Survival and RP oriented blueprint list and categorisation into levels

[JinM]

Hi guys,

so an idea just popped to my mind as I started new in my survival world:

Do we have a list of blueprints, that are categorised within the typical survival progression?

My example:
Ships:
Lvl1: Salvagers and Scouts that can be obtained from spending the starting (!) money on one (!) shop.
Lvl2: Salvagers and Scouts that can be obtained after mining with a lvl1 salvager for like 5 minutes from one(!) shop.
Lvl3: Salvagers or Fighters that can be obtained from visiting 2(!) shops maximum.
Lvl4: Having a basic factory setup with the most basic parts: grey, orange, blue hulls, scaffolds, glass supports ships up to 200 mass.
... Lvl 10: Ships obtained after 20 hours of survival and RP-styled gameplay, like 5k mass.
lvl 15: 50k mass
lvl20: Titans.

Stations:
Lvl1: Only unrefined materials like chabaz larimar as building blocks, some parts bought from the shops (not hull block! some display blocks and docking ports, also doors and such stuff, including a basic production chain.
Lvl2: Glass included and an complete production chain for the basic factory. No Standard Factory items used. Maximum of 50.000 shields.

If we dont't have it jet, we could discuss how to make such a list. Like a thread with the Level explanation, and everyone can respond with his link to one ships, including the level, and some stats and its purpose.

I did not play survival that much to cut through all the content or money balancing. If someone wants to add some ideas to this list, feel free to. My intension is not to compare with multiplayer or hardcore player progression. Please don't try to bring the discussion into that direction, when the basic 5 levels are not laid out. The list should orient itself on players who play like 1 hour a day, and hope to reach lvl2 ships within 1 hour, also the lists purpose is to give people the opportunity to fly well designed ships from the start on, and not have to wait until they did "The Grind" and finally understood the mechanics of the game as whole.

 

[JinM]

Does this allready exist? Or do you guys expect that new players meticulously search the Comunity Content for some ships? If you are new you don't even know what you have to look for in the Community Content. What blocks and what size etc. Do you guys think my idea is bad, or just not usefull?

I think the idea to have some ships that only need easy to get blocks or a few blocks that can be bought from every trader, is not just nice. Its something that every other spacebuilding game allready offers. This thread just proposes a way to fix this lacking blueprint list. And saying that the devs are doing it is not an excuse, because we want more players now. And not in like 6 months when this feature is on the roadmap.

Why not list some ships? Everyone who build one could post his ship. I just asked for possible level-categorisations so new player know what ship is good for them and what ships are for gameplay 5, 10 or 20 hours in. Because some blocks are somewhat harder to get.

But that categorisation is not needed. I just wanted to know if some list or simmilar allready exist at the first place, and what you think in genearl of it.

 

[Gasboy]

I don't know if there is such a list, but I don't believe one is needed.

 

[JinM]

It is needed in my opinion. Empyrion has it from the start, and Space Engineers also added it later. Why not have such a list in an extra thread, when its allready ingame in the competing sandbox games.

Ofc all the hardcore players who are experienced and have their 20 ships dont care for this. Well you will care if you find one day that no one new is interested in playing Starmade anymore, because every other game made the start easier.

And I don't complain about the devs, I complain about the lacking interest of the community helping new players. Seriously you just turn your back to a legitimate idea, and it tells very much about the maturity of you all.

 

[Gasboy]

It is needed in my opinion. Empyrion has it from the start, and Space Engineers also added it later. Why not have such a list in an extra thread, when its allready ingame in the competing sandbox games.

Hey, some games have microtransactions, let's add those to StarMade too. And a monthly subscription fee. And hats! Because other games have them.

Minecraft doesn't have an "official" list of survival houses, or tool levels people should have by X hour, Y hour and Z hour. And Minecraft does just fine without it.

I'm not saying such a list you suggest isn't useful. I just don't believe it's needed.

A larger and more wide ranging tutorial on everything StarMade? Sure.

A list of progression that people will feel they have to follow to be successful? No. No thanks.

 

[jayman38]

To answer the first question, no, we do not have a list of progression blueprints. We have some "day 1" blueprints available, which illustrate good ships that you can get with the starting supplies.

