The Quickfire Initiative: Rebalancing StarMade.

[SchnellBier]

Yes forget the stabilizer thing, nobody here cares that it undermines Power 2.0 completely and (can)make it nearly impossible to "de-stabilise" a reactor while the stabilizer blocks are scattered all over the ship in every dark and gloomy corner.

I really have a hard time to get any clearer. Undermining Power 2.0 is the goal of this. It is a terrible system. It restricts creative building by making the ships ineffective if they don't follow obnauxious design rules and all the pvp ships don't care and just make their vertical power stick longer to retain their 100% effective stabilizer blocks. It is fundamentally flawed from the start since all effective built ships will look the same and easily kill every non stick ship that is in the same weight class without much resistance. It is so easy to see because to retain 100% stabilizer distance you have to make the stick longer and since distance doesn't add mass the length of the stick doesn't matter to their mobility. You will only find very fast vertical high powered ships with minimal ressource useage in any serious pvp fight. The distance mechanic doesn't add anything positive to the game. Get over it.

Also nobody or anything forces you to build bigger reactors in the quickfire configs. There is no minimum reactor size. Just build how you want I don't see your issue. Armor is lighter so the mass of interior and details will punish your less and even give you more protection. At this point armor even seem superior to shields in most ways which invites all players to build ships with % low system count and a lot of armor details around. The most changes come from the power consumption that has to increase for what you get simply because the vanilla weapons and thrusters were overpowered by a large margin. Ships get deleted in seconds and every ship moves with max thrust to mass ratio. If we wouldn't change that we could simply add the delete gun that oneshots and get rid of thrusters alltogether since nobody flys below max speed. This is not how fun and engaging gameplay looks.

The only reason what makes sense to me, why you fight this change is that you don't want to refit your damn ships because literally everything else is geared to cater to creative builders which btw most of the the quickfire people are too. We are no pvp players if you think that. You just have to compare PvP ships pre power 2.0 to newer ones and see that older ships had a lot of design options and variety while retaining their competetiveness. Just to draw the conclusionfor you on this: If pvp ships have more design options that are competetive, creative builders also have more options to build a competetive ship. I can't believe that this is so hard to see for you.

Also the reason why nobody uploads pvp ships are easy to explain:

1. PvP players want to keep their advantages for themself if they have any.
2. There are no pvp players left to upload anything since power 2.0 killed pvp.

 

[Tsnonak]

It seems I have not been clear enough...

I have read enough of your obnoxious PvP-Elitist reasoning and petty attempts to pass this off as "creative friendliness".

You just don't seem to understand reality, your point of view is only one part of the whole.

Distraction, evasion and manipulation of facts is the name of the game here:

I really have a hard time to get any clearer. Undermining Power 2.0 is the goal of this. It is a terrible system. It restricts creative building by making the ships ineffective if they don't follow obnauxious design rules and all the pvp ships don't care and just make their vertical power stick longer to retain their 100% effective stabilizer blocks. It is fundamentally flawed from the start since all effective built ships will look the same and easily kill every non stick ship that is in the same weight class without much resistance. It is so easy to see because to retain 100% stabilizer distance you have to make the stick longer and since distance doesn't add mass the length of the stick doesn't matter to their mobility. You will only find very fast vertical high powered ships with minimal ressource useage in any serious pvp fight. The distance mechanic doesn't add anything positive to the game. Get over it.

All presumptuous hearsay based on the arguement; "StarMade us do it" (forced us).

I have had no problem being "creative", I liked the powerstream (many others also*), and even integrity.
The only stupid part about it all; it took away the possibility of using system blocks as deco, and SM could use more deco...

Stuffing stabilizers all over the place is unrealistic and stupid, as was 100% regen @ 25% stability, but hey, thats just my opinion, (some might even agree with me).
Furthermore it plays a big role in being able to de-stabilize reactors, or not.

You evaded that part completely, because that is what it boils down to.
Accept it.

Also nobody or anything forces you to build bigger reactors in the quickfire configs. There is no minimum reactor size. Just build how you want I don't see your issue. Armor is lighter so the mass of interior and details will punish your less and even give you more protection. At this point armor even seem superior to shields in most ways which invites all players to build ships with % low system count and a lot of armor details around. The most changes come from the power consumption that has to increase for what you get simply because the vanilla weapons and thrusters were overpowered by a large margin. Ships get deleted in seconds and every ship moves with max thrust to mass ratio. If we wouldn't change that we could simply add the delete gun that oneshots and get rid of thrusters alltogether since nobody flys below max speed. This is not how fun and engaging gameplay looks.

