The Catalogue System is Absolutely Broken and is Exploitable

[thePVTandrew]

yea it coukld do that it sounds cool, but maybe the other way around certine ships over a size and volume would be built out side of the dock (saving space for we wouldnt want a massive ship yard and a small shop) or something and maybe when fully finish the ship ill upload the buleprint

 

[Greiger]

I love the idea of the shipyard but I still don\'t like the idea of gathering up all the mats myself. The world\'s militaries don\'t just go to all the local hardware stores and buy the stuff they need off the shelves, they tell them that \"Hey I\'m building this and I\'m giving you the opportunity to be my supplier. I have A, B, and E, and I need C, D, and F delivered in this quantity to this location.\"

I figure if somebody wants to build a ship at a shop the shop oughta come up with the mats that are not on hand. Pull the mats from nearby shops if needed. Hell, even add a surcharge depending on how far away the shop had to look to find the parts at other shops.

That keeps manufacturing valuable in high population areas because the shops for quite some distance all around will be sold out of commonly used materiels making the surcharge astronomical. Folks with factories can then sell the mats to the builders directly or to the shops which should reasonably pay more for the locally rare items. While still keeping the convienience of the catalog for smaller ships and those who can afford it, while not actually spawning the stuff out of thin air.

Once it becomes harder to wallpaper your ship with credits, which server admins already have some power to do, I don\'t see how it wouldn\'t solve all the problems. What is wrong with this solution?

 

[thePVTandrew]

really good idea we should keep adding to this and post in the suggestion area

 

[[email protected]]

i think the purpose of this game is more for building creatively. i wouldnt mind if getting resources was made harder if a creative mode was put into the game. till then, im perfectly satisfied with the dupe.

 

[Alviss]

The economic template that polkunus desires is similar to that in EVE. But you have to keep in mind, eve has 6 basic materials in varifying quantities to create ships. Starmade has >30 basic materials/low level produced consumables, and some 5-6 new materials introduced with every new tech level (1000-2000-3000). All of which require varying materials of all lower tech levels to produce.

In EVE, there are >1000 people operating in one region in a 24hr period. Selling 6 materials/lots of modules in a region-wide market. Starmade, depending on the server, has 1->100 people operating in it in a 24hr period. They might be selling things in any 1 of a hundred small shops located anywhere in the universe. These small shops dont have a connected market structure, no players are aware of what is being sold at a shop even 1 sector away.

The market system polkunus is hoping for is completely impossible. I honestly wish that a shop would draw from it\'s items stocks to produce a ship. But until the manufacturing system is refined, this is also completely unfeasible.

 

[DivineEvil]

All we need is reasonable access to materials. That\'s all.

As long as generic Space Stations and Pirate Bases are replaced by more varied, guarded stations for different NPC factions (smugglers, miners, syndicate, scientists, etc.), which would house shield and smart turret placement, and space will be more populated with asteroids and maybe some small abandoned outposts, balance will even itself out, people will actually gonna mine ores, build mining camps within asteroid fields and will have to earn money working together. Starmade also need some \'reputation\' rating what would determine which NPC factions are hostile towards player.

Until then there\'s no point arguing about Catalogue system. It\'s just allows people to get their own (c) designs replicated, and it is also allows to get materials that cannot be crafter right now, like hull wedges and corners. You can of course issue a 20% extra cost penalty or something to regulate the system output, but it\'s not that critical. As long as materials are so easy to earn (Build Block anyone?), there will be no balance in economy.

 

[Stakhanov]

I disagree that blueprint restrictions would detract from the game , they would push the average ship size down considerably and generally promote player interaction. If you want your large , blueprinted ship built , you\'ll have to find someone (in your faction or another) agreeing to supply bulk materials , probably at a significant markup. Instantly rebuilding capships from money reserves is what\'s broken.

Being able to place commodity orders at shops (advertised in some new trading tab) would further drive player interaction.

 

[Trafalgar]

Or drive players apart because their ship orders keep depleting all the stores.

 

[Racr]

I love buying my huge ass ships. Restrictions would ruin the game for me

 

[Bannta]

Add a mission system that would be created if the material (mats) at the shop and the personal inventory of both player and active(the one he or she is in at the time of purchase) ship storage is less than the required amount. This will give the player the option to buy what is possible in mats and wait until he has enough to buy outright or it would prompt the player to create a mission contracts (for each missing line items) which would then be created on the galactic mission broad (that can be any shop or station equipped with a mission block (which allow peeps to create missions(general pubic missions or faction specific) or maybe auto generating update levels missions at shop across the known galactic space(basically all discovered shops). If you create a mission contact payment would be base off of four price setting (25% base price before the first 8hr or creation, 15% within 24hrs, at cost of mats as if he bought them his self if they were present at the shop now). A contract would always be created at the 25% over cost marker and would only be money back if the mission contract was not processed withing the first 8hrs. Any mission could be cancel after 24hr mark at a 15% filing fee that goes to the mission helmet fund(just a dummy fee). All these created mission would be place in a plex storage container(named for the blueprint the player wanted to create) at the shop assign to the player only that created this mission contracts(this would allow the player to pull any contract he wanted out to cancel).

