99 times out of 100, theyre not. im one of them, and i fight with and against otherswho do... none of us purposely lag each other.

I've been randomly teamed with SC2 players

this isnt sc2.

Getting rid of the absurd reactor turrets is an important step in the right direction and is long overdue, in part because turret reactors multiply power base to a degree that cannot be balanced for. There's no apparent precedent for them anywhere and they seem to unbalance the game. I'm glad to hear that you are also concerned about stability... do you feel that Starmade's extremely unique, self-powered turrets are somehow 'necessary' to balanced gameplay?

ill try to answer this one civilly since you were kind enough to ask my input.

i dont think its relevant whether or not theres a precedent, both because space fantasies dont need precedents for their mechanics, and because power has never been a very "realism or precedent" based mechanic anyway, so looking for a precedent is a pointless affair. despite that, i can find some sci fi weapons that independently power, because they fire conventional ammunition thats stored in the turret housing... and they dont fire "energy ammo." regardless, i think its silly to make your unique game follow historical trends *just because*.

on the topic of game stability however, i agree with you. i think something needs to change, simply cause its making the game behave poorly. heres my take though:

self powered turrets multiplying force are an incentive to build turrets, so the "ghetto fix" is to remove self powered turrets to try to drive people into building less of them. this isnt the actual problem though, its just a symptom. the problem is docked entities in general arent stable, and it multiples the larger they are and more of them they are. removing self powered turrets wont fix this, itll simply "lessen" the impact. docked entities need to perform better, or be removed, period.

as a player who uses self powered turrets to minmax dps, i can safely say i dont do it to cause lag, and i have 2 priorities when building ships. power to mass, and power to server impact. i also use main ship guns, because in some ways theyre far more reliable than turrets. it wouldnt be in my best interest to lag the server to kill people, even if i were the type to value an unfair fight.

i personally like self powered turrets, because they provide a way to engineer better ship performance and they give a lot of variety to ship weapon layouts over just nose guns. i dont like the idea of dumbing the game down to *equalize*(edited, whoops) entry level ships and time consuming minmax builds, but i do value server stability and a more playable game.

my issue with you is that youre shitting on a game mechanic because its not prevalent in real life or other games and youre exaggerating to "prove" your point. i personally like when games do unique and creative things and i think its a huge step back to try to push stuff into your comfort zone instead of letting it be different. if it didnt cause lag, id have literally no problem with it, and id continue to beat down on people who use turrets exclusively because of how op they think they are.

 

[MgnfcntBstrd]

If I could put a reactor on my ship that puts out 40 million power without having to use 1.5 million reactor blocks, I'd be fine with removing the power from my turrets. :D

 

[petlahk]

my issue with you is that youre shitting on a game mechanic because its not prevalent in real life or other games and youre exaggerating to "prove" your point. i personally like when games do unique and creative things and i think its a huge step back to try to push stuff into your comfort zone instead of letting it be different. if it didnt cause lag, id have literally no problem with it, and id continue to beat down on people who use turrets exclusively because of how op they think they are.

First off man, you need to chill out. Like, take a step back from the computer and take a breather.
Secondly, I think ignoring his other pieces of input simply because he's trying to put things in a perspective of how things work in real life and other games is a bad move. I would also like to kindly ask you to please review the things you've said and figure out if they are indeed 'fact' as you say they are. And, finally, umm, try to think about what the developers said in their posts about the power update, try not to take things personally, and remember that it's just a game dude.

 

[kulbolen]

First off man, you need to chill out. Like, take a step back from the computer and take a breather.
Secondly, I think ignoring his other pieces of input simply because he's trying to put things in a perspective of how things work in real life and other games is a bad move. I would also like to kindly ask you to please review the things you've said and figure out if they are indeed 'fact' as you say they are. And, finally, umm, try to think about what the developers said in their posts about the power update, try not to take things personally, and remember that it's just a game dude.

im not ignoring his input, im debating it. reviewed; yep, fact. challenge if youd like. im enjoying my coffee and playing with my kid while i browse the internet, its really not that serious. thank you for your concern though!

 

[petlahk]

im not ignoring his input, im debating it. reviewed; yep, fact. challenge if youd like. im enjoying my coffee and playing with my kid while i browse the internet, its really not that serious. thank you for your concern though!

Heh. Sorry for that. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) we're all on the same side of having the proposal. Sorry for getting a bit carried away.