More Irrelevant distraction, I'm not even talking about armor or thrusters, please try to stay "on-topic", but now that you mention it, yes, armor is superior, and shields are pointless on small ships, the "trade-off" is not worth it, armor+DPS = win.

The only reason what makes sense to me, why you fight this change is that you don't want to refit your damn ships

Are you really this pathetic, is that all you "get", Schnell?, wait no forget it, don't answer...
The only reason this "makes sense" to you, I would have to guess; because you are too blinded from your glorious self to understand anything I have posted, (as I mentioned before).

literally everything else is geared to cater to creative builders which btw most of the the quickfire people are too. We are no pvp players if you think that. You just have to compare PvP ships pre power 2.0 to newer ones and see that older ships had a lot of design options and variety while retaining their competetiveness. Just to draw the conclusionfor you on this: If pvp ships have more design options that are competetive, creative builders also have more options to build a competetive ship. I can't believe that this is so hard to see for you.

More distractions... yes I am aware of who is in "the clique", sure this is all about "creative" building...

Also the reason why nobody uploads pvp ships are easy to explain:

1. PvP players want to keep their advantages for themself if they have any.
2. There are no pvp players left to upload anything since power 2.0 killed pvp.

The relevance?
Nobody asked for reasons.
More Distraction?(+you forgot some stuff).

Fact is: look at what actual community is building, here's the link in case you don't got it Click Here.
Bottom line is: This config will force players to build a certain way (the Elite-PvP-Quickfire way) or they will not be "viable" on MP Servers.

So, to be 100% clear, please do not quote me anymore, (Iknowitshardnottofloodtheforumwithelitepvpknowitall), as I am trying to make my "exit"... I have given my worthless 0.02€ of "feedback", I am done here, I would like to sit quietly on the sidelines.
As you stated "this is not a debate" anyway.

I do like Quotes though, famous ones are bestest...
Allow me to fix this for you... (Disclaimer, technically not DukeofRealms, posted for Quickfire*)

While the mechanical changes that can be made within configs are somewhat limited, we have done our best to correct the issues the community has been having with the current game and enhance combat gameplay. The Quickfire Initiative has also worked with Schine on refining certain game mechanics (e.g. armor stacking). We have, at the same time, made an effort to avoid undermining key design elements of the power and weapons updates (e.g. the chamber system and arrangement) when not absolutely necessary.

Really means:

We have once again convinced Schine they did it all wrong, again.

this config did bring back the dreaded perma-cloaker, and made it easy to do at max stealth strength. And simultaneously run a permanent max strength scanner. And that combo doesnt even use more than 40% reactor power on the little test ship I made, no attempt to use power reduction chambers.

"Eve Elite Voxel Edition" is on the way, don't forget your Helmet!

 

[Scypio]

I think the one here not reading and doing even more distraction is you Tsonak. Load in a ship it'll work. And if you can't power it just reduce the number of systems. Easy to do with the replace function built in the game. Right ?
Ith said, at least once in this thread that yes balancing everything without changing how ships work could have been a possibility. However this would have ended with so weird numbers that future built ships would have been so weird it wouldn't have made sense in any ways. And even with that, changing numbers makes ships change and so everyone would have been forced to rebuild their systems to match the new changes. In the end everyone will refit because it's not just changing one value for another. It's much more. And discarding all of the issues that were brought here because you don't see them as real issues is playing the blind and deaf. It's not because in your limited experience with several players that theses issues were not here that they don't exists.

In the end. Do you value your current ships or newcomers' experience with the game ? It's all down to this one question. Because asking over and over to not alter currently built ships is basically that.


On a more serious note. Concerning low firing rate weapons. As ith said very low firing rate are not healthy mechanics. I'll take an over exagerated example to show my point.
Let's say you have a weapon that fires every 120 seconds (2 minutes). It means this weapon will hold the firepower of 2 minutes worth of continuous fire power. That means that when firing with this super weapon you will either :
- completely rekt your opponent in one shot or deal enough damage so that you have already won the fight
- Not deal enough damage and so you'll have 2 minutes where you'll just watch at your opponent with big eyes asking to be spared.
It means that in either case only one of the two players is having fun. Which means that it is not a healthy mechanic for the game. Aside from creating a game where the balance is complete garbage.
However if you really want more recharge time between each shots this subject can be discussed for a few seconds. Not much more because of the reason above.

