StarMade v0.19519 Cargo & more

    Criss

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    Just a quick tip. If you need to move cargo from one to another and you are overencumbered try setting up the cargo to perform pull ticks themselves. If you have one with empty space then perhaps that will help.
     
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    I'm unsure how to use the logic signals from factories. (I have applied the hotfix)

    My setup: basic factory with 49 enhancers, no Cargo Space added. It's producing grey hull, meaning it can store 2000.
    There's an activation module slaved to the factory.
    After a successful crafting the activation block is set to high. When the crafting fails due to full inventory, the activation block is set to low.

    Storage behave in the same way. If they can pull an item they set a slaved Activation Block to high. In a way, this could be linked to a factory. However, a Storage Block only pulls blocks if they can fit the entire demand. (You have room for 8 more blocks, but you're pulling 10 each time, it won't fill up those 8).

    I was hoping to automatically turn off factories when their inventories were full. And I'm sad to see the logic output of the factory can't be used for this directly.
    Only by linking a storage to a factory can players detect when a factory can be turned off. There are some things to keep in mind here though. Most importantly that factories will produce items for one tick even if they can't store all produced items. With 1999 grey hull in the factory, it will craft 50 more. I'm assuming those 49 that go over the storage limit will bleed out eventually, causing a loss of resources. (which is the main reason why i want to be able to turn factories off)
    The fix here is intuitive though. Factories do 2 ticks when the storage does 1 pull. So make sure the storage pulls at least 2x the amount of produced resources. And dimension the storage large enough to hold some surplus.

    Besides all this, the fact remains that at this point, the logic output of the factory itself can't be used for anything useful, other than counting the amount of runs. If I'm missing anything here, please let me know.
     

    StormWing0

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    hmm if I remember right you can send a logic signal to the factory blocks to turn them on and off. Same thing with storages. Getting a signal from the block only lets you turn it off if you send a signal back using the one you got.


    In any event this is why my server I'm on waits a few days before updating since things tend to be deadly on patch day so we let all you guys burn on patch day. :P
     
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    Yeah, you can turn them on and off by sending a signal. What I'm trying to do is use the signals that the factories and storage send, to disable factories in a smart way.
    What I'd love to see is the factory sending giving a high signal when there isn't enough room in the inventory to complete a full crafting job, and a low signal when room cleared up. At this point the signal is only sent after letting the factories run for a crafting tick, so disabled factories wouldn't do anything.
     
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    Gotta say I am not a fan of this new update (and gotta wait for our server admin to apply the hotfix)

    Seriously tired of these mechanic rebalances every few months and addition of useless stuff that just makes the game more overly complicated than it needs to be for the average gamer when the game could of been left asit was and Schine could of started adding some actual gameplay instead. Feels likethis game justy get's the same crap every year. Rename stuff, change balance, modify some textures, maybe add some new improperly implemented system, listen to forum dwellers, ignore majority of gamers who do not visit forums, release patch that breaks stuff, wash, rinse, repeat.
    As time goes on this is feeling less and less like a game and more like a chore. I now dread updates instead of getting excited for them.
    And to top it off after getting rid of wavy lines effect I was getting on textures after along wait I see this new update has added a new visual glitch. Weird lines.
    So much for 'if it aint broke don't fix it'.

    starmade-screenshot-0031.jpg

    Honestly this is getting annoying and frustrating. There's no need for the cargo, and it should of been at least functioning better before launch. Which is the case with most new updates. 'Here's something that is broken or not completely implemented' and it's not like the "it's an alpha" excuse works when the issue affects everyone it would be quite clear that it would also affect the dev and the test server users so how do these bugs/oversights get through?

    I am kind of tired of hearing "alpha game so rebuilding is to be expected." fanboy defence. I mean with how old this game now is one would think the weapons, power and systems balance would be locked in by now and gameplay would be getting seen. Said lack of gameplay that is equalling less and less people playing. Australian servers as few as there are, are close to being ghost towns for sheerlack of nothing to do but the same shit for 3 years straight.

    The type of game it is, the resources required by players just makes the cargo update and giving carrying capacity limits kind of pointless.
    If we're gonna have weight added, seems crazy it doesn't only just slow your ship down but chews through the power also.
    So what are weto do? Oh addmore thrusters and powerr and add even more mass to our already flies like a brick ships.
    (I mean do we forget this game is set in zero gravity space?)