Each mission contract could look like a red crate(meaning empty or available mission), blue crate(accepted mission maybe progress percent indicator) and or a green crate(completed mission). Each crate would have the item image on the front of the crate(also a hover over would list it as well).

I picture when a player pick up a mission contract(from any mission block) would create a mission crate in their inventory and it would only beadle to place up to the amount and item listed in the contact. once the crate is full the player need only deliver to the shop where the mission was created at to receive payment. If the player is destroyed on router the items become loot and the mission contract is open for selection again.

For the devs, if you use a container system for mission system it become easier to code.
example to the table entry for a mission crate: container = [id#] -[station id] - [owner player id] - [item block id] - [amount#] - [desc of mission (aka: blueprint or whatever the creator gives)] - [accepting playerid] - [plex storage container# link to owner at shop(this disappears if the owner removes all the crates in the plex storage assigned to him)]

sum it up.
When every there is a lack of resources at a shop where a blueprint is to be purchase the player get a option to buy up all the available amounts and beet feet to the next shop or it begins the mission creation system where required items become individual contracts.

 

[joefish500]

I\'m not sure if anyone else has brought this up but I think it should be made where you can only buy a ship if the shop has supplies for it.I also think that there should be extra price on ships depending on their size.

 

[HexKor]

I can destroy a large Pirate ship or space station and get enough materials to hit money cap, while also recieving copious amounts of hardened hull blocks. I can then salvage the Pirate ship (which is using one of my schematics) and get all those pieces too.



This thread is pointless, because the Catalog is currently one of the most balanced features.

 

[Archer6621]

The only time we are ever going to enable blueprints on our server, is when they actually become part of the game itself. Right now catalog is creative mode for starmade with a fancy name slapped on it.

Part of the game... Think of shipyards, special blocks. The bounding box for building a blueprinted ship could work in a similar fashion as the docking box does atm.

 

[Archer6621]

You are being ignorant, you think everybody enjoys it like that? Not really no.

Your comment is the only thing pointless here.

 

[HexKor]

It was actually more of a statement that there are other things more broken than the catalogue (i.e. the Loot system).

After hitting 9mill, I\'d much rather spawn in an entire ship than hunt around for pieces to build it manually; granted, at this point I\'ve likely got all the pieces I need to construct a bigger, and better, ship than I already have.

Don\'t be so defensive.

 

[Archer6621]

You just used 5 lines to defend yourself, and then you call me defensive.

 

[HexKor]

You were, because you seemed to take my comments personally, when you shouldn\'t have.

Was I? No. I was explaining why you shouldn\'t be so defensive. But now I have an inkling that you\'re a troll who is derailing the thread.



Anyways, more on topic: As I said, the loot system is more broken than anything else, and I actually think that the Catalog system is quite fair. If you don\'t like it, play on servers that have it disabled. I like it because I like to spawn in my ships to test weapons, shields, and make the occasional trip to the sun.

 

[Archer6621]

Just playing with you, nowhere did I take your comments personally.

Catalog as of now makes things too easy for players, so having it enabled is like having a creative mode-ish type of gameplay, since money is easily made. On our server we disabled it just because of that, it is kinda unsustainable for the long run.

I don\'t think catalog should necessarily be replaced by another mechanic, but it would be nice if another mechanic was added to blend better with the game, such as shipyards, at least something that doesn\'t make it like \"-poof- huge-ass ship spawned in 1 second!\". Then it could become viable on every server, instead of just specific servers.

 

[HexKor]

Shipyard? As in you you buy the ship, then it starts a timer to build the ship?

This makes me think like how in RTS games you queue a build and then the ship pops out after the timer runs out. If that were to be implimented it would be the best of both worlds. This way, in PvP, you can\'t instantly respawn your ship after losing it, but you can still have a ship built for the next battle.

I thought it would be neat to have little NPC astronauts float around and build your ship piece-by-piece, but i\'m certain that won\'t happen. :P

 

[breezeyboy]

You can somehow hack it so shops cost 0.