Systems 2.0

[MacThule]

Just opening the floor to community meta discussion of the Systems 2.0 overhaul proposal where we arent directly addressing the developers team but they can dig in if they feel the need.
[doublepost=1495089215,1495089126][/doublepost]A lot of people balked at "Tech Points," personally I find it uncompelling but not really bad. I'm more bothered by the stabilizers. In name they stabilize the reactor, but in fact they are tertiary/effect systems, jump drive enhancers, and more all rolled into one. Isn't there a way that could be described better and achieve the same result, or am I just being forced to look way too deeply to find something wrong with the new proposal?

 

[Yetimania]

Personally, while I agree that the current power system needs work, this proposed change seems a step in the wrong direction. I've had a really hard time getting friends and family, none of whom are 'casual' gamers, to stick with this game due to its byzantine nature as it is. Their eyes simply glaze over when you talk about bounding boxes and exponents and arbitrary soft and hard caps. I honestly don't see why power isn't something as simple as (for example) 1 block provides +1 power and each system requires X power and as long as total power >= power usage, everything is fine. Put the power blocks in one bunch of scattered throughout the ship; doesn't matter. Fewer mathematics, semi-arbitrary rules, and spreadsheets means its easier for new players to get into the game, easier for ship designers to let their creativity flow without rewarding/punishing, depending on the version of the game, cubes, rectangles, lines, spindly-zany things, or whatever.
If your ship needs more power, add more power blocks. If it has too much power, add more guns. I don't know why we're adding more blocks, more resources, and more constraints when we should be thinking about making things more intuitive and creative.

 

[MrFURB]

Personally, while I agree that the current power system needs work, this proposed change seems a step in the wrong direction. I've had a really hard time getting friends and family, none of whom are 'casual' gamers, to stick with this game due to its byzantine nature as it is. Their eyes simply glaze over when you talk about bounding boxes and exponents and arbitrary soft and hard caps. I honestly don't see why power isn't something as simple as (for example) 1 block provides +1 power and each system requires X power and as long as total power >= power usage, everything is fine. Put the power blocks in one bunch of scattered throughout the ship; doesn't matter. Fewer mathematics, semi-arbitrary rules, and spreadsheets means its easier for new players to get into the game, easier for ship designers to let their creativity flow without rewarding/punishing, depending on the version of the game, cubes, rectangles, lines, spindly-zany things, or whatever.
If your ship needs more power, add more power blocks. If it has too much power, add more guns. I don't know why we're adding more blocks, more resources, and more constraints when we should be thinking about making things more intuitive and creative.

Er, the new system really is just exactly what you said. Just now. Hey, need more power? More reactor blocks. Doesn't need to be in any specific shape. Then just pop down some stabilizers somewhere else. Bam, you got power. 100% efficient.

 

[Vilab]

Er, the new system really is just exactly what you said. Just now. Hey, need more power? More reactor blocks. Doesn't need to be in any specific shape. Then just pop down some stabilizers somewhere else. Bam, you got power. 100% efficient.

every chamber linked to the reactor need to consist of at least X reactor blocks * Y ratio. if you increase the number of reactor blocks, you have to increase stabilizer's - maybe even to move them farther - and then to increase the number of blocks in every chamber to have them keep working

 

[Drakkart]

i did post my thoughts here (careful, quite the read) and i think we should not try to split people on different threads. just my 2c

 

[KiloZulu]

My concern is the changeable distance of the stabilizers from the reactor. Since the distance to the stabilizers changes based on the reactor, I can't plan out my ship ahead of time, but am forced to design on the fly. That seems to fly in the face of their desire for predictability.

 

[nightrune]

My concern is the changeable distance of the stabilizers from the reactor. Since the distance to the stabilizers changes based on the reactor, I can't plan out my ship ahead of time, but am forced to design on the fly. That seems to fly in the face of their desire for predictability.

The concern is you can't start with a shell and work inward?

 

[Ithirahad]

The concern is you can't start with a shell and work inward?

That's kind of my worry as well. It sounds like cubes (not doomcubes as those are usually cuboids), spheres, and other shapes that have the same dimensions all around won't work as nicely as very long, very tall, or very wide ships.

 

[KiloZulu]

The concern is you can't start with a shell and work inward?

That, too.

