StarMade v0.19538 - New Thruster Mechanics

[BillGHero]

I'm liking this update and the last one too. Good work Schine team!

The thrust inheritance is a welcome option! A couple years ago I really wanted to build a ship with separate thruster pods, and now it is possible.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Andir]

Not asking for such big increase in power, it was an example how limited power generation and the need to refuel from time to time in new power system, could be compensated.
For thruster exhaust, if they would have to be not covered by any blocks they could add a weak points to the ship. We could cripple our opponents by targeting their exhausts. Just another thought.
For colored hulls, nope, I'll not miss them. Adding 1 hull color to my hotbar and save my hotbar slots for other blocks instead of 3 or more, and gathering/producing one hull color instead of 3 or more, will be so much more complicated... Even further, why we have to gather/produce 5 different shapes instead of 1 to build our ships? The same for lights. And it was also suggested a long time ago.

The funny thing is that after the slabs went in, I couldn't figure out why the block shape couldn't be done this way. Thought, not via slider. That would be a terrible UI for selecting block shape. Just select the hull type you want, decide if it's a hepta, tetra, etc and place it on your ship. No need to keep/buy/produce 5 different shapes. Just let the state of the tile determine the shape.

 

[badmojo]

Very little engineering in this game makes logical sense. Your point?

My post was in response to someone who claimed the current system is logical.

It would require work to existing ships for very little gain, would limit the creative options a player has, and it would add pointless hours to the time it takes to balance systems. Not to mention, it would likely add more load to the game to calculate thruster locations and orientations constantly.

If people want thrust to be based on physical orientation of the blocks for "RP reasons," as I've heard so many times, perhaps they should build their ship to look like it uses it, and let everyone else build how they want too?

Adding hours to balancing a ship, and limiting creative design might actually be good things for this game. I mean, if we want to reject advanced building techniques for thrusters, why do we have stuff like weapons & power acting the way they do? That complexity just adds pointless hours to balancing a ship, does it not? And I'm sure the added calculations for power shapes hurts performance. If you want to role play your power reactors being better in that shape, just build them that way and act like it matters. Then everyone else can build how they want to...?

 

[Employee763]

you can do that anyways...
you can rotate thrusters...

I've heard that doesn't work

 

[Lecic]

Adding hours to balancing a ship, and limiting creative design might actually be good things for this game. I mean, if we want to reject advanced building techniques for thrusters, why do we have stuff like weapons & power acting the way they do? That complexity just adds pointless hours to balancing a ship, does it not? And I'm sure the added calculations for power shapes hurts performance. If you want to role play your power reactors being better in that shape, just build them that way and act like it matters. Then everyone else can build how they want to...?

The way power currently works is not something I am a fan of. However, it is not nearly as limiting to a build as needing to orient thruster blocks would be.

As for weapons- what? Weapons need no special shapes. They're just bricks of systems. Most of the balancing of weapons is extremely simple once you've figured out the percentages that fit together well, and you can easily test that at smaller scales and apply it to your larger vessels. It's not like thrusters where every ship would need a specific balancing of thrust in all directions due to widely varying mass of ship and the decreasing effectiveness of thrusters as thruster module count increases.

What does it ADD to the game? Weapon complexity adds a lot of potential weapon choices that prevent a "one best choice," since there's a bit of a rock/paper/scissors between all the kinds of weapons and defenses. Thruster complexity adds... making it harder to build a ship?

 

[icky]

We arent building huts in minecraft, we're building bloody space ships! It SHOULDNT be all that easy to make a good one. All this whining is souring my vibe around here. Make your suggestion in the appropriate threads and respect that other people have other ideas. I, for one, like the idea of having to setup different thrusters for different directions. After all, thats how weapons work, right?

 

[Lecic]

We arent building huts in minecraft, we're building bloody space ships! It SHOULDNT be all that easy to make a good one. All this whining is souring my vibe around here. Make your suggestion in the appropriate threads and respect that other people have other ideas. I, for one, like the idea of having to setup different thrusters for different directions. After all, thats how weapons work, right?

Most weapons only point forwards, and only need to be oriented by the computer direction. It's relatively easy to change the direction of the weapon if you have some need to. Changing thruster direction would require removing ALL of the thrusters and replacing them.

Building ships is already very complex and difficult. You need to balance all of your systems very careful to build the best ship you can. Power (both kinds), shields (both kinds), armor thickness, armor shape, armor tier, numerous passives, dozens of potential weapon types with many potential effects on top of that, turrets and associated mass enhancers, jump drives, jump inhibitors, drones, chaff, and now, of course, there's thrust direction that needs to be balanced as well. Any systems/structure systems I've forgotten?

Do we REALLY need to make all that more complex by forcing thrust blocks to be built in a specific direction? What does it ADD TO THE GAME?

 

[Employee763]

Do we REALLY need to make all that more complex by forcing thrust blocks to be built in a specific direction? What does it ADD TO THE GAME?

Immersion? The opportunity to stick it to the shipbuilders that have ruined the game for the rest of us?

 

[badmojo]

The way power currently works is not something I am a fan of. However, it is not nearly as limiting to a build as needing to orient thruster blocks would be.