 

[Simulcrum]

Concerning low firing rate weapons. As ith said very low firing rate are not healthy mechanics. I'll take an over exagerated example to show my point.
Let's say you have a weapon that fires every 120 seconds (2 minutes). It means this weapon will hold the firepower of 2 minutes worth of continuous fire power. That means that when firing with this super weapon you will either :
- completely rekt your opponent in one shot or deal enough damage so that you have already won the fight
- Not deal enough damage and so you'll have 2 minutes where you'll just watch at your opponent with big eyes asking to be spared.
It means that in either case only one of the two players is having fun. Which means that it is not a healthy mechanic for the game. Aside from creating a game where the balance is complete garbage.
However if you really want more recharge time between each shots this subject can be discussed for a few seconds. Not much more because of the reason above.

And a more realistic example, a weapon with a firing rate of 20 seconds:
- Damage shouldn't be the equivalent of 20 seconds worth of continuous fire. More like 16 seconds, so that a DPS weapon is always more efficient.
- If you can completely destroy your opponent in one shot, or even take a majority of their defenses down, the fight would have only lasted about 20 seconds with a DPS weapon anyway which is too short. An alpha weapon should take at least 3-4 good shots to destroy an equally-sized ship.
- If you miss and deal no damage, why the hell would you stick around? Run, then it becomes escape and evasion, and that is fun for everyone. Also you don't have to rely entirely on alpha damage, you can have more than one weapon.

I think much of your reasoning is based on experience with weapons with 70+ second cooldowns with a HIGHER DPS than their fast-firing equivalents, not to mention other super OP and unbalanced mechanics that have since been removed, and you've gone a little too far in the other direction.

20-30 seconds maximum, with a lower DPS instead of higher, without all the OP mechanics and exploits, with the much stronger shields and armor, is entirely different IMO.



Regarding stabilizers, is the plan to keep the distance requirement at 0? Is schema on board with that? It seems that if both the distance requirement is gone and 100% stabilization is needed for full power, then you'll always want a fixed ratio of stabilizers to reactors, and if that ratio is 1 to 1 like it is now then stabilizers are mostly irrelevant.

 

[Tsnonak]

I think the one here not reading and doing even more distraction is you Tsonak. Load in a ship it'll work. And if you can't power it just reduce the number of systems. Easy to do with the replace function built in the game. Right ?
Ith said, at least once in this thread that yes balancing everything without changing how ships work could have been a possibility. However this would have ended with so weird numbers that future built ships would have been so weird it wouldn't have made sense in any ways. And even with that, changing numbers makes ships change and so everyone would have been forced to rebuild their systems to match the new changes. In the end everyone will refit because it's not just changing one value for another. It's much more. And discarding all of the issues that were brought here because you don't see them as real issues is playing the blind and deaf. It's not because in your limited experience with several players that theses issues were not here that they don't exists.

I am not even talking about the proposed reactor / stab size currently, did you not notice? (rhetorical, surely you did, but it's a good distraction*).
Yes the clique; just can't let it go, the enemy must be destroyed, must have last word... that is very clear.
The aggressiveness displayed here says it all.

But since you're on about reactors sure, I'll bite... (pay attention @ Schnellbier*)
Yes I was on the server rebuilding my ships... last working on the HOSS, a lightly fitted PVE pirate with a bunch of empty space.
Why should I start removing systems, when I can simply start filling that space with reactors and stabs, and more chambers...
I already totally redid systems on the two others.
I am already aware of how to do it.

What's your point anyway?(also rhetorical, clearly there isn't one*).

One last edit:
The only point is an attempt to ruin my credibility, (nothing else left).
I am a server Admin, I have regular contact to actual players, correct I have very limited contact with elite PvPers who don't play on any servers and constatly complain about how broken PvP is.

And yes, breaking all assets of all players as well as ingame assets is one of my concerns, on top of the other ones!



I was here because this is important to the future of StarMade...
I am not the only one who has concerns here, and likely not the last.


Just leave me out, don't quote me, don't address me.

