The Quickfire Initiative: Rebalancing StarMade.

[Dr. Whammy]

Just the original 10

I appreciate you taking the time to share your input. I'm at a loss as to what is causing this issue. I'll try another fresh install of 202-87 and see what happens.

 

[Forsyth]

I appreciate you taking the time to share your input. I'm at a loss as to what is causing this issue. I'll try another fresh install of 202-87 and see what happens.

I'm grateful that we can have this discussion. The sooner things get identified and fixed, the better off StarMade will be.

Have you been able to try a fresh install of 202.87?

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I'm grateful that we can have this discussion. The sooner things get identified and fixed, the better off StarMade will be.

Agreed.

Unfortunately, without additional testing/input from other players, we have no way knowing if these are intended changes or a bug.

Have you been able to try a fresh install of 202.87?

I have reinstalled ver. 202.87 several times. Using it without QF is no different than the build I was using in late January.

Using it with QF resulted in the changes we discussed and quite a few changes to the weapons as well.

Here is a recap of all the changes I'm seeing for anyone else who may be following. Yellow denotes a possible bug or other inconsistency between builds.

- Shield capacity reduced from 250/block to 200/block
- Shield regen rate reduced from 5/sec/block to 2/sec/block
- You can build a large reactor and get full power without stabilizers.
- Chambers of 99 blocks or less require only one chamber block (used to be about 10% of reactor size; regardless of size)
- Swarm missiles (MC) are gone and have been replaced with fast firing, low damage lock-on missiles.
- Bomb (MM) is gone and has been replaced by the classic Damage Pulse "nuke" (slow, high damage guided missile) from before power 2.0
- MM no longer ignores shields.
- BC in a 1:0 ratio (Damage beam with a cannon secondary with no blocks) does far more DPS than if you added blocks for the cannon secondary. In fact, a 50 block BC in a 1:0 ratio does far more DPS than a BC in a 1:1 ratio several times larger.
- BM (Charge beam with Missile secondary) is gone and has been replaced by a slow fire, high damage beam.
- BB (Beam with beam secondary) does less damage per shot than a standard beam.
- Beams seem to fire only one tick; regardless of type; requiring the use of BC (high rate of fire) or BM (high damage) to do damage.
- CM (Chargeable Cannon with Missile secondary) is gone and has been replaced by the classic Damage Pulse artillery cannon (slow, high damage) from before power 2.0
- Power cost for shields has increased but resting power cost for thrusters and weapons seems to have been eliminated; leaving rail mass enhancers and shields as the only constant drains.
- The old power 1.0 range settings are back; missiles = long range, cannons = mid range and beams = short range.

Bugs aside; I find this build interesting. I will miss the bombs and swarmers but I welcome the return of "nuke" missiles and artillery cannons.

 

[Forsyth]

I was under the impression that QuickFire had already been integrated with the game's code. However, if new configs have been released since version 202.87 was released (and I have not downloaded any other configs), then that could explain the discrepancies.

I'm going to try a completely new install to see if anything changes

 

[Zoolimar]

Someone could have been just experimenting on the server and left configs changed. There were more radical changes made to see how things will work. Release/dev version doesn't pull the configs from the QF GitHub constantly only when some changes were solidified.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I was under the impression that QuickFire had already been integrated with the game's code. However, if new configs have been released since version 202.87 was released (and I have not downloaded any other configs), then that could explain the discrepancies.

I'm going to try a completely new install to see if anything changes

Be sure to copy your existing game to a new folder in case something goes wrong.

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

Unfortunately, without additional testing/input from other players, we have no way knowing if these are intended changes or a bug.

Release/dev version doesn't pull the configs from the QF GitHub constantly only when some changes were solidified.

Might the problem be that we don't need to / shouldn't import custom config files the way we had to before the re-balance got officially implemented?

The first (and as of now latest) release version with QF configs appeared in the end of January, with a dev news note saying: "The universe update is well underway and the code bases are now so different that any change on the old version takes a lot of time because of migrating. For this reason, this will probably be the last update on the non-universe-update version of StarMade."

