StarMade [Yet another Ideas Thread]

[Franken Stein]

Hello, fellow StarMates (See what I did there?)

I have a few ideas for StarMade, which I think would just improve the PvP aspect of the game and allow for more awesome builds and stuff.



-Defence

Currently, the only defence is shields and thick hull. But what if you could make it so shields only deflect lasers, and rockets need to be deflected by Chaff cannons or something?

The chaff would be released when sensors (Manually placed on to ship hull) are triggered. They would confuse the missile, and it would fly away in a random direction. (This would obviously use a lot of energy, and had a recharge time.

Another way of defence could be to create a ship system that can rewire BB and KB Rocket targets, so that they return to the ship that fired them.

I was also thinking about how capital ships can easily take out small ships in one hit. If you could make some sort of modification to shields, maybe even a shield upgrade block that you have to link to shield blocks, that makes them able to focus on the exact point of impact, minimising shield loss. This would only work on smaller ships, as bigger ones would take forever to set up.



-Weapons

I have a problem where I play StarMade and ships that are a lot smaller than mine can easily fly past me and run. But what if you could create a sort of tractor beam that pulls the ship in? Depending on the beams power, different ship sizes would be able to be pulled in. For example, a small fighter will take less energy and beam blocks than a large frigate.

I also had the idea that maybe smaller ships could be fitted with a hull cutter tool, which can easily cut through hull but cannot cut anything else efficiently (Power, engines, etc). This could mean a fleet of ships could lock a capital cruiser in combat while a small fighter infiltrates it and detonates the core. It could cause some pretty tactically thought-out battles.

I also thought of a weapon that only large cruisers could use: The Railgun.

A massive cannon that takes a lot of blocks to build, and then needs to be connected to a railgun computer, which is made of 8 railgun comp. blocks, in a 2 by 2 square. it would take a hell of a lot of power, but would literally cut through almost any material. It would leave the ship powerless for a time, and the cooldown would be huge. But weapons like that could make large capital ships even more of a challenge to take down, and if you are in a large battle, nothing is cooler than a large lazer carving through all in its path.



And, finally;

-Movement

What if thrusters are not the only way of movement? Panels on the outside of the hull that use solar flares to generate kinetic thrust (Only work near a star, but can run off reserve power) or maybe turbines that can rotate and make ships counteract the gravity of planets?

Or even a device that can open a small wormhole for moving large ships through sectors at a time? It would mean that there really is no way to be sure when your enemies will strike, and can cause a lot of tactical assaults and warfare.



If Schema/beetlebear is reading this, then feel free to either take this on board or just crush it into the dust. These are just a few ideas I came up with, so if they are not good enough that is fine. It is your game, not mine.



-Stein

 

[ShallowShi]

Sorry for this, but I just have to point out that 8 units cannot fit in a 2x2 square. That would require a 2x2x2 cube.

I particularly like the railgun and tractor beam ideas. The larger ships need some sort of unique doomsday device for station & planet-busting and incapacitating other heavy ships. As for the tractor beam, it\'s so annoying to not be able to lock on to a snub fighter in a larger ship and spending years chasing them down with the abismal turn rate in order to shoot them (even worse when one cannot get auto-turrets to work). A tractor beam would be perfect for grabbing a small ship and holding it in stasis while your cannons/turrets finish it off.

 

[Franken Stein]

Sorry, I meant the 2x2x2 (Derp -_-)

And I kind of like the idea that the tractor beam would be able to do that too, but would be used to catch ships death-star style and reel them in for salvaging.

The railgun would be a doomsday weapon, having a whole new class, but would also take ages to build.

It would have something like a 3x3x60 tube with only the corners filled in (A frame kind of thing) as the base, and more and more items needed to build it until it is functional. Maybe even one of each weapon to build it, and in the end it would obliterate entire planets in one or two hits. But, for balance issues, it would have a large cooldown.

 

[JD0123]

Maybe you can have the death star block thing, which would need to be in a large line or something. and if you want to use it you point and your thrusters/Turrets/... would turn off and your power would slowly drain and you get a countdown on when to use it.

Would be pretty neat.

 

[Visitor]

In regards to defense, first balance of shields and hull is necessary - shields keep on scaling strength ad infinitum the more you build, while hulls are effective, but only up to certain size.

Chaff launchers could be nice, but I\'d make them effective only for small (say, up to the mass of 50) and fast vessels. I can\'t just see some sort of battlecruiser fooling a salvo of even remotely dumb lock-on missiles.

Sending missiles back I dislike.