 

[Ithirahad]

And a more realistic example, a weapon with a firing rate of 20 seconds:
- Damage shouldn't be the equivalent of 20 seconds worth of continuous fire. More like 16 seconds, so that a DPS weapon is always more efficient.
- If you can completely destroy your opponent in one shot, or even take a majority of their defenses down, the fight would have only lasted about 20 seconds with a DPS weapon anyway which is too short. An alpha weapon should take at least 3-4 good shots to destroy an equally-sized ship.

With the RHP mechanics being what they are, it isn't a linear conversion like that. 20 seconds of damage applied by 1 cannon likely means a direct breach through the entire ship, including massive damage to the reactor. A similar beam will tear open large parts of the ship.
20 seconds of damage applied across 40 projectiles or (let's say) 10 beam shots means the armor formula will reduce much more of the damage, and even without armor the damage probably distributes across the facing side of the target ship (because moving targets) - and the reactor takes less damage overall.

Even when it comes to shields, a single shot of 20s worth of DPS will lose no damage to shield regen. (Beams lose a bit between ticks, but insignificant)
20s of equivalent small damage packets will first have to break the high regen when a ship's shielding is still relatively high, resulting in a fair amount of damage disappearing to begin with.

Reducing the damage efficiency to compensate for this can help, yes, but doesn't really mitigate these issues unless the efficiency is so bad that the weapon isn't worth using to begin with. With a small target (the reactor) having to be hit to kill the ship, and armor mechanics that mitigate smaller damage more than larger damage (to avoid cheesy waffle or meta-weapons), really big damage is just better if it works. As Scyp said, we can adjust by a few seconds, but beyond around 5-7.5 seconds you start to run into these issues.

 

[Lord_Latterous]

Edit: does anyone even look at the community content section to see what the "actual" community is building?
I don't believe there are any "PvP-Meta-Exploiting" builds (I may have missed something*).

NOW THERE IS! lol
https://starmadedock.net/content/shitty-meta-pvp-ship.7938/

 

[Scypio]

I think much of your reasoning is based on experience with weapons with 70+ second cooldowns with a HIGHER DPS than their fast-firing equivalents, not to mention other super OP and unbalanced mechanics that have since been removed, and you've gone a little too far in the other direction.

20-30 seconds maximum, with a lower DPS instead of higher, without all the OP mechanics and exploits, with the much stronger shields and armor, is entirely different IMO.

I am sorry but this reasoning starts with weapons at 10 to 15 seconds fire rate. As ith explained before me you have a hard choice. Either nerf the alpha gun to the point it is useless or keep it and transform this weapon as mandatory because of all of the inherent advantages. To name the most obvious ones : Shields, hit & run tactics with cloak on and breaking armor.

Regarding stabilizers, is the plan to keep the distance requirement at 0? Is schema on board with that? It seems that if both the distance requirement is gone and 100% stabilization is needed for full power, then you'll always want a fixed ratio of stabilizers to reactors, and if that ratio is 1 to 1 like it is now then stabilizers are mostly irrelevant.

My personnal will is to keep the distance to 0. Schnell explained pretty well why and i redirect you toward his messages if you want more info on why i have this opinion. However what i want and what will be is another question and nobody can answer that on the future of the project.
I can't speak for schema on this opinion. I probably have an idea of what he personnaly thinks but i won't tell something instead of him.
As to saying that stabilizers are irrelevant with a ratio of 1/1... not entirely. First because there is still the free stabilization bonus. We kept it. So it's like 0.9999 to 1.
Joke aside they still have their uses :
- they allow for the reactor to be bigger in size. Increasing the number of blocks you can hit by 2. Rhp, all of the problem linked to it and all that. Yes we could simply reduce the power output by 2 but this leads to my second point.
- they allow for the builder to decentralize their source of power. Rather than having one big blob of reactor you have one blob of reactor and several smaller ones for stabs all around your ship you can place around with no limitations whatsoever.
So they are no more just a way to tie ships size to power output but they are a real system you can deal with. You can either think about the possibilities in your ship by spreading it out or keeping it close to the reactor without thinking much.

 

[Tsnonak]

NOW THERE IS! lol
https://starmadedock.net/content/shitty-meta-pvp-ship.7938/

Yes, now we are really going places...

This magnificent compilation of "blockage" is the end result of unbalanced weapons, armor, and shields "forcing" elite PvPers to "meta exploit".
I heard the stories...

