The Power Overhaul has to happen ASAP

[Groovrider]

First I would like to say how much I love this game.

With that out of the way I'm going to get right to it: This update needs to happen as soon as possible, as fast as possible and as complete as possible. SM is unique. There are other space games but none with this amount of creativity. You have just dropped a bomb on the community. Like it or not I have started to see building on servers effectively dry up over night as everyone speculates on how it will hit ship building. If there was some other activity in SM that was as rewarding, it would be different. This is not that case and the core platform on which all ship building rests is going to change drastically.

You might say that this was just a consultation. That is irrelevant. In our hearts many of us know that this type of change is needed. A move to multi-block structures for power generations is good and SOMETHING MANY OF US HAVE SPENT YEARS DOING IN OTHER GAMES. It's needed and it's wanted but it also makes comparisons between SM and other games somewhat problematic. These other games have much more developed astronaut experiences and survival aspects and you have started to encroach on their territory. We will wait for NPCs and Fauna and stuff, but without knowing more details about a fundamental system like power you have effectively shutdown the only real advantage that this game has.

I played Firefall from alpha, beta for years and years and finally it's fatal release on steam. I have seen, 1st hand, what happens when fundamental systems are reworked again and again. By the time you get something you happy with the competition will have pass you by. Worse, your player base will have lost faith and moved on.

I get it. is attempting to make an universe simulation entirely based on procedural physical distribution of physical material. No magic beans. When we look up into the sky and point to a star, we can go there. Systems are always much harder than items. This update cannot wait six months. We need something solid to test out sharpish, even if it's totally rudimentary. It's unlike anything else ever discussed and for the 1st time I feel the clock is ticking.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I somewhat agree. I've been playing other games lately while waiting for the "next big thing" from StarMade, and the power overhaul could easily be that thing, though I was actually expecting crew to be next. We'll see.

 

[Comradecolonel]

I would say at the very least we need a separate branch to build with the new systems. We won't know how long this will take, especially if the new system has to go through many iterations.

 

[JumpSuit]

First I would like to say how much I love this game.

With that out of the way I'm going to get right to it: This update needs to happen as soon as possible, as fast as possible and as complete as possible. SM is unique. There are other space games but none with this amount of creativity. You have just dropped a bomb on the community. Like it or not I have started to see building on servers effectively dry up over night as everyone speculates on how it will hit ship building. If there was some other activity in SM that was as rewarding, it would be different. This is not that case and the core platform on which all ship building rests is going to change drastically.

You might say that this was just a consultation. That is irrelevant. In our hearts many of us know that this type of change is needed. A move to multi-block structures for power generations is good and SOMETHING MANY OF US HAVE SPENT YEARS DOING IN OTHER GAMES. It's needed and it's wanted but it also makes comparisons between SM and other games somewhat problematic. These other games have much more developed astronaut experiences and survival aspects and you have started to encroach on their territory. We will wait for NPCs and Fauna and stuff, but without knowing more details about a fundamental system like power you have effectively shutdown the only real advantage that this game has.

I played Firefall from alpha, beta for years and years and finally it's fatal release on steam. I have seen, 1st hand, what happens when fundamental systems are reworked again and again. By the time you get something you happy with the competition will have pass you by. Worse, your player base will have lost faith and moved on.

I get it. is attempting to make an universe simulation entirely based on procedural physical distribution of physical material. No magic beans. When we look up into the sky and point to a star, we can go there. Systems are always much harder than items. This update cannot wait six months. We need something solid to test out sharpish, even if it's totally rudimentary. It's unlike anything else ever discussed and for the 1st time I feel the clock is ticking.

I will admit, I only read a little of the OP and disliked immediately, rushing ANY update for ANY game isn't wise. It puts pressure on devs and if content is released, is of course is even more broken than not.

 

[kingreol]

Any dev builds up. I'm guessing we are in for a update on npcs, ai ,fleets, or weapons one of them soon. The proposed energy update isn't going to push everything else in the docket. If anything AI is up next, with some more weapon behavior fixing.

Now to compare with the competition. One has to add stability and freedom.

 

[DrTarDIS]

First I would like to say how much I love this game.

With that out of the way I'm going to get right to it: This update needs to happen as soon as possible, as fast as possible and as complete as possible. SM is unique. There are other space games but none with this amount of creativity. You have just dropped a bomb on the community. Like it or not I have started to see building on servers effectively dry up over night as everyone speculates on how it will hit ship building. If there was some other activity in SM that was as rewarding, it would be different. This is not that case and the core platform on which all ship building rests is going to change drastically.

You might say that this was just a consultation. That is irrelevant. In our hearts many of us know that this type of change is needed. A move to multi-block structures for power generations is good and SOMETHING MANY OF US HAVE SPENT YEARS DOING IN OTHER GAMES. It's needed and it's wanted but it also makes comparisons between SM and other games somewhat problematic. These other games have much more developed astronaut experiences and survival aspects and you have started to encroach on their territory. We will wait for NPCs and Fauna and stuff, but without knowing more details about a fundamental system like power you have effectively shutdown the only real advantage that this game has.

I played Firefall from alpha, beta for years and years and finally it's fatal release on steam. I have seen, 1st hand, what happens when fundamental systems are reworked again and again. By the time you get something you happy with the competition will have pass you by. Worse, your player base will have lost faith and moved on.

I get it. is attempting to make an universe simulation entirely based on procedural physical distribution of physical material. No magic beans. When we look up into the sky and point to a star, we can go there. Systems are always much harder than items. This update cannot wait six months. We need something solid to test out sharpish, even if it's totally rudimentary. It's unlike anything else ever discussed and for the 1st time I feel the clock is ticking.

