Starmade Shipyards

[Krazykat]

snip

this is not going to replace anything, just create another game essentially connected to starmade I am guessing

 

[Bench]

While a cool sounding concept, I see it as being detrimental when we already have a system of free information in place.

As somebody who likes to offer my ships freely and doesn't like the idea of a metagame that breeds elitism I really can't support this idea. I already find it a hassle when browsing the community content section and I want to download a ship that is only posted on a third party site. It would be incredibly inconvenient and disparaging to find a nice ship on the forums only to find out it is linked to "Starmade Shipyards" and I would have to "buy" it. It would be disadvantageous for anybody wanting to use the system to post the ships on the starmade dock as those ships are available freely and they won't make "money". I already feel there is too much "secret" and "exclusive" designs, while I understand it in context to faction wars I really don't want to see having to buy and trade added to it.

Yeah I understand that point of view. I agree there's too many "secret" designs and players creating incredible work that they spend weeks or months on, and then they don't want to share it, only show it off. The idea of the shipyards was to give them a place where you could say, yes... i see you've spent months building this thing, so let me give you rewards in a metagame (as you put it) to thank you for deciding to share it with other players.

I get a lot of ships submitted for the upcoming Starmade trailer, over 200 by now. Most of these ships you can't download anywhere, as players don't want to share them publicly. Which is kind of sad. I get to do the showcase videos and play around with these incredible ships, but unless they've uploaded it somewhere to share it then i'm the only one who gets to see them.

So the shipyard site is to give players like that rewards for deciding to share it with the community, and it even goes beyond that. It makes players feel good knowing that some player has saved up their credits to purchase YOUR ship. And for the player purchasing, having to work towards purchasing a ship sometimes, will make you value it so much more.

Players can still use the Starmade Dock, they can still use the community content section, in fact we're discussing the best ways of integration. We're looking at where to have listed whether a ship is exclusive to the shipyards site or it can be downloaded elsewhere. But it has grown from simple ship sharing into a full-fledged trading card game, an experience they won't get elsewhere. Since usernames are the same on this forum, there's no reason why... if you're not playing on the shipyards site but you do see a ship you wouldn't mind downloading, just message that user and ask them, and they can just give you a download link.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

this is not going to replace anything, just create another game essentially connected to starmade I am guessing

A problem arises when more people decide to use the Shipyard exclusively thus cutting off access to these ships for anybody who isn't interested in meta game.

Yeah I understand that point of view. I agree there's too many "secret" designs and players creating incredible work that they spend weeks or months on, and then they don't want to share it, only show it off. The idea of the shipyards was to give them a place where you could say, yes... i see you've spent months building this thing, so let me give you rewards in a metagame (as you put it) to thank you for deciding to share it with other players.

I get a lot of ships submitted for the upcoming Starmade trailer, over 200 by now. Most of these ships you can't download anywhere, as players don't want to share them publicly. Which is kind of sad. I get to do the showcase videos and play around with these incredible ships, but unless they've uploaded it somewhere to share it then i'm the only one who gets to see them.

So the shipyard site is to give players like that rewards for deciding to share it with the community, and it even goes beyond that. It makes players feel good knowing that some player has saved up their credits to purchase YOUR ship. And for the player purchasing, having to work towards purchasing a ship sometimes, will make you value it so much more.

Players can still use the Starmade Dock, they can still use the community content section, in fact we're discussing the best ways of integration. We're looking at where to have listed whether a ship is exclusive to the shipyards site or it can be downloaded elsewhere. But it has grown from simple ship sharing into a full-fledged trading card game, an experience they won't get elsewhere. Since usernames are the same on this forum, there's no reason why... if you're not playing on the shipyards site but you do see a ship you wouldn't mind downloading, just message that user and ask them, and they can just give you a download link.

Having a "paid" version and a "free" version is if you are participating in the metagame it is against your interest to even use the starmade dock.

I do understand the draw of having a tie in card game, it's a really interesting concept. I'm just worried about limiting access to these .sment files from people who don't want to participate. Simply PMing and asking takes away from the simplicity of the current system as well as removes the ships from the built in rating/ reviews process as well as it is still against the interest of Shipyard users to give away the ships. I guess it could open up some doors where people who hesitate sharing their ships may in fact share them but that is a small bonus. Most people who have "classified" ships or use "release candidates" will probably still keep doing what they are doing now though. (From what I understand the practice of "release candidate" is releasing dumbed down versions of your ships to the public while keeping the better versions for yourself. I find this insulting and elitist)

 

[Bench]

We'll see what happens. I'm expecting that uploading ships will still be done through the registry, and then on the shipyards site you can add a ship you've uploaded. But it's all dependent on wherever the registry is heading as well. We'd need to look at how to best meet the needs of both camps.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

We'll see what happens. I'm expecting that uploading ships will still be done through the registry, and then on the shipyards site you can add a ship you've uploaded. But it's all dependent on wherever the registry is heading as well. We'd need to look at how to best meet the needs of both camps.

