StarMade v0.19538 - New Thruster Mechanics

[Employee763]

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.

It's Alpha, you're going to have to rebuild everything several times over anyways

 

[Valck]

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.

Just the same as I have to rip out thousands of missile tubes if I want cannons instead? Yes. Does that make it complicated? I don't think so.

Wouldn't it take away something if you could just reconfigure your weapons on-the-fly to become cannons instead of missiles?

For me, having to intricately engineer spaceships adds value to the game, and conversely, not having to do so does take it away.
What you call a massive learning curve is part of what makes this game interesting for me. Learning and figuring out stuff is a considerable part of what I enjoy about the game.

Also part of my gripe with the current implementation is the user interface which I feel should not be necessary at all.
It might serve for an overall ship power configuration interface, where you could adjust power distribution to shields, or weapons, or engines in general, but I think propulsion is such an integral part of designing a ship that I should be required to put some thought into it before I build the ship, much less fly it.

And frankly, any argument about invalidating existing ships only goes so far before release. We've both seen balance and rebalance, addition of new and deletion of old systems (blocks as well as game mechanics) happen, and it will happen again and again until release, as it should.
We may not like some of them, but we'll start over and adapt.
While I can always draw some inspiration from my previous builds, I build in the knowledge that tomorrow's update may screw up all I build today.

 

[kiraen]

I rather like the new thruster set up, but I do agree there should be more of a drawback to changing the setting on the fly.

Iirc, the reasons true directional thrust isn't being used is somewhere in the Q&A video. I got impression it was something of a nightmare.

While I see no reason to add that sort of thing to the base game, I certainly hope that there will be some way to mod it into the game at a later point. It would be interesting to try out, but not something I would really enjoy in the long run.

And frankly, any argument about invalidating existing ships only goes so far before release. We've both seen balance and rebalance, addition of new and deletion of old systems (blocks as well as game mechanics) happen, and it will happen again and again until release, as it should.
We may not like some of them, but we'll start over and adapt.
While I can always draw some inspiration from my previous builds, I build in the knowledge that tomorrow's update may screw up all I build today.

As far as the quote goes, I whole-heartedly agree. Especially the last two sentences.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

It looks like modular ships just became a thing.

Finally my modular freighter is practical. The engines are no longer for decoration.

 

[Borr]

Speaking as a veteran who has posted many suggestions- get over it. You (and everyone else) needs to understand that not every suggestion is something the devs can implement or WANT to implement. You're being extremely arrogant by feeling your suggestions are any better than anyone else's and that "shallow people" are the reason they don't succeed.

Well, I'm player, I play this game, I know what I want from this game to keep me playing. Lets face it, everyone (even you) think their suggestions are better than others because they know what will make them happy and interested. They sometimes even think that their suggestions will make other people happy. Some people want more building, some more engineering, some more action, some roleplay, etc. People will always want things for themselves and it's natural. Devs have to decide which group will profit them the most.

 

[Lecic]

Wouldn't it take away something if you could just reconfigure your weapons on-the-fly to become cannons instead of missiles?

I don't agree with being able to change thrusters on the fly either. I just think forcing the player to rip out massive amounts of thrusters for minor changes is pointless.

There are a lot of things that having all the weapons being different blocks adds- primarily, trade. If one section of the universe has large deposits of the ore used in missiles, and one section has large deposits of the ore used in cannons, factions within those sections can trade with eachother, or have a good reason to launch an invasion into the section for resources.

Meanwhile, directional thrust orientation...
1) Makes things harder for builders
2) Potentially adds more load to the game
and otherwise has no difference between just using the menu to change it.

For me, having to intricately engineer spaceships adds value to the game, and conversely, not having to do so does take it away.
What you call a massive learning curve is part of what makes this game interesting for me. Learning and figuring out stuff is a considerable part of what I enjoy about the game.

I, too, am a ship engineer. I LOVE the learning curve Starmade has. I've spent hours- no, days worth of my life discussing the intricacies of systems (both intentional and accidental) with my faction and various people in chat. However, I can see that it's very difficult for new players to grasp it, and it's driving potential new players away. I've seen it first hand- even with a veteran explaining things, people get frustrated and give up. We don't need to make that worse.

And frankly, any argument about invalidating existing ships only goes so far before release. We've both seen balance and rebalance, addition of new and deletion of old systems (blocks as well as game mechanics) happen, and it will happen again and again until release, as it should.
We may not like some of them, but we'll start over and adapt.
While I can always draw some inspiration from my previous builds, I build in the knowledge that tomorrow's update may screw up all I build today.