    So instead of playing and building more I now along with myfaction members have to massively waste time not only managing the abundance of 'cargo' we have,but also now have to spend time rebuilding our ships and station, a station that accomodates about 10 players, to make room for the cargo,when as far as we'reconcerned the current inventory system and it's space limit was fine. So instead of just 8 storage boxes in a singleroom for each player, with additional for new members, we now have to find space for cargo for each storage on an already complete and filled station, completely throwing it's aesthetics right out the window.

    Such drastic changes to the game should be optional especially when they are so clearly divisive. Oh wait, powercaps are option in a server config many seem to be saying? So why couldn't those who want it not do it themselves or harrass their server admins to make the changes instead of forcing it on everybody?

    Really, stop goddamn rebalancing the game and making illogical additions, lock it in and get onto making a game. Missions, NPC's AI etc etc. stop rebalancing the mechanics every other month because some one on the forums wanted it when everyone has finally gotten used to it and built around it. At this rate you're wasting not only your own time but everyone elses.

    I like this game I really do, or should I say the potential it has, but I now have to honestly ask myself if I can be bothered going through god knows how many more years building mining rebuilding and same shit different day developing and fuck all else I can go through in the hopes this game I bough actually becomes a game. At this rate I genuinely don't hold hope of seeing any gameplay elements added by 2017.
    Many of us have lives, jobs,families we do not have 24/7 to start from scratch every other month.

    I tell you atthis point I honestly feel like giving up and dedicating more time to some of the many other Early Access games I support, who while being buggy and unoptimised seem to realise a game needs to be a game and not just a bunch of tail chasing mechanic tweaking fixes.

    Really if I had one suggestion to make it'd be roll back to the previous version, forget this update entirely and focus on gameplay and fixing that which is already in the game that needs fixing. e.g AI being utterly useless insteadof rebalancing shields and power as usual and putting weight limitson a game that requires huge amount of resources.

    Seriously feels like this game stopped being StarMade and is trying harder and harder to be Space Engineers. Which I already own and would play if I want Space Engineers. I want StarMade, not another game. Thing is Space Engineers isn;t just advancing in terms of optimisation and balance,it's also advancing in terms of gameplay. And hell that game isn't even as oldas this one is.

    12 months ago I'd recommend Starmade to my friends in a heart beat, now I'd tell people to wait and save their follars until the game is completed if ever, otherwise they'll end up as frustratedasI and the friends I play with are.

    Again, the word game. Games need gameplay, I cannot stress this enough. And Alpha games need to look like they are actually moving forward. SM on the surface has barely progressed significatly in a year. Where it has progressed e.g Turrets and Docking, it has progressed well, but sadly it's been over ruled by the games stagnation from being rpeatative both in terms of gameplay and development.

    Wake up before this game has only a handful of blindly loyal players and is no longer commercially viable for Schine to work on.
    /rant

    p.s giving my personal opinion here and not discussing it further as I won't change my mind so I won't be replying to any quoters or questions. So save your time and energy and don't quote me for dissection. Just accept sometimes people have different opinions and you do not have to agree with them and that is just fine.
     
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    I am not going to change Rabidbats mind, so I won't try. But I can see the logic in the way the game is going. You need a good foundation for everything else. A Masterpiece isn't made in a day. I have definitely gotten my moneys worth out of this game already and everything else is a bonus.
     
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    I am not going to change Rabidbats mind, so I won't try. But I can see the logic in the way the game is going. You need a good foundation for everything else. A Masterpiece isn't made in a day. I have definitely gotten my moneys worth out of this game already and everything else is a bonus.
    Agree. A lot of butt hurt going around for what amounts to a silly game.
     
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    "Oh no! They finally nerfed players carrying around billions of blocks in their personal inventories! What a terrible update!"

    Spoilers amigos, this is the beginning of the death of the titan.
    [DOUBLEPOST=1449383641,1449382987][/DOUBLEPOST]Double post because FUCK YOU I'm perfect

    I also hope that everyone realizes that having 2000000000 shield blocks in storage is not normal. That is not how the game is supposed to be played. We have been getting away with having stupid amounts of blocks in storage because there have been BETTER THINGS TO ADD. This change was inevitable. You complain now but I promise you this will be better in the long run.