It would be interesting to see the metagame taken farther with an actually competitive card game where you battle with the cards themselves.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Community content has been flooded with rather closely related ships.

 

[Bench]

It would be interesting to see the metagame taken farther with an actually competitive card game where you battle with the cards themselves.

yeah I'd like to see things head that way

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Community content has been flooded with rather closely related ships.

Kind of off topic but my experiences in this matter urge me into responding.

As long as it's not just re-uploads of the same ship, or stealing who cares. It's not a forum by itself, it's purpose is to be a central repository of your and everybody elses ships. Somebody actually downvoted one of my ships because I "Spammed" the community content section when I uploaded a batch of ships. The effort I put into my presentation of these ships means it is more efficient for me to do so in batches.

 

[cptmashek]

This is a fantastic idea and I would love to see it in action! I am interested in the technical bits though, like, what language(s) will it be written in?

 

[Bench]

This is a fantastic idea and I would love to see it in action! I am interested in the technical bits though, like, what language(s) will it be written in?

I'm a WordPress coder by trade so I'll write it in PHP etc since that most familiar to me.

 

[Captain Tankman]

What about connection the Shipyard and the Starmade Dock? E.g. purchasing a ship gives you the link to the community content site of this ship to download it there.

 

[Bench]

What about connection the Shipyard and the Starmade Dock? E.g. purchasing a ship gives you the link to the community content site of this ship to download it there.

I don't believe it will work like that.

 

[Darth Cestual]

As a board game crafter / hobbyist, I'm looking forward to see how this develops. I know from experience how things can change from initial concept to working model. Keep at it Bench, I think this could be fun.

 

[Keptick]

Could it be possible to get the part of the game's code that verifies ship's stats and shows them in build mode? If you could integrate that into the website then you could skip the entire painful 'flagging" process and tedious verification work.

This is purely conceptual, I don't have any programming basics and have no idea if this would actually be doable.

 

[Bench]

Could it be possible to get the part of the game's code that verifies ship's stats and shows them in build mode? If you could integrate that into the website then you could skip the entire painful 'flagging" process and tedious verification work.

This is purely conceptual, I don't have any programming basics and have no idea if this would actually be doable.

I'm in discussions with the devs regarding a number of options like this, we're seeing what's feasible.

 

[Daffor]

Can't believe I've missed this before, but this seems like an excellent idea. Especially if you're paranoid like me and don't want your latest biggest baddest ship being available to everyone. This gives an opportunity to show off with the option of getting something in return for countless hours spent building something.

I also like the idea of the cards and achievements and such, they could give a bit more continuity at a stage of game developement where server resets and gamechanging updates are quite frequent.

 

[Tydeth]

I have a suggestion, related to the whole "verified stats" aspect of these ship cards:

In a bottom corner (probably bottom right), add the StarMade Version Number that the ship was made/verified under. Since game updates can and do change pre-existing ships, having the version number on the card lets the viewer know how up to date the verified stats are, and makes it easier for Overseers to see if a ship was looked over since a game-changing update like 0.15.

 

[Bench]

I have a suggestion, related to the whole "verified stats" aspect of these ship cards:

In a bottom corner (probably bottom right), add the StarMade Version Number that the ship was made/verified under. Since game updates can and do change pre-existing ships, having the version number on the card lets the viewer know how up to date the verified stats are, and makes it easier for Overseers to see if a ship was looked over since a game-changing update like 0.15.

Great idea!

 

[Krazykat]

any updates Bench? How's it going with this?

 

[Bench]

any updates Bench? How's it going with this?

I'm across a number of projects at the moment, including this one. At the moment I have the shipyards project, the ship showcase videos, the logic thread and tutorials, the new trailer to do, and some of my own ships i'm working on. So yeah little by little. I have been working with some programmers on improving the ship submission process so that we can pull ship data straight from the files, eliminating needing to validate ships, which will save an awful lot of time :D