I'm not against needing to refit ships. I love refitting ships, and there are many changes that will require heavy refits (crew? fuel to replace docked reactors, maybe? ) that I'm excited for. But the need for those refits needs to be for the right reasons. I don't feel that block-based directional thrust is a good reason for such refits. It just doesn't add much.

 

[Dellexe]

There's a difference between breaking old ships to add a key new feature and breaking old ships to make the building process more immersive.

That's what you want, right? To break 99.9% of ships in the game to make it more immersive?

This opposed to, say, the shield update. Which instead of breaking every shield system in the game for immersion, added tradeoffs and strategy to using different amounts of capacitors V rechargers. There is no tradeoff or strategy added with the system you're describing compared to the new system.

And if you want immersion so bad, just build how you want to build. No one is forcing you to place every thruster facing the same direction.

 

[Groovrider]

There's a difference between breaking old ships to add a key new feature and breaking old ships to make the building process more immersive.

That's what you want, right? To break 99.9% of ships in the game to make it more immersive?

This opposed to, say, the shield update. Which instead of breaking every shield system in the game for immersion, added tradeoffs and strategy to using different amounts of capacitors V rechargers. There is no tradeoff or strategy added with the system you're describing compared to the new system.

And if you want immersion so bad, just build how you want to build. No one is forcing you to place every thruster facing the same direction.

Ah see but if he did that he might feel himself at a disadvantage that others are not, and that cannot be allowed.

Anyway, has it occurred to anyone that some players design ships that have no reaction based thrust systems? Like some propel themselves with gravitic pulsed from a centrally located spacetime engine? Or use traction fields like ships from the Culture or the lensman series? Yeah, thought not.

 

[Dellexe]

Ah see but if he did that he might feel himself at a disadvantage that others are not, and that cannot be allowed.

Anyway, has it occurred to anyone that some players design ships that have no reaction based thrust systems? Like some propel themselves with gravitic pulsed from a centrally located spacetime engine? Or use traction fields like ships from the Culture or the lensman series? Yeah, thought not.

Goa'uld ships from Stargate. :P
I've also designed a couple ships of my own around this idea.

 

[StormWing0]

hmm I could see thrusters facing a given direction providing more thrust in said direction than they would others but at this point it'd be too much of a headache to force thruster face direction based thrust without giving some time to phase out this current thrust system.

 

[mindlord0013]

I don't agree with being able to change thrusters on the fly either. I just think forcing the player to rip out massive amounts of thrusters for minor changes is pointless.

There are a lot of things that having all the weapons being different blocks adds- primarily, trade. If one section of the universe has large deposits of the ore used in missiles, and one section has large deposits of the ore used in cannons, factions within those sections can trade with eachother, or have a good reason to launch an invasion into the section for resources.

Meanwhile, directional thrust orientation...
1) Makes things harder for builders
2) Potentially adds more load to the game
and otherwise has no difference between just using the menu to change it.

I, too, am a ship engineer. I LOVE the learning curve Starmade has. I've spent hours- no, days worth of my life discussing the intricacies of systems (both intentional and accidental) with my faction and various people in chat. However, I can see that it's very difficult for new players to grasp it, and it's driving potential new players away. I've seen it first hand- even with a veteran explaining things, people get frustrated and give up. We don't need to make that worse.

I'm not against needing to refit ships. I love refitting ships, and there are many changes that will require heavy refits (crew? fuel to replace docked reactors, maybe? ) that I'm excited for. But the need for those refits needs to be for the right reasons. I don't feel that block-based directional thrust is a good reason for such refits. It just doesn't add much.

That was one of the major gripes during a recent Yogscast stream of StarMade: "it's too complex compared to Minecraft, can't we go back to playing something else like Minecraft?" I think one of them said, "I can kinda see why this isn't catching on."

The thruster changes certainly added complexity, but it was for the sake of gameplay. The thruster changes some people seem to want would make it massively more complex, for no reason except "immersion" and "role-play". The way things are with the current thruster changes, you might not even need to change anything to get your ship flying how you like it. With the one some people want, that is certainly not the case.

 

[Mr.Steam]

I really don't see Starmade being much more complex than Minecraft. Of course there is a little more required to have a moving / functioning ship vs a mud hut (as it should be) but have you ever tried building electronic systems with redstone? I will take the C-V connection system over redstone any day of the week.

I think the learning curve for Starmade will be alleviated somewhat once we have the new trade hub and the ability to buy some prebuilt ships.