The cascade of a couple / few thousands light rods in front of the hull is missing though, so this is not "op", better luck next time.

Edited...
Players who have nothing better todo than build exploitive sh*t like this, is what this is all about.
Which has nothing todo with what the significant majority of the actual players build CC.
This is about balancing pvp, and making Starmade the game they want.

Kudos to Schine for Power 2.0 and the vested time to bring it to life!

Apologies if I am repeating something that may have already been mentioned by others elsewhere.

 

[Nauvran]

Yes, now we are really going places...

This magnificent compilation of "blockage" is the end result of unbalanced weapons, armor, and shields "forcing" elite PvPers to "meta exploit".
I heard the stories...

The cascade of a couple / few thousands light rods is missing though, so this is not "op", better luck next time.

Players who build like this, is what this "initiative" is all about.
This is about balancing pvp, and making Starmade the game they want.
Apologies if I am repeating something that may have already been mentioned by others elsewhere.

people that want to win are always going to find the most effect tactic available or META
right now it might be tall ships with a lot of turrets, next update it might be ships with 100m front armour, who knows

it's not what QF is about, QF is about balancing the game so everyone can have fun and so that the "meta" isnt a lot stronger than everything else. if you cant get that into your thick skull then kindly kiss my posterior and fuck off

 

[Tsnonak]

people that want to win are always going to find the most effect tactic available or META
right now it might be tall ships with a lot of turrets, next update it might be ships with 100m front armour, who knows

it's not what QF is about, QF is about balancing the game so everyone can have fun and so that the "meta" isnt a lot stronger than everything else. if you cant get that into your thick skull then kindly kiss my posterior and fuck off

good ol' Nauv, adding his shitty 0.02€ = priceless

Yes the clique; just can't let it go, the enemy must be destroyed, must have last word...

Simple just stop "forcing" me to shitpost here... this thread is for "feedback", thank you.

 

[Nauvran]

Simple just stop "forcing" me to shitpost here... this thread is for "feedback", thank you.

then post proper feedback. Dont just say everything is shit because you dont like it

 

[Malum Phasma]

....

Anyways,

So obviously we will never agree on the stabilizer and reactor debate. I think we need it but just tweaked down, you don't think we need it at all. I will just have to agree to disagree on that because this thread is obviously at a standstill on the issue.

My question now then is ... what do you call extensive testing of weapons? 2 hours versus Bobby AI? 100 hours versus a target block? 200 hours of PVP? The question is important because the way the Universe update has been explained, it will be a largely PVP style fighting game, and less of a building or exploration game.

I read why you guys think it is needed to put the numbers down you have, but I see only arbitrary information. Case in point:

With the RHP mechanics being what they are, it isn't a linear conversion like that. 20 seconds of damage applied by 1 cannon likely means a direct breach through the entire ship, including massive damage to the reactor. A similar beam will tear open large parts of the ship.
20 seconds of damage applied across 40 projectiles or (let's say) 10 beam shots means the armor formula will reduce much more of the damage, and even without armor the damage probably distributes across the facing side of the target ship (because moving targets) - and the reactor takes less damage overall.

Even when it comes to shields, a single shot of 20s worth of DPS will lose no damage to shield regen. (Beams lose a bit between ticks, but insignificant)
20s of equivalent small damage packets will first have to break the high regen when a ship's shielding is still relatively high, resulting in a fair amount of damage disappearing to begin with.

Reducing the damage efficiency to compensate for this can help, yes, but doesn't really mitigate these issues unless the efficiency is so bad that the weapon isn't worth using to begin with. With a small target (the reactor) having to be hit to kill the ship, and armor mechanics that mitigate smaller damage more than larger damage (to avoid cheesy waffle or meta-weapons), really big damage is just better if it works. As Scyp said, we can adjust by a few seconds, but beyond around 5-7.5 seconds you start to run into these issues.

What size and damage is this cannon? What target is it hitting? Is it moving? Is there a Defense Chamber active? How thick is the armor? Are these numbers consistent? You know as well as I do that Schine didn't pull Weapons 2.0 numbers out of their rears, it was an attempt to balance our previous system to what they saw in emails/forum/discord that we, as a community, wanted. Not just one person or style.