There is value in this discussion in that it illustrates the need for a more interactive tutorial system.

I have tried to use the tutorial space station, but all the pertinent NPCs fell out the bottom before the station materialized. No bueno.

Now that we have logic-driven display units, maybe the tutorial station can be rebuilt using those, instead of NPCs.

It would be nice to have a series of hangers, or some such free-building area, with a "ghost" blueprint, that has you build different ships in the tutorial sector, with maybe the occasional popup on why building such-and-such system in such-and-such way is good and helpful and important.

Then when the tutorial is over, you return to regular space with all your starting stuff, versus trying to bring back all the blocks you had available in the tutorial sector. On the other hand, maybe bringing back extra tutorial blocks could be a "reward" for going through the tutorial. You would basically get extra blocks when an experienced player guides you through your first builds, so it's pretty much the same thing.

tl;dr: I think we should ask the devs and advanced users to focus efforts on improving the tutorial station that can be accessed in-game.

 

[Crashmaster]

There's already ships in community content labeled as stating resource ships.

Seriously you just turn your back to a legitimate idea, and it tells very much about the maturity of you all.

Seriously, you get just one opinion that disagrees with yours a little bit and you disrespect the entire community.

 

[Gasboy]

Seriously you just turn your back to a legitimate idea, and it tells very much about the maturity of you all.

So I disagree with you, and I'm immature?

Good luck getting people to work with you.
[doublepost=1474989908,1474989852][/doublepost]

To answer the first question, no, we do not have a list of progression blueprints. We have some "day 1" blueprints available, which illustrate good ships that you can get with the starting supplies.

There is value in this discussion in that it illustrates the need for a more interactive tutorial system.

I have tried to use the tutorial space station, but all the pertinent NPCs fell out the bottom before the station materialized. No bueno.

Now that we have logic-driven display units, maybe the tutorial station can be rebuilt using those, instead of NPCs.

It would be nice to have a series of hangers, or some such free-building area, with a "ghost" blueprint, that has you build different ships in the tutorial sector, with maybe the occasional popup on why building such-and-such system in such-and-such way is good and helpful and important.

Then when the tutorial is over, you return to regular space with all your starting stuff, versus trying to bring back all the blocks you had available in the tutorial sector. On the other hand, maybe bringing back extra tutorial blocks could be a "reward" for going through the tutorial. You would basically get extra blocks when an experienced player guides you through your first builds, so it's pretty much the same thing.

tl;dr: I think we should ask the devs and advanced users to focus efforts on improving the tutorial station that can be accessed in-game.

See, this is an idea I can agree with. A bigger and better tutorial.

 

[JinM]

Ok. I try to say it in different words: I think its immature from the community as a whole, to ignore an idea that actually can help new players to have fun faster instead of learning to build some 100 mass ships. If you are new you need like 5 hours to build some nice looking ship and even then it looks like ass most of the time. So I think many people would welcome it to have some ships for flying around instead of having to learn a big chunk about ships design before they can even start playing the game. Some refference ships for an easier start. And Empyrion and Space Engineers have those starter ships, and they do exist to help new players. For nothing else.

To answer the first question, no, we do not have a list of progression blueprints. We have some "day 1" blueprints available, which illustrate good ships that you can get with the starting supplies.

Thats the thing I am looking for. Why doesn't exist more like that?

Gasboy Crashmaster
Guys getting personal about the word immature and even picking out this discussion line does not help understanding each other. Yes I think the community is immature. Did I say you in person are imature? No. Yes you can understand "you all" like you did, but you can think about how I wanted it to be perceived: I wanted to adress the group behaviour.

But lets use another word instead of immature: short sighted and not well-considered.

There is a difference between adressing group behaviour and picking out one persons faults. You did the last thing, I did the former. Please don't try to understand something I said as personal or negative about you in person. It was meant to criticise the community, not you as person. Because I think my idea is legit and I want to defend it. I have a right to do that. If you disagree thats fine for me. But don't take it like I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to argue.