Oh {Thor} no. Not on any day in {Hades}. Rushing blindly foreward is the worst possible thing. Just look at the damage it had wrought with fleets, new docking, shield-changes, crafting-system-hell, etc...
IMHO a serious sit-down-and tweak basic ratios is needed before any major addition and overhaul. That way the new additions can comply with the existing balance and meta/evolved gameplay.

 

[Groovrider]

1st off, to me, ASAP doesn't mean rush to me. Rush never really works out. By ASAP I mean prioritisation.

The last few server's I've been on... Haven't gone to plan. At some point I was the only person logging in. I'm not high maintenance or a loudmouth. I mostly keep to myself. I just really really like building. So much so that I was the only one around long after others drifted away out of boredom (and fair enough; alpha games cannot sustain continuous play. not enough content.) I just don't get bored with SM. I take breaks but I always come back. The problem is, if this were another game and you knew a major over haul was coming, you would still play. You would still advance. There would be other activities outside of the one getting patched. SM doesn't have that yet. I will still play but honestly I could cut you slices of cynicism on server forums with a knife. I am worried for the game, not necessarily my own enjoyment of it.

On the other side of this I feel like the devs should absolutely stick to their guns and I really do believe this game is in alpha and for me it mostly gets a free pass to take as long as they damn well please. But I'm just one person.

 

[AtraUnam]

I would prefer a more fleshed out system, but honestly I would much rather the devs warned us a few weeks beforehand rather than potentialyl a year or more before hand. Its put the entire community into the mother of all 'waiting loops'

 

[jayman38]

The new power system suggestion sounds A LOT like the "quarters" idea that had popped up many months ago, regarding crews. I am looking forward to this change, because I think it will lead to quarters and the big payoff: crew quarter systems. If it feels "right" enough, it might even spill over into other ship systems. (Shield generators feeding into shield capacitors, jammers and cloakers feeding into... something, cargo feeding into weapons to create ammo-fed weapon systems if the builder wants to have "ammo", that sort of thing.)

I have been disenchanted with the existing powerline system for a while. Long powerlines can make sense for high efficiency, but there's nothing more to explore right now. There's nothing else to try with power. You just get lines as long as they can go, and that's the end of the power generator story. I want something more, and I want it to feed into the game development cycle, where the game mechanic can be duplicated and used for other things, like crew.

 

[Gasboy]

As much as I hate waiting for the other shoe to drop, this is something Schine needs to take their time working on. There is a lot of resistance to the idea to begin with, so, whatever Schine ends up deciding upon has to work. They need to get this right. So if they want to wait, I'm willing to wait.

 

[Deserea]

As much as I hate waiting for the other shoe to drop, this is something Schine needs to take their time working on. There is a lot of resistance to the idea to begin with, so, whatever Schine ends up deciding upon has to work. They need to get this right. So if they want to wait, I'm willing to wait.

Yes they do, if they get this wrong, im sure alot of people wont be sticking around, i mean theres already some bad side effects seen from just announcing the change as an idea they wanted feedback on. >.>

 

[Shaker]

If they go this route, it would be better to wait for them to rebalance or attempt to rebalance all the blocks/systems that will be affected, rather than just pump out the power and leave us with a bunch of broken systems.

When is the next game update? The last 2 were just blocks, so wonder what the coders have been doing for the past 2 months...

 

[Lecic]

Absolutely not. Do not rush updates, and do not try and push through poorly thought out updates without proper community discussion. Think about what would have happened if they had told us, "we ARE putting this system in in 2 weeks." It would be a complete shitshow.

 

[Ghent96]

...This update needs to happen as soon as possible, as fast as possible and as complete as possible...

No.
No it doesn't, and no it shouldn't. This update _proposal_ needs to be shot down, killed, and buried as far as possible in order to restore some measure of hope and consistency among builders and players and the whole community.

 

[MacThule]

I would like to see them just start plugging their test versions into the dev build as a parallel alternative to standard power.

This way it won't "break" the function of any systems, but the community can start to experiment and get a sense of what is being developed.

 

[Comradecolonel]

I think as long as there is a way for builders to work with the new system there won't be too much of an issue. I agree with idea that this is a system that needs to be combed over many times. At the same time we the players need to extensively test this. To me the best solution would be to have a public test build that is devoted purely to the new power system. In the meantime I am totally fine if Schine works on small features and bugfixes exclusively.

 

[DukeofRealms]

When is the next game update? The last 2 were just blocks, so wonder what the coders have been doing for the past 2 months...

We took a break after working non-stop on the NPC update and steam winter sale. As mentioned in previous news posts, we would not be returning until late January to mid-February. We're currently working on a feature/features that doesn't have a definitive release date just yet. News about updates should come out soon.

As for the power stuff, the majority of work there is planning, testing and balancing. We don't predict a lot of dev hours involved (we couldn't know for certain until working on it). So, if we do go ahead, development will be working on new features while power is fleshed out and tested.

 

[Shaker]

DukeofRealms thank you so much for the update, the giant undiscussion about power has killed my server, any info to help get them back is good.

 

[taisong]

Is it possible to make a small modeling game that allows you to build ships, but not fly them?
I think it will be an awesome way to test stuffs with.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Make it happen.

- Can't be worse than existing system.

- Scrapping existing builds shouldn't be an unexpected problem; If you play any game in alfa-beta stages, you should prepare for a few wipes.