Assumably, players aren't expected to do anything but a simple update to become up-to-date with regards to configs that are considered official. And presumably, any further refinements to balance by the QF team will be implemented only with or after the universe update, if Schema agrees with their validity again.


I personally refrain from updating either my copy of the game or my ships beyond v0.202.87. But out of curiosity, what's the deal with the 13 dev builds released in the last ~4 months of radio silence?

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Might the problem be that we don't need to / shouldn't import custom config files the way we had to before the re-balance got officially implemented?

The first (and as of now latest) release version with QF configs appeared in the end of January, with a dev news note saying: "The universe update is well underway and the code bases are now so different that any change on the old version takes a lot of time because of migrating. For this reason, this will probably be the last update on the non-universe-update version of StarMade."

Assumably, players aren't expected to do anything but a simple update to become up-to-date with regards to configs that are considered official. And presumably, any further refinements to balance by the QF team will be implemented only with or after the universe update, if Schema agrees with their validity again.


I personally refrain from updating either my copy of the game or my ships beyond v0.202.87. But out of curiosity, what's the deal with the 13 dev builds released in the last ~4 months of radio silence?

The most frustating thing about this is that there does not appear to be any current documentation available on this topic; neither here nor on Quickfire's Discord. January was over 4 months ago and there are a LOT of changes between the version from back then to the current one.

Can anyone comment on the changes below? Has anyone encountered any of them since January's release?

Spoiler

- Shield capacity reduced from 250/block to 200/block
- Shield regen rate reduced from 5/sec/block to 2/sec/block
- You can build a large reactor and get full power without stabilizers.
- Chambers of 99 blocks or less require only one chamber block (used to be about 10% of reactor size; regardless of size)
- Swarm missiles (MC) are gone and have been replaced with fast firing, low damage lock-on missiles.
- Bomb (MM) is gone and has been replaced by the classic Damage Pulse "nuke" (slow, high damage guided missile) from before power 2.0
- MM no longer ignores shields.
- BC in a 1:0 ratio (Damage beam with a cannon secondary with no blocks) does far more DPS than if you added blocks for the cannon secondary. In fact, a 50 block BC in a 1:0 ratio does far more DPS than a BC in a 1:1 ratio several times larger.
- BM (Charge beam with Missile secondary) is gone and has been replaced by a slow fire, high damage beam.
- BB (Beam with beam secondary) does less damage per shot than a standard beam.
- Beams seem to fire only one tick; regardless of type; requiring the use of BC (high rate of fire) or BM (high damage) to do damage.
- CM (Chargeable Cannon with Missile secondary) is gone and has been replaced by the classic Damage Pulse artillery cannon (slow, high damage) from before power 2.0
- Power cost for shields has increased but resting power cost for thrusters and weapons seems to have been eliminated; leaving rail mass enhancers and shields as the only constant drains.
- The old power 1.0 range settings are back; missiles = long range, cannons = mid range and beams = short range.

 

[Forsyth]

- Shield capacity reduced from 250/block to 200/block
- Shield regen rate reduced from 5/sec/block to 2/sec/block
- You can build a large reactor and get full power without stabilizers.

A fresh install of 202.87 did not yield the results indicated by your post. I haven't looked at the weapon changes, but my guess is those didn't change for me either

 

[Dr. Whammy]

A fresh install of 202.87 did not yield the results indicated by your post. I haven't looked at the weapon changes, but my guess is those didn't change for me either

Did you add the QF configs after the install or is the proper version 202-87 without any added configs?

Plain 202-87 is largely the same as January's release but there have been new Dev builds and QF config changes since then.

 

[Forsyth]

Did you add the QF configs after the install or is the proper version 202-87 without any added configs?

Without added configs. I can switch over to the dev build channel if you would like. I've been on the release build channel

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Without added configs. I can switch over to the dev build channel if you would like. I've been on the release build channel

I don't think the Dev build is the issue. I'm using 202-87 just like you are and whatever they put in the new configs apparently doesn't play well with release or dev. builds of the game.

I appreciate your help but based on the rather disinterested responses we've seen here and the rather defeatist posts on the QF Discord, I think it's time for me to put this game on hold again until the universe update comes out (if I live that long).