    As far as the power changes go, I think the softcap is awful and a lazy solution to power issues but I don't have any other solutions that don't involve a four letter "F" word that this playerbase is so terrified of.
     
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    I am not going to change Rabidbats mind, so I won't try. But I can see the logic in the way the game is going. You need a good foundation for everything else. A Masterpiece isn't made in a day. I have definitely gotten my moneys worth out of this game already and everything else is a bonus.
    Exactly, Some people who are not programmers do not understand the amount of work that is required. All they are concerned about is what they can see. As a programmer I know that a piece of software is an iceberg. There is the part you see, and the part that supports what you see. The size of the team developing this game is really small. KSH has about 200 people to work on their games. My point, it's really amazing that this small of a team could make a game this good in this time frame.
     

    Criss

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    quite clear that it would also affect the dev and the test server users
    Well to be honest the devs don't get a chance to play the game that much. They are making it. It is a full time job after all. We have testers that just test things. They cannot afford to spend a month testing how something "feels" when we need the feature to work by the release day. This is why we talked to the council about balance changes. They play, they communicate with others. They have a solid idea to the problems. This is one of many fixes we will be trying however if we get it wrong it isn't the end. We can try again.

    could of started adding some actual gameplay instead
    I like to think that giving purpose to your ship and depth is more legitimate gameplay than letting one store massive quantities of material in a small area with little effort. We've been placing blocks since this game started. Place a few more and now we can solve our overencumbered cargo issues. It is not a new solution. Heck. It's easier than the systems in SE, yet that is far more popular game, with much more restricting features. They don't have pull ticks, everything needs to have a physical connection. We are doing our best to make this fun yet grounded at the same time. One piece of a large puzzle that isn't complete yet.

    ignore majority of gamers who do not visit forums
    Well we have multiple forums and social media sites that many team members look at daily. If they want to contact us they can. I can't respond to someone if they aren't around.

    With regards to alpha development, I recently listened to Hicks, from the DayZ team at Bohemia explain a similar situation. While the team has a roadmap and makes changes to their game and finds problems and makes solutions they need to keep the game running. Is it perfect all the time? It can't be. It's impossible. Not if they want to keep to a schedule, or at least be consistent with releases. The idea now is to get the feature in. It works? Yes. Move on. With an open alpha there is an extra step, and that is to ensure that no part of the game breaks so badly that it can't be played. For the most part we are successful there. The core aspect of StarMade has pretty much always worked; building. That won't be the focus forever as we delve into RP / NPC / dynamic universe side of things. I am honestly kinda proud that a few people got together and have come this far with StarMade.
     
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    I was originally going to explain my suggestion while responding to the following quotes but I'll keep my suggestion out of it and follow Bench's suggestion instead and put something a bit more indepth on the Suggestions board. Thus, my post here are going to be(hopefully) a bit more focused on just responding to the points made.

    How is it justifiable to give a stack size of let's say 1000 for a single item, as opposed to 1000 total different items? There is no actual reason to say you can carry a lot of one thing in large amounts but not a lot of different things in small amounts.
    One word: Tetris. Get some graph paper, make a 10x10 box and see how full you can get that box using standard Tetris blocks with these varying scenarios:
    1. All one block type. You have complete freedom to put blocks in without worrying about gravity.(i.e. box is drawn using the XY axis, you place from the Z axis.
    2. Use an dice roller, assign each block a number(1-7) and put blocks down as you roll their number. Normal Tetris rules(blocks go to the bottom, can't clip through blocks while rotating) but you don't have a timer.
    3. As above but you have 10 seconds to put each block down.
    4. Roll about 30 times. Count out how many of each block you have and figure out how you can fit as many blocks in as possible. Same rules as 1. Start a timer as soon as you begin filling the box. Stop the timer when you think you've done the best arrangement possible.(This may be simpler if you had legos or something of that nature instead of having to fill in/erase squares constantly. Can also use a spreadsheet with conditional formatting to change the background color).

    Count the number of empty cells. Odds are, you'll have the least amount of empty spaces in scenarios 1 and 4. Depending on your skill, you may have spent a good amount of time finding an optimum arrangement.

    Every game inventory system abstracts dealing with items as we do in real life. This is primarily due to the fact that not only programming an accurate representation of inventory handling in the real world is a pain but that we really don't have any input devices that would make such a system anywhere near as intuitive as it would be in the real world. Odds are we won't ever see anything like that until immersive VR is developed and even then, I'd expect many games to still abstract inventory management since, on average, people are abyssmal at it.