My build methods vary depending on the ship. A lot of my ships start by trying get the proportions right in comparison to the turrets and shuttles that have been built beforehand. The living space is usually laid before the outer hull, turrets or no, and the rest of the ship is built around it. In any case, I'll have created paper sketches beforehand and the outer hull will conform to that design. Power has never been an issue before, because you can simply run lines of power wherever you have room.

Engine block placement was one of the more difficult struggles, as I tried to reach the desired mass/thrust ratio. There have been a number of times where I had to increase the size of the engines dramatically and it really messed with my ship design. The main reason for this is that the mass is constantly changing and it's hard to know what you'll need for engines. Heck, your mass is increasing even as you're adding the engines. I see a similar issue occurring with the proposed power reactor/stabilizer layout. Now, not only am I going to be trying to figure out the number of blocks needed for reactors, stabilizers, and chambers, but the distance between reactor and stabilizer isn't going to be known until after I've settled on their size. With all of these unknowns floating about, I think it's going to make it that much harder to maintain any planned proportions.

 

[Shaker]

I agree with the above, but its still to early to tell as the devs have been very vague with TP and what the size of the gap between reactors and stabilizers would be, if it was every million energy was 20 blocks of distance that would be ok, 100 would not be

 

[Kelpaz]

This time their idea seems way more solid from the start but they didn't explain really how docked entities will be powered.

In this thread: Answers + Clarification to Ship Systems 2.0

They mention one active reactor per entity, but how do you choose which reactor to be active?
What happens with complete docked ships, will they get nerfed tech points while attached to a mothership?
Are we still allowed to create self powered turrets, or will their reactors not work/interfere with the mothership?
Can turrets use tech points too in a balanced fashion aka 10 or less tech points per attached entity/docked weapon?

Spoiler

Will my standard ship to ship pod be able to use the new system?

 

[Extholious]

This time their idea seems way more solid from the start but they didn't explain really how docked entities will be powered.

In this thread: Answers + Clarification to Ship Systems 2.0

They mention one active reactor per entity, but how do you choose which reactor to be active?
What happens with complete docked ships, will they get nerfed tech points while attached to a mothership?
Are we still allowed to create self powered turrets, or will their reactors not work/interfere with the mothership?
Can turrets use tech points too in a balanced fashion aka 10 or less tech points per attached entity/docked weapon?

Spoiler

Will my standard ship to ship pod be able to use the new system?

how i understood it was that reactors under a certain size did not need stabalizers so i believe it would still work

 

[MacThule]

That's kind of my worry as well. It sounds like cubes (not doomcubes as those are usually cuboids), spheres, and other shapes that have the same dimensions all around won't work as nicely as very long, very tall, or very wide ships.

I'm not too concerned, but I've been projecting the same result about dimensions. Some people are saying the new scheme will encourage blockish building, but honestly the new reactor-stabilizer system seems to rely on an even more flexible dimensional extension than the current power system. Currently I'm pushed to extend my ships along as many axes as possible, from what I gather under the new system I can extend my ship along one primary axis if I want and just place the containers far from the reactor along that one axis.

 

[Andir]

The concern is you can't start with a shell and work inward?

Mine's the opposite. I'm concerned that I will build a reactor, put some modules on it, build a ship around it and now I need to rip off a side of my ship, a turret, and a ton of shielding because I don't have enough power. Because, I don't build interiors... I don't like empty internal space. The game is a nightmare to move around in suit mode so I don't do it. I attempted to make a space station once. Once. It's slow, I almost always one block ship my way around, and rotation is annoying. Even more annoying is setting up gravity blocks, doors, lights, and all that other garbage. I want a big ship with lots of guns to take out pirates... period. I don't care about PvP, I don't care if Jimmy on Blah server made a ship that can one shot a fighter. I just want to shoot things.

If anything, I wish some blocks were harder to get to give me a reason to shoot more pirates. I wish it was harder to make things in factories so I had to work toward building my super pirate hunting ship or my planet mining rig. Currently, It's just a matter of finding the most expensive ore components, selling them and buying the blocks I need form any shop. I want an economy. I want to have to ferry goods from one system to another so that the facilities there can make shielding that I can buy. I want scarcity and a reason to explore.