If I have hurt your feelings I am sorry. =)

 

[Gasboy]

Ok. I try to say it in different words: I think its immature from the community as a whole, to ignore an idea that actually can help new players to have fun faster instead of learning to build some 100 mass ships. If you are new you need like 5 hours to build some nice looking ship and even then it looks like ass most of the time. So I think many people would welcome it to have some ships for flying around instead of having to learn a big chunk about ships design before they can even start playing the game. Some refference ships for an easier start. And Empyrion and Space Engineers have those starter ships, and they do exist to help new players. For nothing else.


Thats the thing I am looking for. Why doesn't exist more like that?

Gasboy Crashmaster
Guys getting personal about the word immature and even picking out this discussion line does not help understanding each other. Yes I think the community is immature. Did I say you in person are imature? No. Yes you can understand "you all" like you did, but you can think about how I wanted it to be perceived: I wanted to adress the group behaviour.

But lets use another word instead of immature: short sighted and not well-considered.

There is a difference between adressing group behaviour and picking out one persons faults. You did the last thing, I did the former. Please don't try to understand something I said as personal or negative about you in person. It was meant to criticise the community, not you as person. Because I think my idea is legit and I want to defend it. I have a right to do that. If you disagree thats fine for me. But don't take it like I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to argue.

If I have hurt your feelings I am sorry. =)

No, my feelings aren't hurt at all.

But that doesn't really change my stance. So the community is immature if even ONE person disagrees with an idea? Really? You'll paint the community as a whole with one brush because OH GASP someone disagrees with your idea?

Okay, I can get to the heart of the problem, real quick.

Hey community! What is a frigate? How does it compare to a battleship?

Once we get through the multitude of answers, you will realize the same issue exists with the term "starter ship". People have different ideas as to what that should entail. It would likely be difficult to get agreement.

Is a starter ship a ship that people can afford with the starting blocks and credits they get? Then it's going to look like ass.

And that's the whole point. To build something and then figure out what's wrong with it and improve upon it.

IF a "starter" ship is something more than the sum of your starting parts and credits, where's the line drawn? Where is the line between "a helping hand" and "LOL survival is easy mode"? I will bet you we'll have some differences in opinion there between folks in the community.

It would be better, as some have said already, to improve upon the tutorial. It's much easier to get people to agree what information is needed to start out, and what information would improve people's experiences in survival StarMade. It's better to explain what goes into making a good ship, than just to hand someone a ship right at the start, "Here you go, good luck."

And again, we don't need to have something in game just 'cause other games have it.

 

[JinM]

No, my feelings aren't hurt at all.

Thats nice. I try to make everyone understand my point by disagreeing with you and give examples:

But that doesn't really change my stance. So the community is immature if even ONE person disagrees with an idea? Really? You'll paint the community as a whole with one brush because OH GASP someone disagrees with your idea.
- I can say some negative things about a group, or our community. Its mean like "hey guys I think we must improve here". If some1 beanpicks about the word immature, then I can't help him. I am part of the community and if we go in this direction of not helping new players in every possible way, like the one with the starter ship catalogue, I feel like beeing part of an short sighted group.


Hey community! What is a frigate? How does it compare to a battleship?
Once we get through the multitude of answers, you will realize the same issue exists with the term "starter ship". People have different ideas as to what that should entail. It would likely be difficult to get agreement.
- Players are free to use any of the ships. They are not forced to use any blueprint at all. They are meant to help and not to force a decission or building style over them. Thats like thinking everyone is a child and can't decide for himself what he considers as beautiful, and will only copy the first thing he saw when he started getting creative in this sandbox game. Also there would be multiple ships in this catalogue of starting ships, because we have decent pool of ships and I think there will be many people participating in providing some nice small ships for each starter-level.

Is a starter ship a ship that people can afford with the starting blocks and credits they get? Then it's going to look like ass.
And that's the whole point. To build something and then figure out what's wrong with it and improve upon it.
- I think you try to make me understand, that learning by failure is fun. Well again: People are not forced to use any blueprints. So people who like the challenge wont even search in the forum for a catalogue of starting ships. So the idea that they get cut away the failure leads to more creativity element is not valid. But there are many people out there, who want to dive into a game without having to learn for hours how to create a ship. They can just pick a blueprint they like, explore the galaxy, start a settlement or mine some stuff, and then build their own ship. This possibility does not exist if you have to search for hours in the Community Content for survival starter ships.