    Now, every type of inventory abstraction has its flaws, no real way around it. Part of game design is figuring out which flaws work with the game itself. Given that Starmade focuses more on having multiple of the same item as opposed to many distinct items a system that functions with that in mind is preferable to one that doesn't.

    There are plenty of systems in the game that do not require physical contact and it is something that should only be reserved for systems such as power or weapons where (to us at least) it makes sense to group those structures together. It's a bit in the opposite direction to force players to build a certain way. If they want their cargo elsewhere why shouldnt they?
    Simple: It makes sense in the exact, same, vein that the systems you mentioned do. As "forcing" players to build a certain way...This suggestion means they either need to have an access point to wherever they put their cargo hold or chain modules up to the storage module in their bridge/cockpit. Considerably less "forcing" than requiring players to allocate hundreds to thousands of blocks on their ships and bases to be used as non-interactable storage.

    I am positive that this is a bad idea. This bumps up the amount of scrolling done in inventory screens by a significant amount. There is only so much space to a screen and I don't really want to spend time sorting through a massive inventory just because we removed stacking. The goal is to create some organization. Just to split up all colors of hull/armor into different slots results in over 240 new slots to look at. That is very unappealing.
    I can only assume you thought the list of suggestions I made were meant as individual ones when they were intended suggested as a group. The reason I say that is the scenario you describe not only exists right now but is promoted by the personal cargo feature.

    To make it clearer, let's imagine a storage module as a box and each inventory space is another box within. BoxA and BoxB respectively.
    Current inventory system works like this:
    BoxA can hold an infinite number of BoxBs.
    Each individual BoxB can hold one item type but an infinite number of them.
    BoxA, however is on a scale and is weighed down by the contents of it's BoxBs.
    Cargo Spaces are used as a counterweight on the scale.

    Result: With enough cargo spaces, a linked storage can hold everything.

    My suggestion:
    BoxA can hold a limited amount of BoxBs.
    Each individual BoxB can hold one item type but is limited on how many it can hold.
    Cargo Spaces increase the capacity of each BoxB in a BoxA but experiences diminishing returns.

    Result: A single storage could, potentially hold an infinite amount of a few item types but it would be much more efficient(regarding block:storage ratio) to use several storage modules.

    In other words, you just countered my argument with, "I don't want it to work the way it is now."

    And now, I'm going to actually play for a bit then get around to writing up a detailed post that fleshes out my inventory suggestion and throw it up on the Suggestions board.

    Edit to prevent double posting:
    Well to be honest the devs don't get a chance to play the game that much. They are making it. It is a full time job after all. We have testers that just test things. They cannot afford to spend a week testing how something "feels" when we need the feature to work by the release day. This is why we talked to the council about balance changes. They play, they communicate with others. They have a solid idea to the problems. This is one of many fixes we will be trying however if we get it wrong it isn't the end. We can try again.
    Fix that now. One of the worst things a game can have is a dev team that's not actively playing their game. If that means a slightly longer production cycle, so be it. It's damned hard to fix something when you don't work with the final product.
     
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    It really feels like most of the people complaining just skimmed the patch notes, went in-game and got confused then came here crying.

    Personal cargo works nice. Even with the small base storage amount a 10*10*30 tube of space easily held a planet.
    Rail based cargo transfer. :schema:PRAISE SCHEMA!:schema:
    (Also don't even get me started on the "magnetic" docking I am having way too much fun)

    Oh and I can shoot beams through open doors now, is that this patch new or did I just miss something?
     

    Criss

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    Given that Starmade focuses more on having multiple of the same item as opposed to many distinct items a system that functions with that in mind is preferable to one that doesn't.
    Except there are hundreds of different types of blocks. There are a dozen or so colors that come in various shapes and strengths. This game is just as much about quantity as it is about variety. Utilizing stack limits along with cargo slot limits simply means you are adding an extra step to the previous cargo system; adding the cargo area blocks, more of which I will explain in my next response.

    a linked storage can hold everything
    As could the previous system if you planned it out properly. There are two things that change with this cargo system. Your ship will now be weighted down by the cargo you carry. And the removal of the numerous links between storage sorting systems that players used before. We don't need to force ourselves to create 20 different storage blocks with their own contents, their own separate filters and connect all of them up to our big factory. That is very unfriendly to a new player who wants to start an automated system. Stack limits of some sort would make it into the game eventually and the old system could not accommodate that. Players would end up with literally hundreds of storage blocks that needed to be connected properly by the end game. Not fun.