I understand that reducing damage efficiency to achieve what some believe to be a better balance can help, but it almost seems as if you dismiss it out of hand because it "doesn't do enough". Have you forgotten a key play component of chambers? The idea was to push people into building special ship types to allow for variety in play, and in combat, not to have one ship dominates all. No matter what you do, bigger engines make more power, bigger guns do more damage, thicker armor is harder to penetrate, always, in real life and in all games ever created. Why not push for a more generic, general balance on the ENTIRE system, keep bothering Schine to add more to server configs, AND push for the fabled Offense Chambers to be included? You guys are smart, you know what's coming in Universe update, why tweak some of these numbers so far out? Especially without hundreds of hours worth of testing between different players (PVP'ers and PVE'ers), play styles (battles, trade, explore, build), and targets? Some of these numbers, as they stand, can very well suddenly "break" the game-play on the next drop.

To me it seems THAT is what we should be pushing for, general, across the board acceptable, realistic, numbers in EVERYTHING that can be used as a basis for the game with any further tweaking ONLY done by server configs OR specialized chambers. In my opinion, that is, in part, what "us other guys" bring to the table. Balance.

 

[Zoolimar]

You know as well as I do that Schine didn't pull Weapons 2.0 numbers out of their rears, it was an attempt to balance our previous system to what they saw in emails/forum/discord that we, as a community, wanted. Not just one person or style.

Considering that it resulted in beams melting ships on a jousting pass (well, a couple of them) the feedback that was chosen as a basis for the numbers was very bad.

I understand that reducing damage efficiency to achieve what some believe to be a better balance can help, but it almost seems as if you dismiss it out of hand because it "doesn't do enough".

The additional problem with high alpha weapons is that you not only must take into account the basic damage per shot but also the around 4-5 times this damage that you can get if you allow it to charge at minimum possible capacity with reactor barely providing energy above upkeep. So your 20 second recharge weapon can shoot like a 80 second recharge one. Yes, you will need a couple of minutes to reload it but a) you can have a chamber for reactor boosting and b) if you deal enough damage it won't matter.

Previously we had capacity to deal with such exploits but now the only way to deal with this is to equal upkeep energy to full reload energy.

To me it seems THAT is what we should be pushing for, general, across the board acceptable, realistic, numbers in EVERYTHING that can be used as a basis for the game with any further tweaking ONLY done by server configs OR specialized chambers. In my opinion, that is, in part, what "us other guys" bring to the table. Balance.

Quickfire has no access to any coding. And everything that is done on it could be done or removed on any server. It's just config changes. I would also very like to know what you consider "realistic and acceptable" numbers.

 

[Reilly Reese]

I am not even talking about the proposed reactor / stab size currently, did you not notice? (rhetorical, surely you did, but it's a good distraction*).
Yes the clique; just can't let it go, the enemy must be destroyed, must have last word... that is very clear.
The aggressiveness displayed here says it all.

But since you're on about reactors sure, I'll bite... (pay attention @ Schnellbier*)
Yes I was on the server rebuilding my ships... last working on the HOSS, a lightly fitted PVE pirate with a bunch of empty space.
Why should I start removing systems, when I can simply start filling that space with reactors and stabs, and more chambers...
I already totally redid systems on the two others.
I am already aware of how to do it.

What's your point anyway?(also rhetorical, clearly there isn't one*).

One last edit:
The only point is an attempt to ruin my credibility, (nothing else left).
I am a server Admin, I have regular contact to actual players, correct I have very limited contact with elite PvPers who don't play on any servers and constatly complain about how broken PvP is.

And yes, breaking all assets of all players as well as ingame assets is one of my concerns, on top of the other ones!



I was here because this is important to the future of StarMade...
I am not the only one who has concerns here, and likely not the last.


Just leave me out, don't quote me, don't address me.

And I thought you were frustrating to deal with in the Community Spotlight thread.

 

[Scypio]

So obviously we will never agree on the stabilizer and reactor debate. I think we need it but just tweaked down, you don't think we need it at all. I will just have to agree to disagree on that because this thread is obviously at a standstill on the issue.

They are still here so any build made with stabilizer distance should be able to function properly, aside from the fact that the configs asks for 100% stabilization rather than 25% to get full power generation. Plus, re-enabling stabs distance is pretty easy on the configs so anyone that wants it back can do so.
To us, if stabilizer distance is tweaked to the point where it isn't a hassle to the players, then the purpose of the distance is completely irrelevant.