 

[PizzaPress]

This update is amazing. That's all I can really say yet about the changes. I can just hop into the game and build a station at spawn.

Does dimensions still affect your turn speed? I think it does. Please change this. I don't wanna make interior-less boxes anymore.
*cries*
(I'm OK with it affecting the distribution of said turning points, so long as it equals out, just changes how different ships turn rather than punishing them for not maximizing their dimensions.)

Also, with docked thrusters, do they consume main ship's power or their own?
(Edit: They use the mothership's power.)

 

[Employee763]

Directional thrust should at least be an option in the config files.

Alternatively, you could click a box in the thrust menu that would automatically calculate the thrust options based on the placement of your thrusters. That way, if you wanted to have directional thrusters you could.

 

[Valck]

But the need for those refits needs to be for the right reasons. I don't feel that block-based directional thrust is a good reason for such refits. It just doesn't add much.

Let's just agree that we disagree on this point, shall we ;)

Also I don't think Minecraft is that much more accessible. You'd get nowhere without the wiki; while it may have become common cultural knowledge how to make a crafting bench or a pickaxe in Minecraft, you're not even told the most basic recipes. I feel StarMade is already far ahead in that respect - even if the tutorial is just rudimentary, at least there is one. MC may have the cuteness factor going for it that initially masks much of its complexity and thereby keep inexperienced players willing to invest more time for longer, but more accessible, not really. And maybe SM shouldn't try too hard to cater to the same audience.

 

[Lecic]

This update is amazing. That's all I can really say yet about the changes. I can just hop into the game and build a station at spawn.

Does dimensions still affect your turn speed? I think it does. Please change this. I don't wanna make interior-less boxes anymore.
*cries*
(I'm OK with it affecting the distribution of said turning points, so long as it equals out, just changes how different ships turn rather than punishing them for not maximizing their dimensions.)

Also, with docked thrusters, do they consume main ship's power or their own?
(Edit: They use the mothership's power.)

Dimensions still effect turn speed, but it doesn't seem be to nearly as much.

Also- people need to stop overestimating the power of turning fast in OTHER directions. Your long ship can pitch and roll very fast, even faster than a cube of the same mass as you.

A couple of months I got into a pretty standard fight with a guy on a server- we were both flying in a direction near max speed. That direction happened to be downwards, and my ship could turn vertically much faster than his. He couldn't hit me (shields never dipped below 98%), and I was dancing around and shooting through his thinner bottom armor.

Spoiler: Picture

 

[Lancake]

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?)

It should require a ship reboot.

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.

Those ideas were considered but we went with a fixed cooldown in the end, it's the simplest to start with and does what it should do. The ships that profit the most of changing thrust on the fly is the medium to large class. 100% rotational thrust is quite a buff for them and it's not like they can dodge incoming fire anyway.

I preferred to have thrust completely disabled while swapping it out, that way it's even worse to use during combat, but outside that you can change it on the fly without having to constantly go back to a shipyard, or to do a long reboot.

Quick example: adjusting your thrust so you can hover easily while in planet gravity.

If you want this changed, make a suggestion post and we'll change it if it has a lot of support

 

[kikaha]

Ah see but if he did that he might feel himself at a disadvantage that others are not, and that cannot be allowed.

Anyway, has it occurred to anyone that some players design ships that have no reaction based thrust systems? Like some propel themselves with gravitic pulsed from a centrally located spacetime engine? Or use traction fields like ships from the Culture or the lensman series? Yeah, thought not.

At last someone who's read ian M. Banks....

 

[Phocian]

All good points from both sides.
I personally hope that Starmade doesn't become overly complicated, there are other games that fill the niche of space ship simulation very well. That's not what attracted me to this game.

In Starmade in the future, ship building will be just one aspect, a very important aspect but not the total focus.

With what has been proposed for the game, npc's, fauna, exploring, missions, diplomacy, empire building, wars etc we are going to have a lot to do and reasons to it.

I don't want to be bogged down working out ratios I want to be out there in the galaxy destroying it and others that stand in my way of domination.
Mawhahaha...cough....cough

 

[icky]

my point is being a galaxy-conquering badass should be the end goal, not something you can do right away. having a titan you can roam around in laughing in the faces of any adversary is something you should have to WORK for. yall make it sound like having to place some thrusters for front/back and some for side to side is difficult.

that being said i also like the current system. tuning thrusters isnt something you HAVE to do, its something you GET to do. i like that i can make my ship handle like i want it to.