    With this system you can still do that however. You can designate an area to one type of block or material and filter your storage apart into separate storage areas. However if you want to keep it simple you can setup one big pool for inventory and your factory can feed off the entire large cargo area easily.


    A single storage could, potentially hold an infinite amount of a few item types but it would be much more efficient(regarding block:storage ratio) to use several storage modules
    Again, this sort of just goes back to the previous storage system. It doesn't make sense that we the player are transporting these quantities of blocks in small individual crates. Think of it this way. You have tons of different blocks laying in a cargo area. The storage block is your way of taking inventory of that area and selecting what you want. It was planned to allow the player to interact with each crate if it was present (had something in it) so that we could remove whatever was in it, however that requires the game to keep track of that cargo on a per block basis as opposed to just being recorded at the storage computer. I imagine that is why it was not implemented. I am not coding these things however so idk the actual reason. That is just what makes sense to me.

    Fix that now. One of the worst things a game can have is a dev team that's not actively playing their game. If that means a slightly longer production cycle, so be it.
    We honestly don't have that luxury. We play when we can. I am building assets. Schema tests things when he finishes coding stuff. I know for a fact Kupu has to look over textures while in the game. That still isn't the same as sitting around for a month and building up a faction by ourselves and seeing if all the work we did in two weeks time was worth it. We can't do that. That is why we rely on the councilors and testers and we trust them when they tell us something. If we make a mistake then we accept it and try again.
     
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    I found this release to be fairly easy to get through. 90% of the cargo changes were known before hand. I had several ships restructured before hand. We've know that this change was coming. The devs did a great job not only with the game and patch but also with keeping us informed this time as to what was coming down the pipe. Their was plenty of time for input prior to the release.

    We need to remember that this is the first attempt at the cargo system, re-balancing always upsets someone, throwing little bitch tantrums will get you no where. Suggestions that are logical and that would make the game better for more people are more likely to get attention. Long winded rants will not accomplish anything other that making some people laugh at your post or hurting others.

    While I would call myself a fanboy ..... Its alpha STFU
     
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    Except there are hundreds of different types of blocks. There are a dozen or so colors that come in various shapes and strengths. This game is just as much about quantity as it is about variety. Utilizing stack limits along with cargo slot limits simply means you are adding an extra step to the previous cargo system; adding the cargo area blocks, more of which I will explain in my next response.
    There are 570 blocks in the game at the moment(at least visible via the creative inventory). 310 if you count multi-blocks as a single block.
    For a specific run-down(this is assuming I didn't miss any multi-blocks that have an invisible block with them like the trigger multi-block does):
    204 single blocks
    54 two-block multis
    2 four-block multis
    50 five-block multis

    Storage units previously had 35 slots per unit which means it'd take a minimum of 17 units to hold one stack of each type if the multi-blocks were no longer usable in normal gameplay. Again though, that's to have one stack of every item in the game and the average player isn't going to bother with having one of everything so we can cut the functional amount down by about half. Even if we were needing to use the 17 storage units, if the idea of dealing with that many is too daunting, perhaps you should play in creative mode(for clarification this a generic, "you," and not meaning you specifically Chriss).

    Now, to pre-empt the, "But the numbers will grow as we add new colors!" argument:
    With the current setup, adding a new color will add no more than 5 blocks per color maximum. Big whoop.

    As could the previous system if you planned it out properly. There are two things that change with this cargo system.
    I may install a previous build to see if I can verify that since I find it hard to fathom having 310 blocks fit into 35 slots. Now if you're talking about having one storage that could pull the block you want via logic, that's something completely different than what I showed. You flat out complained about not wanting to have to scroll through a massive inventory when the new system
    made that possible.

    Your ship will now be weighted down by the cargo you carry.
    Reread the suggestions I made. I accounted for that.

    And the removal of the numerous links between storage sorting systems that players used before.
    Replaced by a considerably larger amount of blocks that serve no purpose than to take up additional space and block count which, I'll admit, is my main gripe about the change. Honestly, the only reason I came up with a use of the cargo boxes was to not invalidate the time spent making them. I'd be perfectly fine with cargo spaces disappearing and storage units going back to 35 or so slots with a cap of say 50k per slot.