IF a "starter" ship is something more than the sum of your starting parts and credits, where's the line drawn? Where is the line between "a helping hand" and "LOL survival is easy mode"? I will bet you we'll have some differences in opinion there between folks in the community.
I understand this the following: Creating your own ships and starting in Starmade is meant to be hard. Thats sounds to me like the oldschool "games are meant to be hard" attitude. I like having a challenge. Everyone does. But you are not taking the challenge away by providing some guiding and helping starting ships, when learning Starmade allready is rockhard. Learning Starmade is very difficult, especially in survival. And some little starting ships under 100 mass can't even cover 10% of what you can do in Starmade. I totally disagree in the argument, that the game can get too easy if you provide a helpfull list of blueprints.

It would be better, as some have said already, to improve upon the tutorial. It's much easier to get people to agree what information is needed to start out, and what information would improve people's experiences in survival StarMade. It's better to explain what goes into making a good ship, than just to hand someone a ship right at the start, "Here you go, good luck."
I did not say, that we don't need tutorials. I say we need tutorials and a catalogue of starting ships. But tutorials allready exist. A usefull catalogue of starting ships for new players does not.

And again, we don't need to have something in game just 'cause other games have it.
I refference to the competing games, because they might have done some stuff better than Starmade. They have more than 10 times the players Starmade has, so I am happy to name them because they must have done something right then!

And to repeat a point I allready tried to make way up: They have this because they want support new players: they do that with a tutorial, AND a catalogue of starting ships. And when I played the game, I did not felt like I had orient myself on this catalogue. I used those ships when I was in a hury and did not want to design another vessel brick. Do you understand this? I refference this games because they did some certain thing right and you can even see in what way and how this improved the game. So this has nothing to do anymore with "I want this in Starmade because the other game has it too". It is about "I want this in Starmade, because having a starter catalogue will improve the gameplay, and when you look at Empyrion and Space Engineers you see that none of your upper points of cutting away challenge or creativity are real in this 2 examples. They are named because they support my argument with real examples, and that it works well, and does nothing like you fear it would harm the game. If it did only improve, and not hurt the gameplay in SE and Empyrion, why should it harm having a starter catalogue in Starmade?"

Lastly: These 2 games are more poppular, because they did the MOST important thing right for a game: they are accessible, and Starmade is NOT. Starmades mechanics are harder to understand, and starting is rockhard. I say this is something Starmade has to improve in every way, and these 2 games just slap it into our face how to do that. These 2 games are not so popular because they are shiny, or in case of SE the first ones of their kind. They are popular because they provide an easy start now. And only a handfull of gaming veterans will be found who are willing to waste so much time because its so unaccessible.

 

[Tamren Shade]

Personally, I love helping new player figure out concepts, take a look at the ridiculously long posts I've put on CubicPlays Youtube channel to answer questions he had as he was checking out the game and filming :P . Getting the tutorial station working properly would be huge, I tried going through it but right after the weapons class, the NPC I needed to see next fell out of the station. And fell out of the station again when I restarted the tutorial and went back....

I learned what I needed to know from finding youtube videos and in game experimentation, but I was willing to put the effort forth because I swear Schine had my psychological profile in front of him as he started jotting down notes in a notebook about this crazy minecraft in space idea he had :P

I haven't had an opportunity to help newer players online, because a lot of new players are intimidated by getting on a multiplayer server. Minecraft multiplayer has a bad reputation for griefing and I'm confident that is part of the reason players are hesitant to play a building game online, even if there is an invulnerable homebase. I'm not sure how you would fix that, but providing and informing new players of a safe place online to get help "in person" where someone with experience in the game is actually there would be huge.

I don't know about a list telling people how they should be advancing in game, maybe more a of tech tree, this way for fighters, this way for mining ships, this way for building bases, this way to go into escorts and capital ships, etc, etcc.

I did ask Schine on a Twitch stream about the ability to buy complete ships from a used-ships-salesman at some point in the future, and that is a feature he has planned. That way newer players could buy newer and bigger ships as they play and advance without having to dive super deep into the building mechanics before they're ready.