As for weapons- what? Weapons need no special shapes. They're just bricks of systems. Most of the balancing of weapons is extremely simple once you've figured out the percentages that fit together well, and you can easily test that at smaller scales and apply it to your larger vessels. It's not like thrusters where every ship would need a specific balancing of thrust in all directions due to widely varying mass of ship and the decreasing effectiveness of thrusters as thruster module count increases.

What does it ADD to the game? Weapon complexity adds a lot of potential weapon choices that prevent a "one best choice," since there's a bit of a rock/paper/scissors between all the kinds of weapons and defenses. Thruster complexity adds... making it harder to build a ship?

It differentiates ship builds from one another more. Just like how every ship in the game with 10 storage blocks used to be a cargo vessel, and now you have to purpose build a ship for that. You shouldn't be able to just slap on a bunch of thrusters anywhere and then have full mobility in every direction, adjustable on the fly.

It's not really hard to throw a small amount of thrust out the front, sides, top and bottom of most current ships. Which would give you full mobility, just not the best of that ability. I don't know, to each their own, but I would rather make things more complex in building the perfect ship.

 

[Lecic]

adjustable on the fly.

Oh, yes, that reminds me.

Thrust adjustment should REALLY be a shipyard only function, or have some sort of debuff (maybe it gives you a thrust outage + high power cost when you change it outside a shipyard?)

 

[badmojo]

It should require a ship reboot.

 

[godmars]

After all, thats how weapons work, right?

you dont need to rotate 100s of weapon modules to get it to fire in a different direction

i dont really like that idea. it just seems needlessly complex

 

[icky]

then make a thruster computer and rotate THAT. solved. then that opens it up to effects slaved to the thruster computer. obviously OD would be linked to the thruster computer. maybe another effect would give you top speed in lieu of accel or vice versa. as far as building i think theyre going pretty easy on us even with directional thrusters. think about it, they dont even have to be on the outside of the ship! you could fill a closet with thrusters and make the ship go faster.

 

[Master_Artificer]

Immersion? The opportunity to stick it to the shipbuilders that have ruined the game for the rest of us?

Wat

 

[kiraen]

Thrust adjustment should REALLY be a shipyard only function, or have some sort of debuff (maybe it gives you a thrust outage + high power cost when you change it outside a shipyard?)

Certainly a bit of a cooldown, which it already has. I'd even agree with a complete outage while the cooldown timer is running.

But shipyard only? (or reboot) No, thank you. "Transfer power to starboard thrusters." It's kind of a staple of science fiction.

 

[Malacodor]

"Transfer power to starboard thrusters." It's kind of a staple of science fiction.

Transferring power is not the same as reconstructing the thrusters.

 

[Employee763]

Wat

Employee763 is my name, trolling is my game

 

[Lecic]

then make a thruster computer and rotate THAT. solved. then that opens it up to effects slaved to the thruster computer. obviously OD would be linked to the thruster computer. maybe another effect would give you top speed in lieu of accel or vice versa. as far as building i think theyre going pretty easy on us even with directional thrusters. think about it, they dont even have to be on the outside of the ship! you could fill a closet with thrusters and make the ship go faster.

Passive Overdrive already gives you a higher top speed, and Passive Push/Pull give you acceleration bursts already.

Seriously, why do we need a thruster computer or rotation to be determined by orientation? The menu works fine without adding a ton of pointless complexity.

 

[Valck]

I don't get why we need that adjustment window at all - this sticks out like a sore thumb.

Everything else in game is configured by the way you build and interconnect it - you want an effect, add an effects computer. You want your missiles to shoot out the top? Orient the missile computer accordingly. To me that feels integrated and intuitive.

Why should thrust be handled differently? You want vertical or lateral thrust, place a proportion of your thrusters in the direction you want them.

To accommodate small ships and existing builds, it could work similar to the power system, where up to a certain thruster dimension, thrust increases omnidirectionally, and only after that would the actual orientation matter. So you always have some orthogonal thrust available, but if you want the optimum, you have to build it accordingly.
And if it is really such a staple of scyfi, then by all means, why not add dynamic thrust reconfiguration on top of that.

 

[Lecic]

I don't get why we need that adjustment window at all - this sticks out like a sore thumb.

Everything else in game is configured by the way you build and interconnect it - you want an effect, add an effects computer. You want your missiles to shoot out the top? Orient the missile computer accordingly. To me that feels integrated and intuitive.

Why should thrust be handled differently? You want vertical or lateral thrust, place a proportion of your thrusters in the direction you want them.

To accommodate small ships and existing builds, it could work similar to the power system, where up to a certain thruster dimension, thrust increases omnidirectionally, and only after that would the actual orientation matter. So you always have some orthogonal thrust available, but if you want the optimum, you have to build it accordingly.
And if it is really such a staple of scyfi, then by all means, why not add dynamic thrust reconfiguration on top of that.

Do you want to have to rip out thousands upon thousands of thruster modules when you need to make a slight change in your thrust percentages?

It makes building a massive pain in the ass for no gain. It doesn't add anything to the game. It just makes it more complicated to build a ship in a game that's already got a massive learning curve.