 

[MacThule]

I'm guessing that at least one practical engineering measure to offset that issue would be not placing your Stabilizers at the minumum distance from your reactor. That is to say, my initial approach would be to build the reactor and set the stabilizers 10-30% farther out than I think they need to be. If the initial reactor size works then my ship ends up being a bit leaner than I had expected but no problems. If I need to flex in a bit more power than I had initially thought, then I can do so without a major overhaul to the ship. If ~20% flex isn't enough then my thought would be that I had either grossly underestimated my power requirements and will not make the same mistake after the first time, or I had gotten carried away with the build out and over-built the ship from what my initial intent was and should do some serious fat trimming.

All in all, I think the key is going to be approaching the new system the way I recommend new Starmade players approach the old: start small until you get a feel for the balance by trial and error with ships that only take an hour or two to build. Then move up to corvettes and frigates that take several hours or days to build. Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but I think that if you jump into the new power system by attempting builds that will soak up days worth of time to refit if you underestimate their power needs, then shame on you, not on the devs.

Everyone should be able to get a decent grip on it if they start small and work up to larger craft after some simple testing.

Just means it will probably be months after update before we start seeing beautiful new capital ships on the docks again

 

[Ithirahad]

I'm guessing that at least one practical engineering measure to offset that issue would be not placing your Stabilizers at the minumum distance from your reactor. That is to say, my initial approach would be to build the reactor and set the stabilizers 10-30% farther out than I think they need to be. If the initial reactor size works then my ship ends up being a bit leaner than I had expected but no problems. If I need to flex in a bit more power than I had initially thought, then I can do so without a major overhaul to the ship. If ~20% flex isn't enough then my thought would be that I had either grossly underestimated my power requirements and will not make the same mistake after the first time, or I had gotten carried away with the build out and over-built the ship from what my initial intent was and should do some serious fat trimming.

All in all, I think the key is going to be approaching the new system the way I recommend new Starmade players approach the old: start small until you get a feel for the balance by trial and error with ships that only take an hour or two to build. Then move up to corvettes and frigates that take several hours or days to build. Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but I think that if you jump into the new power system by attempting builds that will soak up days worth of time to refit if you underestimate their power needs, then shame on you, not on the devs.

Everyone should be able to get a decent grip on it if they start small and work up to larger craft after some simple testing.

Just means it will probably be months after update before we start seeing beautiful new capital ships on the docks again

I'll likely be refitting my larger ships within a month after the update... The thing is, they don't go on CC so I guess that doesn't count :P

 

[MacThule]

I'll likely be refitting my larger ships within a month after the update... The thing is, they don't go on CC so I guess that doesn't count :P

I'm going to be eager to refit my corvette, frigate and Destroyer class cores as well. I'll probably start out with putting together a new fast shuttle and basic industrial freighter though. After that I think a corvette will be a good pilot program to figure out how the core works in a warship.
[doublepost=1495298276,1495297937][/doublepost]In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, it might be helpful if there was a small ship tournament a few weeks after release so we can all see how the reactors perform in various configurations.

Post all the winners to CC to help Jumpstart the community's integration of the new reactors.

 

[lupoCani]

I'm looking for clarification on two points.

Firstly, what determines the TP consumption of a chamber? I had thought it was the block count, but since TPs are constant per entity, and the block count grows with power size, that wouldn't work. If each chamber needs a constant amount of TP, then that means there's a constant number of (simultaneously active) chambers for any entity ever, which seems absurd.

Secondly, since the active reactor apparently gets the ship's full TP budget, is there any real incentive to not hook up every chamber to every reactor on the ship? Other than intentionally switching from one chamber to a different one.

 

[nightrune]

I'm looking for clarification on two points.

Firstly, what determines the TP consumption of a chamber? I had thought it was the block count, but since TPs are constant per entity, and the block count grows with power size, that wouldn't work. If each chamber needs a constant amount of TP, then that means there's a constant number of (simultaneously active) chambers for any entity ever, which seems absurd.

Secondly, since the active reactor apparently gets the ship's full TP budget, is there any real incentive to not hook up every chamber to every reactor on the ship? Other than intentionally switching from one chamber to a different one.

Balance and tech point consumption will be based on configs.

 

[kurosawa]

Balance and tech point consumption will be based on configs.

Still the idea of TP and only 1 reactor is very disheartening for me as it removes something from SM in my eyes, which was the ability to do what ever you wanted or setups with dual or quad simulation reactors something i like a lot in FTD.