    We don't need to force ourselves to create 20 different storage blocks with their own contents, their own separate filters and connect all of them up to our big factory.
    First, there was nothing forcing you to do that prior. If you wanted to, sure. Now? We
    are forced to make hundreds, if not thousands, of cargo spaces though. That reminds me of something I thought of when I went to bed yesterday: adding requirements for manufacturing items to need cargo spaces was kinda a jerk move. Efficiency modules should have covered that purpose.

    That is very unfriendly to a new player who wants to start an automated system. Stack limits of some sort would make it into the game eventually and the old system could not accommodate that. Players would end up with literally hundreds of storage blocks that needed to be connected properly by the end game. Not fun.
    Unfriendly how exactly? If you're meaning that my suggestion would be more resource intensive, you're woefully wrong. A storage unit costs 20 alloy and crystal, cargo spaces cost 2 each. To have comparable inventory space to even the low end of my suggestion(which would have been 30 slots per storage with max base stack-size of 1,000), you'd need one storage unit and anywhere between 14 and 74 cargo spaces give or take a few. I'm not pulling these numbers out of thin air either. Basic hulls have 50 volume, advanced hulls have 250. Multiply each of those numbers by 30,000 and you get 1,500 and 7,500 respectively. Thus we're talking about a player saving either 6 crystal and alloy or spending 148 more.

    If you're talking about automation being more difficult to start up, it would be marginally more difficult but full-on automation should be something you work for and not just have handed to you.

    As for it being more difficult and not fun end game? What on the earth is remotely intriguing about building thousands of cargo spaces? My suggestion rewards planning and designing supply chains, the new system rewards finding out of the way places to place cargo spaces.

    With this system you can still do that however. You can designate an area to one type of block or material and filter your storage apart into separate storage areas. However if you want to keep it simple you can setup one big pool for inventory and your factory can feed off the entire large cargo area easily.
    Game design 101: Basic things should get easier with progression. Ease of access should be something a player needs to work for and not have handed to them. This is a part of your argument I don't understand in the slightest. You talk about wanting things to be simple when other systems(power and weapon linking) utilize are needlessly convoluted. A 4x4x4 cube of power reactors create less power than a line of 70 of them. Weapon barrels automatically link requiring players to design around that in order to have side-by-side beams.

    Side tangent: Weapon linking could be handled in one of two ways:
    1. Have orientation matter: If the, "open end," of a weapon module faces another module of the same type, it links. If it doesn't, it fires.
    2. Add a new block, "Targeting Controller/Computer/Whatever. You then use the salvaging/cannon/etc computers to link a single "barrel"(in other words a single grouping of weapon modules) and slave a computer for each barrel to the TC which would be used in the hotbar to fire all slaved "barrels." Secondary/tertiary slaving would work the same with the exception of being needed for each barrel.



    Again, this sort of just goes back to the previous storage system. It doesn't make sense that we the player are transporting these quantities of blocks in small individual crates.
    Riddle me this then: How do I, as a player holding 2,000 volume fit into a single cube that has more power capacity than 41 capacitor blocks(this number assumes the formula on the wiki is correct) and and has a volume of one tenth of a unit?

    No no, don't bother answering because I'll do it for you. This is handwaved to facilitate gameplay.

    I'm this close to writing up a lengthy bit about inventory abstraction, what it is, and why games use it. Instead, I shall list a few things that I've learned in Starmade that currently make little or no sense.

    Things about Starmade that don't make "sense" that I've learned in three days:
    1. The previously mentioned difference in output in power reactor arrangements.
    2. The previously mentioned weapon linking. A 10x10 wall of cannons that each have their barrel pointing outwards fires.......one shot.
    3. A ship can vastly increase its power regen by docking a ship core, adding a line of power reactors, a power supply computer and the associated modules to it and pointing the beam at the main ship.
    4. I can take any block, place it on something and put a factory on top of it...unless said block is attached to a ship.

    This is beside the fact that, again, my suggestion considered this, to an extent, and made it so that cargo spaces would be used to increase the capacity of a storage unit.