Capital ships should be able to take most of the smaller ships in one hit, at least when it comes to their main cannons. The thing is, they should be far more unwieldy and slow so without battery of automated turrets they would have very little of a chance to take out incoming fighters on the move.

Now, weapons: Tractor beams, sure, but ones that actually have to lock-on targets. Otherwise again, smaller, nimble ships are at a disadvantage as anything with array of those things will take their main advantage out. Small ships should be able to run past you, if your ship is several classes bigger.

Hull cutter sounds interesting but I\'d rather leave it as some sort of boarding party tool, for the time we\'ll have personal weaponry. And it\'s still needs defense balance first - what good would such cutter do against the ship with impenetrable shield not allowing you to even get to that hull? Certainly some sort of completely-shield-ignoring weapon would also be a rather cheap solution.

It\'s already in - build a huge anti-material cannon, adjust it\'s power distribution so everything from rate of fire and so on goes into damage.

Movement. For now, when propulsion is hardly problematic and strapping how-many-you-want thrusters for perfect speed and strafing ability no matter the weight of your ship is a basic design decision, there seems to be no point in alternate propulsion units, including some warping in a world where vectors of entry into every sector are plenty and working, decent blockades are unheard of (really, as it is now just jumping into a sector would be more confusing for the jumping party than the defenders).

So, again, it\'s a thing that needs to be balanced before additions which wouldn\'t be useless can be made. I personally believe that division of thrusters into multidrectional, but weak ones for small ships and unwieldy ones propelling ship - depending on the placement - forward (at least once the center of mass etc will be implemented) in relation to what direction the thruster is facing would be the best choice.

 

[CinderBlock33]

Yes to the railgun idea. The whole \"big scary weapon\" idea is fantastic, and I\'d love to equip my large ships with a weapon that can obliderate smaller ships to dust. I agree with this idea because like youve mentioned above, small ships in a big cruiser are hard to take down because of their speed, but looking at a more \"real life\" scenario (real life being used very loosely), big ships are hard to take down, but can take down small ships, you know where bigger is better. (except if youre the death star),
But now to go back on my statement, you can, as a big ship, take down small ships fast, just make your weapons absolutely insanely huge, you have the space, and you should have the power, you should be able to take down a small ship in one hit with any weapon, but nonetheless i love the railgun idea.



The wormhole device: The geek in me absolutely loves this idea, to be able to literally jump through sectors. yes.
The only thing is that it should take an absolutely imense amount of power, so it cant be abused. and it should have a large cooldown.

Tractor beams, i have to say, sorry but i disagree. youre in this huge ship that is shielded from head to toe and back, and has an extreme amount of power/weapons, and you want to make it even harder for the little guy to forfeit? i think thats a little unfair picking on the little guy.
but on the other hand, its annoying when you cant get kills cause youre slow, and theyre too fast. but thats just the way it is..

kenetic thrusters are cool, but inpractical, cause youd have to be close to a star, but eh, it would be cool...

the whole, sort of \"flare\" idea you had with confusing missles, wouldnt work in space too well... ill let you figure out why yourself. so that idea gets a thumbs down from me

and the \"rewiring\" of missles is very iffy, it would just be a back and forward battle.. idk, thumbs down again


sorry to end this on a thumbs down, but some of the ideas i agree with completely!

 

[Franken Stein]

In hindsight, the missile rewiring is not a good idea. And the chaff will not be flares, cinder. It would, because its space, be little pieces of metal fired at the rocket to detonate it or push it off course.

As for your large cannon idea, Visitor, that is not what I meant. I was talking about a devastating weapon that drains your energy after each shot, but can obliterate anything. Your idea would just mean that you have a big scary lazer.

As for the tractor beam: It would be a large energy-using device, and would rely on capital ships getting slower and having different engine types (like Visitor suggested). it would possibly also be for moving wrecks into a cargo bay for salvage, or holding an enemy ship still so others can enter it (Going back to the hull cutter, which was also designed for personal weapons).

Wormhole: What Cinder said is what I mean for it to work like (Huge jump, uses a ton of energy).

My movement ideas would obviously be needed later on, for them to be incorporated effectively. And as for balance, that would be needed too to make all of this work.

Hull Cutter: It would bypass shields, but would have low range and only be able to damage hull blocks.

I think that pretty much covers everything, but this would rely on capital ships being bulky and slow, and fighters being nimble.

 

[Franken Stein]

I have another idea for the Warp drive thing: What if there is something in the way of the warp route? If your ship was shielded, it would lose shields because it has to smash through the blockage. If it didn\'t, it would lose a massive chunk. This would make servers have established warp routes, and would also slow progress so that people cannot just warp everywhere.