My question now then is ... what do you call extensive testing of weapons? 2 hours versus Bobby AI? 100 hours versus a target block? 200 hours of PVP? The question is important because the way the Universe update has been explained, it will be a largely PVP style fighting game, and less of a building or exploration game.

Any time passed with anything is testing and can provite feedback. However, of course feedback from someone used to find the meta and played over 100 hours against players will be more valuable than someone that just played 1 hours against bobby.

To me it seems THAT is what we should be pushing for, general, across the board acceptable, realistic, numbers in EVERYTHING that can be used as a basis for the game with any further tweaking ONLY done by server configs OR specialized chambers. In my opinion, that is, in part, what "us other guys" bring to the table. Balance.

And that is our goal. When we test systems it is not with chambers onboard and we aim to balance them without chambers. Well rounded systems that are balanced between each and chambers that allow ships to be more specialized on one or several different domain. And i will always push for solutions that allow to use friendly numbers.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Strafe fighting is sort of a given with Newtonian mechanics in free space with no gravity/orbits, and that's not what I'm talking about.

I've yet to do any testing I was supposed to, but this line kinda bugs me.
I hear this one used often enough to defend Starmade's flight system. I guess it sounds scientific enough if you use Newton's name.

What'd Newton say though when someone proposed an object accelerating 90 degrees perpendicular to it's only axis of thrust?

You want Newtonian space flight mechanics? You accelerate the direction your thrusters are facing, then turn using small manouvering thrusters. That's the only REALISTIC way you could strafe with a ship having a traditional engine layout. And it's a total pain in the ass, when you have to turn around yet again, opposite your vector , then burn your main engines again to kill your momentum. No sharp turns or convenient braking for anyone.

 

[SchnellBier]

I've yet to do any testing I was supposed to, but this line kinda bugs me.
I hear this one used often enough to defend Starmade's flight system. I guess it sounds scientific enough if you use Newton's name.

What'd Newton say though when someone proposed an object accelerating 90 degrees perpendicular to it's only axis of thrust?

You want Newtonian space flight mechanics? You accelerate the direction your thrusters are facing, then turn using small manouvering thrusters. That's the only REALISTIC way you could strafe with a ship having a traditional engine layout. And it's a total pain in the ass, when you have to turn around yet again, opposite your vector , then burn your main engines again to kill your momentum. No sharp turns or convenient braking for anyone.

I agree and disagree at the same time. Starmade is not realistic and shouldn't really try to be. Forcing people to build a realistic engine setup might cause a lot of problems not only with ship design but also gameplay (not even talking about bugs). Strafing combat is kind of silly at least at the extend that it happens in starmade. In my opinion an easy way of solving it would be that forward and backwards thrust has better thrust values than directional thrust. It's only logical that ships that are intended for space travel have the most efficient thrusters for traveling straight. No idea how this would look exactly but I think this would definitly result in less strafing.

 

[jayman38]

Perhaps with "weighted" thrust vectoring, via the thrust distribution screen? The game could efficiently calculate thrust "weights" for each setting.

100% efficiency: Forward thrust (should be separate from "reverse thrust")
99% efficiency: yaw/pitch/roll thrust (turning/spinning/rotating)
85% efficiency: Reverse thrust (you shouldn't be able to accelerate backwards as quickly as forwards, simply because of SciFi convention)
80% efficiency: vertical/lateral thrust (this efficiency rating might make flying sideways result in a loss)

With weighted efficiencies, you can theoretically match all your thrust vectors, similar to what Starmade has now, at the cost of reducing your thrust efficiency. In other words, you could set up your ship to fly sideways as easily as accelerating forward, but not as well as if you had focused your thrust distribution towards forward thrust.

 

[Ithirahad]

As far as I've seen, the infinite strafing is only a big deal in free-space 1v1s, which are only common because StarMade isn't a game yet. In fleet combat or 2v1 or whatever, or where actual objectives are being attacked or defended, 3D positioning aside from range starts to matter, and things get... interesting. This strafing thing isn't - at least in my opinion - a huge problem to try and solve. Either way this is sort of outside of Quickfire's scope of operations. Feel free to make a post in the Suggestions section and/or in the StarMade Discord; that would likely be more productive.

And Fortius, I had no intention to make an appeal to authority by invoking the name of Isaac Newton. It was just the simplest way that came to mind to explain the sort of flight model SM uses, as opposed to the strange aeroplanes-in-space flight that you get in a lot of other games.