StarMade v0.18999 - Some serious optimizations and balance changes

[Mered4]

Any news on the turret system?

 

[Cornedo]

Turn off shadows mate.

They are off.

 

[EtherEel]

Hmmm.....

I'm currently making a ship that has a significant amount of radial symmetry. The YZ plane is working, but the XZ plane is skewed. The problem just started so I can't help but think the update is involved.... I can, of course, not use the XZ helper, but I thought yall should be aware in case the issue is from your end.

~EE


WHOOPS !!! -----> Sorry, Totally my mistake.... Disregard above statement.

 

[Spartan-089]

You could never one shot the newbies any way. Trying to hit a ship that is not a titan at long range with cannons is not easy unless it is siting still, you are using a ridiculously sized waffle gun, or they are coming strait at you. And even when you hit a target 80% of the time you miss the core with your first shot.
The way punch through should have been balanced was to reduce its effectiveness at taking down shields. I was always surprised that punch through, the best effect for cannons against armor, was never made less effective against shields. Just making it so 100% punch through did little to no damage against shields would have gone a long way to balancing it.
But now ironically all punch through is good for is taking out small newb ships, because it doesn't have enough power to do any noticeable damage to the titans.
So now cannons just had the rug puled out from underneath them, lasers are still pointless unless you are using them as shield pounders, damage pulse is still only useful as a second effect, and missiles are still the go to weapon for taking ships out. All that was accomplished was making missiles even more dominant.

Is anything not a Capital/titan a "newb" ship to you? I think this a step in the right direction. Honestly I feel the game is incredibly boring in terms of actual pvp combat considering you need nothing short of titans to stand any type of chance.

 

[Spartan-228]

Is anything not a Capital/titan a "newb" ship to you? I think this a step in the right direction. Honestly I feel the game is incredibly boring in terms of actual pvp combat considering you need nothing short of titans to stand any type of chance.

Well I don't know about the titans you use, but a lot of titans my friends and I have tested are rather squishy. A lot of titans out there are deigned for looks not combat. So wile they will defeat small ships, dedicated combat ships of half the size will rip them apart.
However we have just lost one of the weapons that made it possible to build small ships capable of taking titans out.

 

[Lancake]

Well I don't know about the titans you use, but a lot of titans my friends and I have tested are rather squishy. A lot of titans out there are deigned for looks not combat. So wile they will defeat small ships, dedicated combat ships of half the size will rip them apart.
However we have just lost one of the weapons that made it possible to build small ships capable of taking titans out.

I agree with the first part but I'm slightly confused about that last part. Capping the penetration effect on an effect does not really influence small ships versus big ones. The double shield cap is probably the thing you are thinking about?

With the stronger armor different effects and stronger shields, you are a little bit forced to put more weapon blocks on your ships. By doubling the shield capacity we merely moved the ratios of systems/weapons on ships.

In theory you can remove 50% of your shields now, and replace them with more valuable stuff (thicker armor, more defensive systems, more weapons). Your HP will be the same as before, but your ship will have a lot more bang than the old equivalent and probably more durability after your own shield breaks. Doing this will also force others to make that change.

 

[Mered4]

I agree with the first part but I'm slightly confused about that last part. Capping the penetration effect on an effect does not really influence small ships versus big ones. The double shield cap is probably the thing you are thinking about?

With the stronger armor different effects and stronger shields, you are a little bit forced to put more weapon blocks on your ships. By doubling the shield capacity we merely moved the ratios of systems/weapons on ships.

In theory you can remove 50% of your shields now, and replace them with more valuable stuff (thicker armor, more defensive systems, more weapons). Your HP will be the same as before, but your ship will have a lot more bang than the old equivalent and probably more durability after your own shield breaks. Doing this will also force others to make that change.

Just a reminder to everyone:
the ion defensive effect is more efficient block for block than having shield caps.

 

[Jananton]

Oh boy, I couldn't believe the FPS counter when I did a fresh install of this update and ran it. A whopping 512 frames on an old system that was high end four years ago, sweet.
Thanks guys, keep up the good work.

Greets,

Jan

 

[kiddan]

I really Love the changes!
- advanced armor and both shield blocks got cheaper
- Hulls got buffed by a real significant margin
- shields capacity doubled
- Nukes got a litle nerf and a little speed push Great!
- Beam missiles were slowed down, Great!
- Punch through and piercing both have their weaknesses and advantages now, so people actually have to make a choice, instead of haveing one obvious superior system. AWESOME!

oh right performance changes ROCKING!
<3it this really goes into the right direction!
Now introduce more curves (1 block does x damage infinite blocks limes at around 2 damage per block) *blink blink*

You stole all of my words here, so instead of posting it again (xP): Ditto!

 

[Visitor]

Optimizations is some of the most important work for the project of such scale. I hope that, while it already was a lot of work, constant improvements in this area will keep on going, ideally so despite new features, players will be able to keep on playing the game without the need to improve hardware to maintain the performance.

