As Starmade's development goes onwards, and as I see the myriad of suggestions that flood this thread daily, there is something that has cought my attention that I feel needs to be addressed. Currently, I see a lot of suggestions wanting more stuff, or making changes to certain things and the way they work. However, while I think that many of these are great, I see a many of these as symptoms of a much larger issue that, if not addressed now, could ruin the game in the future. What I see is a lack of creative agency in how we build our ships. Let me explain.
Currently, when you are building a ship in starmade you need several things for the ship to work properly. You need a power source, propulsion, shielding, power storage, weapons, salvage equipment, etc. Now, if you need more power regen, what do you do? Of course, you add more power blocks. Your shields are insufficient to protect your ship? Add more shield blocks. Your ship accellerates like a Yugo? Add more engines. Need more dakka? Add more AMCs. With all of these problems and needs to face, there is always one solution: add more stuff! This is the looming problem that I see coming. The lack of actual agency in the designs of our ship is a humongous problem that could ruin this game in the long-run and it needs to be confronted if not now then very soon.
So, how do we go about solving this problem? Well, there are several things that could be done to combat it. The first and most basic thing to do is to add different ways to go about solving a design problem. For example: when you need to provide power to your ship, there should be more than one block that you could use to do so, each one having its own advantages and drawbacks. This should go for any and everything in the game. Having no one set way to solve a problem in a game like this makes the design desicions WE make so much more meaningful.
The second thing to do is to increase the amount of design problems that the player has to deal with. There is a twofold reason for this. First, it allows for more varieties of ways that players could solve other design problems by having other problems crop up by solving them, making the above have much more meaning. Second, it allows for more ways that the game could be balanced in general. For example, if a heat mechanic was added, a battleships while having more armament than a fighter, also has to bleed off much more heat than a fighter, a weakness the fighter could use to their advantage. Thus, the new design problem that would have to be faced would add a much greater level of Counter Play that currently doesn't exist.
Going forward, this game needs to give us much more creative agency in the way that we build our ships. There needs to be multiple ways for us, the players, to approach each and every design challenge that we encounter, with each solution bringing up other design challeges for us to solve. This would give all the design and play decisions we make so much more meaning, and would make StarMade that much better of a game.
Currently, when you are building a ship in starmade you need several things for the ship to work properly. You need a power source, propulsion, shielding, power storage, weapons, salvage equipment, etc. Now, if you need more power regen, what do you do? Of course, you add more power blocks. Your shields are insufficient to protect your ship? Add more shield blocks. Your ship accellerates like a Yugo? Add more engines. Need more dakka? Add more AMCs. With all of these problems and needs to face, there is always one solution: add more stuff! This is the looming problem that I see coming. The lack of actual agency in the designs of our ship is a humongous problem that could ruin this game in the long-run and it needs to be confronted if not now then very soon.
So, how do we go about solving this problem? Well, there are several things that could be done to combat it. The first and most basic thing to do is to add different ways to go about solving a design problem. For example: when you need to provide power to your ship, there should be more than one block that you could use to do so, each one having its own advantages and drawbacks. This should go for any and everything in the game. Having no one set way to solve a problem in a game like this makes the design desicions WE make so much more meaningful.
The second thing to do is to increase the amount of design problems that the player has to deal with. There is a twofold reason for this. First, it allows for more varieties of ways that players could solve other design problems by having other problems crop up by solving them, making the above have much more meaning. Second, it allows for more ways that the game could be balanced in general. For example, if a heat mechanic was added, a battleships while having more armament than a fighter, also has to bleed off much more heat than a fighter, a weakness the fighter could use to their advantage. Thus, the new design problem that would have to be faced would add a much greater level of Counter Play that currently doesn't exist.
Going forward, this game needs to give us much more creative agency in the way that we build our ships. There needs to be multiple ways for us, the players, to approach each and every design challenge that we encounter, with each solution bringing up other design challeges for us to solve. This would give all the design and play decisions we make so much more meaning, and would make StarMade that much better of a game.
