- Joined
- Jan 28, 2017
- Messages
- 60
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- 107
Hello fellow nerds,
for the past couple years, i have been thinking about the problem of weak stations in starmade.
I would like players to spawn a ton of stations, expand to multiple starsystems and generally build lots of infrastructure and an empire. There are two issues that prevent that:
- stations are hard to defend, if given the option on how to invest the resources, a ship is always better than a station.
- players can not be online 24/7, there is a very real possibility that you build an empire, log on 3 days later and its all gone
the first problem had lots of attempts to solve it in the past. Make stations reactor stronger, give them bigger range, buff their shields etc etc.
None of these "soft" solutions (changing mechanics that buff stations) has worked out so far.
The second problem was supposed to be solved by the first one, strong stations are hard to destroy so it takes time.
All soft solutions fail if you just bring a bigger ship in the next attack attempt.
Here is my attempt to solve the above problems:
Make stations in your starsystem completely invulnerable and add a "siege" system where this invulerability can be turned off, over the course of multiple hours or even days.
I made a mod prototype, it adds a "voidshield". If the voidshield is active, all stations that belong to the faction, which controls the system have indestructible shields.
To active the voidshield, you have to control "strongpoints", 3-7 special sectors in the system by having a station of yours in it. strongpoints are not protected by the voidshield.
The voidshields HP increase if the owner controls the majority of strongpoints, the HP decrease if someone else controls the majority of strongpoints. if the HP reach zero, the voidshield goes inactive. For now the HPs are capped at 1000, giving 3 minutes of invulnerability after loosing all strongpoints, but that can be set to whatever time you want, 2 hours, 3 days, 4 months.
<Stronghold>
I would like the communities feedback to this prototype, if you think its the right way to solve the station-weakness or how you would improve it.
for the past couple years, i have been thinking about the problem of weak stations in starmade.
I would like players to spawn a ton of stations, expand to multiple starsystems and generally build lots of infrastructure and an empire. There are two issues that prevent that:
- stations are hard to defend, if given the option on how to invest the resources, a ship is always better than a station.
- players can not be online 24/7, there is a very real possibility that you build an empire, log on 3 days later and its all gone
the first problem had lots of attempts to solve it in the past. Make stations reactor stronger, give them bigger range, buff their shields etc etc.
None of these "soft" solutions (changing mechanics that buff stations) has worked out so far.
The second problem was supposed to be solved by the first one, strong stations are hard to destroy so it takes time.
All soft solutions fail if you just bring a bigger ship in the next attack attempt.
Here is my attempt to solve the above problems:
Make stations in your starsystem completely invulnerable and add a "siege" system where this invulerability can be turned off, over the course of multiple hours or even days.
I made a mod prototype, it adds a "voidshield". If the voidshield is active, all stations that belong to the faction, which controls the system have indestructible shields.
To active the voidshield, you have to control "strongpoints", 3-7 special sectors in the system by having a station of yours in it. strongpoints are not protected by the voidshield.
The voidshields HP increase if the owner controls the majority of strongpoints, the HP decrease if someone else controls the majority of strongpoints. if the HP reach zero, the voidshield goes inactive. For now the HPs are capped at 1000, giving 3 minutes of invulnerability after loosing all strongpoints, but that can be set to whatever time you want, 2 hours, 3 days, 4 months.
<Stronghold>
I would like the communities feedback to this prototype, if you think its the right way to solve the station-weakness or how you would improve it.