Thank you for your hard work. While I look forward to new features, it's the bugfixes and performance improvements that are vital also to me, as my oldish computer already stuttered badly when it came to earlier versions, especially when I was approaching bigger stellar bodies.

 

[Invadr]

After the update I've been having a problem where everything more then about 200m away just sort of blacks out, like it was suddenly covered by a very dark shadow. Plus whenever I turn on lighten in advance build mode it does the exact opposite, everything on the ship blacks out.

I've also been getting a message that says "#SegmentsDrawn count will update when all queued up updates are done.
please stand still to not queue new one"

I have exact same problem. Viewing anything at more than say 20-40 meters results in a very diminished visual. Beyond 50 meters it's solid black. I have always played with shadows off, this has been introduced in the last patch. All ships and stations are just silhouettes against the star field. Most of the lighting effects are invisible until you are less that 20 meters from it. And I'm running the system pretty lean in the graphics dept with default textures...

 

[EtherEel]

I'm still puzzled by the fact that the Damage-Pulse weapon exists at all. I only ever hear of it used as an adjunct to the other, more effective primary weapon -- which essentially renders the Pulse a mis-labeled "effect."

☼☼ ——> I am tremendously pleased that defense has been improved. Cannot adequately state just how pleased I am about that. √

One last thought, concerning the GUI (despite the recent improvements.): Why are there only 10 slots? I would suggest reducing the size of the box of those slots to about 2/3's their current size, and doubling or trebling their number. And also being able to Label the draggable items from the Weapons Panel for better organization/keeping track. (Okay, 2 last thoughts...) I'll stop there for now.

Cheers
~EE

 

[Lecic]

I'm still puzzled by the fact that the Damage-Pulse weapon exists at all. I only ever hear of it used as an adjunct to the other, more effective primary weapon -- which essentially renders the Pulse a mis-labeled "effect."

It's not a very useful weapon, and it never was. It does have rare situational uses, but it is not a main battle weapon. You need to build "melee ships" to use the things.

One last thought, concerning the GUI (despite the recent improvements.): Why are there only 10 slots? I would suggest reducing the size of the box of those slots to about 2/3's their current size, and doubling or trebling their number. And also being able to Label the draggable items from the Weapons Panel for better organization/keeping track. (Okay, 2 last thoughts...) I'll stop there for now.

Because there's only 10 number hotkets. 10 is plenty, especially with multislots, anyway.

 

[EtherEel]

Because there's only 10 number hotkets. 10 is plenty, especially with multislots, anyway.

Not to be argumentative, but there can be more than 10 Hot-Keyable hotbar slots. "-" and "=" could be used as well as Shift+, Ctrl+, and Alt+ (bringing the possible number to at least 48). Plenty of popular games out there that do this already. Not that I want that many....
And I guess I have yet to get comfy with the "multi-slot" mechanic. What can I say? I'm a noob! Sue me!

 

[Lecic]

Not to be argumentative, but there can be more than 10 Hot-Keyable hotbar slots. "-" and "=" could be used as well as Shift+, Ctrl+, and Alt+ (bringing the possible number to at least 48). Plenty of popular games out there that do this already. Not that I want that many....
And I guess I have yet to get comfy with the "multi-slot" mechanic. What can I say? I'm a noob! Sue me!

Multislots are a real space saver once you get the hang of them. You can turn 10 slots into up to 50 slots. I'd really recommend trying to learn to use them!

NOOOOOOB

 

[EtherEel]

Defanatlee a MAJER NOOB -- no doubting that ! Rofl

My ships are awful purdy tho !!

 

[Superjudge]

Those block types did not have their HP adjusted. Also, a fix is to save the ship as a new blueprint, and purchase it a new gain from the catalog. This should cause the damaged blocks to be spawned in without damage (presuming that block damage is actually the problem)

I just attempted this and it did not work. All ice crystal blocks were still spawned in damaged. Kinda a pain in the ass to even have to give myself 3 million blocks only to not have this process work. Is there any chance we get a fix on this? Maybe an admin command to repair all blocks on the ship? Something?

EDIT: I have even tried reloading an earlier version of the game, saving from that version and admin spawning the ship in the current version and still no luck.

 

[max stripe]

I just attempted this and it did not work. All ice crystal blocks were still spawned in damaged. Kinda a pain in the ass to even have to give myself 3 million blocks only to not have this process work. Is there any chance we get a fix on this? Maybe an admin command to repair all blocks on the ship? Something?

EDIT: I have even tried reloading an earlier version of the game, saving from that version and admin spawning the ship in the current version and still no luck.

make a NEW BP of the damaged ship then rebuy it.

 

[BlisAx]

I absolutely love this update. I know i'm a little late but I didn't really take advantage of the optimizations until now. I reset my universe and decided I would set planet size mean to 750m I get 60 fps on the surface of such a planet and about 25 in orbit! Im so happy because now planets feel like planets! I'm also using a business class laptop so before this update a 500m planet would yield about 35fps on the surface.