 

[Jojomo]

Not something I'd want personally, but if it helps some people just starting it doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Anyone who doesn't like it can simply ignore it, so not really any drawbacks?

 

[Mirage]

I do agree than improving even more for the new players is a must for the success of a game.

For the ships i suggest a official ship contest, because it does not take much time(=lazy) and adding new ships to the catalog is a 1-3 minute thing, so not doing it is pure laziness, except the selection of the ships for their tiers and types, that can also be done the lazy way by having the community do it, but there is a huge problem of bias, they MUST be selected for what they are and not for what you want them to be and/or the name of the person than created it.

It could also double as new pirate ships, so win-win-win.(beginners, popularity of game perhaps, later stage players with something better to shoot if the server does not use custom pirates)

 

[Shadow2Lead]

Definitely agree that the tutorial system needs a major rework, ideally to become more interactive. I think Reassembly could be a decent model for what that could look like - though its 2d not 3d among other major differences (I haven't played any other voxel-based games which may be applicable.) The current game really does not have a tutorial sequence worth mentioning. Without going on youtube and the wiki you will not understand how major elements of the game work and there are not tools in game to figure those elements out without breaking out the Excel spreadsheet.

That said, I don't think there is a rush. It's easy to forget that the game is in Alpha because of how playable it already is, but it's still in Alpha. I think a playable tutorial that teaches through doing (rather than watching videos) how each of the power systems work, introduces weapon effect systems, logic, and the general rule that blocks become more inefficient as you drop more of them is a must for Beta. With Alpha having to teach yourself the basics of the design philosophy of the game is fine, starting with day one of Beta I think it's important to have the tools to learn how the game works accessible in game. A simple base line addition that would go a long way for this would be to just import the wiki into the game and have it be accessible in a similar manner to Civilopedia in the Civilization series of games. That way if you want to learn about Reactor block layouts, etc the information is there in-game. Just moving the same information in the same format into the game makes it much more accessible and less overwhelming for a new player with limited time to game.

 

[JinM]

Can you guys stop talking and sidetracking to the tutorial? The tutorial is allready in the focus of the devs and the purpose of this thread is to talk about a totally unofficial list of starting ships for new players. How to do that list and who wants to contribute. Because I am certain that such a pinned list can help new players. I just started this topic to see how many guys want to help and how you would categorise starting ships. A general discussion, and then I thought about making such list and ships myself. Just wanted to talk first and gather info instead of putting finished products out into the world

Also I can imagine a tutorial like small (!) starter ship, with many explanatory signs and good walkways for a new player ready to explore and learn. But that is also just a side-idea some1 can catch up to if he likes to help newbs =)

 

[Shadow2Lead]

My bad, completely forgot the purpose of the thread after reading through it.

The idea of the unofficial list, is to, via a list of blueprints/goals, to provide a sense of progression and purpose for people new to StarMade as well as perhaps indirectly help guide them through game mechanics?

 

[JinM]

Yes.

This can be one purpose. As said, I just wanted to brainstorm. And giving players a feel of progression would certainly be a goal.

Guiding them through game mechanics is not the intention of this list. It would make getting ships and categorising them more difficult. I wanted to start in small steps.

But if someone wants to provide some game mechanic ships, I would say those should definitely listed as starter ships.

 

[Lukwan]

So this brings up a question in my mind. Is Starmade going out of it's way to force all new players to adopt a build-centric approach to the game?

Other non-building games will hand-hold new players because that is the demographic playing those games. Many games have only limited crafting (not build every block) so they don't need to train the player. Starmade could easily accommodate both camps by including a non-building fast-track for new players. Each new single-player world could offer a 'quick start' option where a player can buy a ship off the lot and just go exploring immediately.

There is nothing wrong with being inclusive, in fact Schine has make assertions that they want to avoid limits on ship-size and other play-style elements (preferring soft-caps). The idea of sorting the in game catalog into subsections takes nothing from the game and whats the harm in having a few 'gently used' ships for the casual player?

 

[kingreol]

was it planned that we will be getting a sort of cross server cloud type blueprint function..? if so i can imagine a metatag being used to denote survival lvl, or player skill.