StarMade v0.18999 - Some serious optimizations and balance changes

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    We no longer have the ability to build effective sniper ships and the primary cannon set up will go back to being the buzzsaw... ...a massive number of sniper ships will be nothing but eye candy.
    Yep, that was pretty much the point. You can no longer one shot the newbies.

    Well, you can if you out mass them enough maybe, but then you run into the problem that others of similar mass might take offense and do something about it, and you won't be able to one shot 'them'. You'll have to actually 'fight' them.

    I for one could not possibly be happier with the changes made here. They exceed even my own recommended ideas in terms of how to redress the imbalance (I did not think to reduce the block/effect of defensive pierce while beefing armor).
     
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    um... guys...View attachment 9521
    wh-what do i do??? D:
    I have the same problem. It seems the base and all ships docked to it are loaded in the new version as one big file. This is to much for most pc/servers to handle so chunks are missing. Reloading/Relogging does not fix this.

    Before updating your game/server. Go to your base enter a buildblock and from the structure menu select undock all. Now do the update.

    Are there others who's "large" base/stuctures break?
     
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    I have the same problem. It seems the base and all ships docked to it are loaded in the new version as one big file. This is to much for most pc/servers to handle so chunks are missing. Reloading/Relogging does not fix this.

    Before updating your game/server. Go to your base enter a buildblock and from the structure menu select undock all. Now do the update.

    Are there others who's "large" base/stuctures break?

    Its not so much as they are just gone... they are still there, but only so many blocks are viewed from afar despite how big the view distance is. If you go closer to them, they show themselves.
     
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    Superb! :D

    Its like if all the things we were posting about performance n optimizations were answered directly, like a cannon to the face.

    Notice the splendid team work between forums staff and devs to catch the performance issues and bottle necks.

    Supported by the Community itself to help progress into the game engine to improve StarMade.

    That tells a lot of good stuff about Dev/Staff teams attention n effort. Impressed me.

    -Great job! +1 :schema:
     

    Lecic

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    Yep, that was pretty much the point. You can no longer one shot the newbies.

    Well, you can if you out mass them enough maybe, but then you run into the problem that others of similar mass might take offense and do something about it, and you won't be able to one shot 'them'. You'll have to actually 'fight' them.

    I for one could not possibly be happier with the changes made here. They exceed even my own recommended ideas in terms of how to redress the imbalance (I did not think to reduce the block/effect of defensive pierce while beefing armor).
    Nerfing punch and pierce to this extreme isn't going to make players stop oneshotting newbies. It's just going to make players design their weapons differently.

    Your account is rather new, so I'm going to assume you weren't here for the days of waffleboard guns. With punch now worthless, this is what we'll be going back to. Massive checkerboards dealing just enough damage each to destroy a block. Sure, it's more power costly, but like that's ever stopped anyone.

    I suggest that the penetration power of a weapon be based on its reload time, allowing for slow firing weapons to still have decent penetration, while rapid cannons can only penetrate a bit.
     
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    Yep, that was pretty much the point. You can no longer one shot the newbies.

    Well, you can if you out mass them enough maybe, but then you run into the problem that others of similar mass might take offense and do something about it, and you won't be able to one shot 'them'. You'll have to actually 'fight' them.

    I for one could not possibly be happier with the changes made here. They exceed even my own recommended ideas in terms of how to redress the imbalance (I did not think to reduce the block/effect of defensive pierce while beefing armor).
    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.
     
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    Lancake

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    Nerfing punch and pierce to this extreme isn't going to make players stop oneshotting newbies. It's just going to make players design their weapons differently.

    Your account is rather new, so I'm going to assume you weren't here for the days of waffleboard guns. With punch now worthless, this is what we'll be going back to. Massive checkerboards dealing just enough damage each to destroy a block. Sure, it's more power costly, but like that's ever stopped anyone.

    I suggest that the penetration power of a weapon be based on its reload time, allowing for slow firing weapons to still have decent penetration, while rapid cannons can only penetrate a bit.
    Oh yeah, we'll probably see more checkerboard guns but those were already everywhere. The only difference now is that those checkerboard guns can't get past 6-7 blocks per shot. My older capital sized weapon systems could make a 20x20 square, 100 deep hole in seconds.

    And your suggestion is a good one, at least in my eyes but it's something you cannot change through the config. We have lots of ideas in how to improve combat but schema has to focus on certain parts first. The new HP system that is planned will most likely be accompanied with other or reworked combat mechanics, hopefully by then we are closer to what we really want :)
     
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    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.

    Uses swarm missiles...
     

    Master_Artificer

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    And now we enter the era, not of titans, nor of waffle guns, but of WORLD HOLES

    All hail the world holes.
     
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    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"
     
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    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"
    Turn off shadows mate.
     
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    Well, looks pretty good for me! My shipyards have been starting to cause some lag for me, so this should help a lot. Any news on the turret system?