    Think of it this way. You have tons of different blocks laying in a cargo area. The storage block is your way of taking inventory of that area and selecting what you want.
    From my first post in this thread:
    That said, if there's absolutely no chance of reverting this, I have one suggestion to add:
    Change the name of the Storage module to "Storage Interface" and allow more than one to connect to a set of cargo spaces. Since Storage modules are pretty much nothing but interfaces for cargo spaces now anyways, it's not unreasonable.

    It was planned to allow the player to interact with each crate if it was present (had something in it) so that we could remove whatever was in it, however that requires the game to keep track of that cargo on a per block basis as opposed to just being recorded at the storage computer. I imagine that is why it was not implemented. I am not coding these things however so idk the actual reason. That is just what makes sense to me.
    Probably a mix of that and it wasn't worth the time to be able to see what's in a box with such a small capacity for storage.



    We honestly don't have that luxury. We play when we can. I am building assets. Schema tests things when he finishes coding stuff. I know for a fact Kupu has to look over textures while in the game. That still isn't the same as sitting around for a month and building up a faction by ourselves and seeing if all the work we did in two weeks time was worth it. We can't do that. That is why we rely on the councilors and testers and we trust them when they tell us something. If we make a mistake then we accept it and try again.
    Yes, you do have that capacity. I'm not suggesting that you spend hours upon hours personally testing each and every thing you do but you guys do need to get some time clocked in regularly. I don't know how exactly your workflow is but it really needs to be done. What you're describing is akin to a manager telling employees how to do their job when the manager has little to no idea how the job is performed(which sadly drastically more than it should) or a chef who never tastes what they make. As developers, you have a unique insight in how the game works and leveraging that can mean the difference between a medicore or good game and a great game.
     

    Bench

    Creative Director
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    • Schine
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    People raise a couple interesting points. Some more vocal than others, as per usual. I think people look at when StarMade first came into its own (when the awareness of it grew around the time of Yogscast etc) and where it is now and for some reason (at least this is the impression I get) think that it should be further along or should be focusing on "x" or "y" and should have been done with "z" ages ago. We have to remember that for the most part it's literally been one guy in Germany building this game on his own. It's only in the past year or two that the team has grown beyond that to where we can have different people working on different things. Again I get the impression people assume it's been the same team with the same level of management this whole period. It's not the case.

    I don't want to comment on how things internally at Schine have run over the past few years, except to say that lumping all the development into one basket and saying this should be the result now is pretty inaccurate. As we've grown in experience as a team we've become more efficient, more organised, and more focused on the direction we want to take StarMade. Not only that, the steps to get there are a lot clearer.

    We've never had a more clear picture of where we're taking StarMade over the next 12 months than we do right now. It's not just about the next feature, there's a bigger picture to everything. My role here at Schine is to make sure we get to where we want to take StarMade, and that'll take structure, planning, and a good foundation to achieve all we wish to achieve.

    That foundation even from a mechanics standpoint is constantly being set. Because of the size of the team everything has to be implemented in stages, so when you go on the forums complaining about another random feature instead of actual "gameplay" being added, you may not be realising that actually that feature ties into half a dozen other features planned for the next few months so that by the end of it we have all the pieces in place to implement what our plan for part of the "gameplay" is.

    I don't know whether people just think we don't have a plan or something and so want to whine about everything just so they're heard. Why are you wasting your time with "x", when you should be adding in "y", you've had enough time. As a matter of fact we've already planned everything we need to implement "y", and part of that is implementing "x" first. We're that organised that I'm not thinking about "x" or "y", I'm already six-months down the track, looking at what we need to do to implement "z", a feature you're not even asking about yet, but you will be asking about after "y" goes in, and looking at what do our teams need to be working on to implement "z" even before you get a chance to ask about it.

    Thank you for being passionate, thank you for wanting the best StarMade can be. We want that too, and because of that we want to make sure we're starting on the right foot for everything. So while I appreciate the concern over why we're adding in some features and not looking at other (what you would deem, more pressing) features; at the end of the day there's a reason we've chosen to schedule things in the order we have, and that's the schedule we'll be sticking to (except if Schema surprises us all with something like magnetic docking again).

    As always, you're more than welcome to PM me if you have a specific concern and I'll do my best to answer it in a way that'll satisfy you.
     

    StormWing0

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    lol I'm a programmer too, that's why I'm normally giving you guys the benefit of a doubt. That said when are you guys going to fix the issue of cargo areas lagging to oblivion? o_O