 

[kulbolen]

Heh. Sorry for that. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) we're all on the same side of having the proposal. Sorry for getting a bit carried away.

dont worry about it i know my words are inflammatory. i expect macthules a big boy and can handle himself though =p

as i stand on the proposal, i know a change is needed; im on the fence about how that change should happen. itll introduce a huge change to how we play the game. i dont think ill know whether or not i actually like it til it happens; my speculation has little meaning because without ratios and numbers etc, the base proposal doesnt say a lot. on its face, i think it sounds good except im not happy about the flat distances stabilizers need to be from reactors.

 

[MacThule]

they are fact, and i have and can prove it. you just havent figured them out yet, so you treat them as opinion.

i agree about the lag issues, as noted at the bottom of my post. doesnt mean its intentional. youre treating what players do to gain power to mass as an exploit because you assume theyre purposely lagging you, when 99 times out of 100, theyre not. im one of them, and i fight with and against otherswho do... none of us purposely lag each other.



this isnt sc2.



ill try to answer this one civilly since you were kind enough to ask my input.

i dont think its relevant whether or not theres a precedent, both because space fantasies dont need precedents for their mechanics, and because power has never been a very "realism or precedent" based mechanic anyway, so looking for a precedent is a pointless affair. despite that, i can find some sci fi weapons that independently power, because they fire conventional ammunition thats stored in the turret housing... and they dont fire "energy ammo." regardless, i think its silly to make your unique game follow historical trends *just because*.

on the topic of game stability however, i agree with you. i think something needs to change, simply cause its making the game behave poorly. heres my take though:

self powered turrets multiplying force are an incentive to build turrets, so the "ghetto fix" is to remove self powered turrets to try to drive people into building less of them. this isnt the actual problem though, its just a symptom. the problem is docked entities in general arent stable, and it multiples the larger they are and more of them they are. removing self powered turrets wont fix this, itll simply "lessen" the impact. docked entities need to perform better, or be removed, period.

as a player who uses self powered turrets to minmax dps, i can safely say i dont do it to cause lag, and i have 2 priorities when building ships. power to mass, and power to server impact. i also use main ship guns, because in some ways theyre far more reliable than turrets. it wouldnt be in my best interest to lag the server to kill people, even if i were the type to value an unfair fight.

i personally like self powered turrets, because they provide a way to engineer better ship performance and they give a lot of variety to ship weapon layouts over just nose guns. i dont like the idea of dumbing the game down to *equalize*(edited, whoops) entry level ships and time consuming minmax builds, but i do value server stability and a more playable game.

my issue with you is that youre shitting on a game mechanic because its not prevalent in real life or other games and youre exaggerating to "prove" your point. i personally like when games do unique and creative things and i think its a huge step back to try to push stuff into your comfort zone instead of letting it be different. if it didnt cause lag, id have literally no problem with it, and id continue to beat down on people who use turrets exclusively because of how op they think they are.

There's obviously no need to point out that "this is not SC2," especially since I mentioned it specifically as an example of another game lag where lag is used in exploit builds. So why do you take a whole separate quote to state that as if something in my post led you believe that i was confused about this or conflating SC2 with Starmade in any way shape or form??

Also, I'd love to see a link to your proof that "factually" demonstrates how a 50k or 100k powered turret on a MDP has less firepower than a 50k or 100k ship. It seems unlikely in the extreme to be a comprehensive treatment, but it's always possible.

I haven't "shit on" anything, I've stated several times that if docked power hadn't been abused literally for years to overcome the power curves (which might as well not even exist along with auxiliaries, but DO, proving developer intent to resist infinite power scalabilty) I would have no problem with them. I am just standing by the fact that exploiting lag is contrary to gameplay intent. Because I feel that the developers' time and energy could be better spent than in playing cat and mouse with attempting to balance a dynamic that contains an open door to bypassing gaelmeplay-based controls. I've never insisted that ALL in game lag is deliberate - I genuinely believe that most people who embrace the AI meta dont even understand why it's the bomb, but I hope you are aware that some individuals are very aware of it. It only takes 1 or 2 people on a MP server deliberately doing it to ruin everyone else's fun. Hell, it only takes one bored idiot with all day to spend on MP doing it out of pure ignorance and just being stoked about how invincible his ship is to ruin it for everyone else.

Do you believe that no one in Starmade deliberately exploits lag to gain advantage for their turrets & drones against other players? Does intent even matter in this case, if the dynamic still results in an OP meta through AI turrets on laggy entities? It would seem to amount to the same effect in gameplay terms - severe imbalance & wasting dev team time by crippling multiple features intended to balance combat (power caps & maneuverability penalties - both checks against gigantism).