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Forsyth]

I appreciate your help but based on the rather disinterested responses we've seen here and the rather defeatist posts on the QF Discord, I think it's time for me to put this game on hold again until the universe update comes out (if I live that long).

Thanks for all your help.

Thanks for helping me work through this. I'm going to do shelf the game as well.

 

[Code North]

Well, QF got out in the world, had time to settle in and get adjusted/optimized.

lets see what we have to work with:

Wow nice job,
has meta but works casual
perfect weapon balance,
Good armor concept,
the missiles could use work but thats not on you guys,
Jep, i would say that it is an improvement.
i say, 8.5 out of 10.
good job you all.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Seriously. QF drove away even more players from this dwindling community.

In the next patch of the game - IF we even get one:

-No recoil, no stabilizer distance (or preferrably no stabilizers at all), and armor stacking should be internalized.
-Every other QF setting reverted to the last original, "vanilla" value.

-Keep QF config downloadable for those who like / want it; I don't make EVERYONE listen to heavy metal just because I like it. Neither should YOU force your personal preferences on others.

(I would simply revert to the last non-QF patch, but cannon recoil stops the game if they're on turrets.)

 

[Forsyth]

-Every other QF setting reverted to the last original, "vanilla" value.

-Keep QF config downloadable for those who like / want it; I don't make EVERYONE listen to heavy metal just because I like it. Neither should YOU force your personal preferences on others.

I think that'd be the best course of action. Fix a few smaller issues that are universally accepted as issues (e.g. stabilizer distance) and have the rest in a separate config. Probably the (relatively) hard part would be figuring out how to make sure QF config and non-QF config doesn't overlap in servers (probably could be solved by making the configs globally applicable on servers if they choose)

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Seriously. QF drove away even more players from this dwindling community.

In the next patch of the game - IF we even get one:

-No recoil, no stabilizer distance (or preferrably no stabilizers at all), and armor stacking should be internalized.
-Every other QF setting reverted to the last original, "vanilla" value.

-Keep QF config downloadable for those who like / want it; I don't make EVERYONE listen to heavy metal just because I like it. Neither should YOU force your personal preferences on others.

(I would simply revert to the last non-QF patch, but cannon recoil stops the game if they're on turrets.)

I think that'd be the best course of action. Fix a few smaller issues that are universally accepted as issues (e.g. stabilizer distance) and have the rest in a separate config. Probably the (relatively) hard part would be figuring out how to make sure QF config and non-QF config doesn't overlap in servers (probably could be solved by making the configs globally applicable on servers if they choose)

You both make good points.

Regarding removal of stabilizers entirely: I support this because despite my ability to learn to work within the confines of stabilizer distance, I recognize that not everyone else can. And if we aren't going to require distance between stabilizers, then they serve no real purpose and are just adding mass, slowing us down and taking up space.

Rregarding leaving cannon recoil low or removing it completely: Agreed. It's unrealistic from both a modern phyisics and sci-fi point of view and takes away from the overall game-play experience. Also, why are we using "gunpowder" to shoot projectiles when things like FTL, force fields and anti-gravity exist?

Armor? Well, that's an imbalance of a different kind, and one that I won't get into here.

Regarding reverting to the original config: I must admit; while vanilla wasn't perfect, it was not nearly as restrictive as what we have now. I think QF originally started off with a good idea but over time, personal preferences and bias took precedence over balance and playability. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you only build or play one way.

 

[Reilly Reese]

The agenda is thick with you guys.

 

[Tsnonak]

... only good things that came with this config:

stabilizer distance penalty removed
chamber RC improvements
death beam improvements(death).

critical stuff, but did'nt need all this crap for that.

 

[Forsyth]

... only good things that came with this config:

stabilizer distance penalty removed
chamber RC improvements
death beam improvements(death).

Didn't QF also fix the "tunneling bug" (I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I think I understand the effects)? That, what you mentioned, the missile guidance fixes, missile capacity, cursor recoil, and max stabilization power is pretty much what was needed. Maybe throw in the armor weight adjustment, the Low/High damage shield chambers, and the chamber formula and I think most of the community would be happy with that. The changes are sensible, but they're not overreaching and confusing which would make the QF integration relatively seamless and natural.