The Starmade's main problem

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    Hello, I play starmade for a while now and I really like the game because of all the creation possibilities. After talking with my friends and other starmade players we all think its main problem is you have nothing to do once you built your ship (that's why 90% of the people stop playing), even in multiplayer mode you have no real reason to attack another player.

    So before talking about balances and stuff why don't you fix this problem first ? We have to give players a real goal other than building a 3 million blocks capital ship. Herebelow you'll find a possible solution to fix this problem (which gives more sence to the whole game by the way), of course we're still able to improve/change it but here's the main idea :



    Instead of appearing in the middle of nowhere when first joining you should begin the game on a empty planet (if you're playing multiplayer with a friend you could start in the same one, or you also could join an already inhabited planet with the planet's owner autorisation).

    Of course planets will have to be improved a lot because actually they are not really interesting. First of all they should be double-faced (just add a indestructible layer in the middle so there's not any gravity problem), adding fauna to the planet is also important (agressive or passive civilisations and monsters), each planet should be different and have special things other don't have (unique flora, minerals, places to explore) but every planet should have the main minerals you'll use to craft main things (which I'll explain herebelow).



    Once you spawned you'll be free to build your base so you can protect yourself from agressive monsters/civilisations. A diplomatic aspect could be very good, for example you would be able to choose between make peace with another civilisation on your planet (this way you're able to trade with them or ask for help) or destroy them (this way you steal all their ressources).

    You won't be able to explore space from the beginning, you'll have to craft all the components to make your ship from your planet's ressources. Before you explore space you should be comfortable on your planet (you've explored most of your planet, your defences are good enough to keep monsters away, etc), we can imagine different tech-tiers in which you'll be able to progress, for example : At the beginning to defend yourself you'll have to use ballistic technology and later in the game you'll be able to use plasma weapons, etc..



    [OPTIONAL] Power-managing should be added to the game, actually power comes from nowhere (SD HCT xm3.4) but you should have different types of energy. I understand everyone don't want to fill their ships with some kind of fuel, that's why we can keep solar energy as the infinite one, however its recharge rate will depend on the distance from the solar panels to the closer star (and not-infinite energies should be better (but not needed for all kind of ships) than solar one of course).

    Other types of energies (fuel-like ones) should be found on planets, this way you'll have a reason to attack or to colonize other planets (energy-wars) and players will be able to trade fuels for money or whatever they want. Of course to extract or produce the type of energy you want you'll have to use the correct machines and power them. [/OPTIONAL]



    The energy aspect of the game (see above) would be very interesting because it would give players a real reason to attack or trade with other ones. Energy is optional but if you don't add this you must add something similar, something all players need but can't have that easily, because if everyone can have everything with no effort there is no reason to attack your neighboors or to trade with them (and having no interactions with other players in a online game is senceless and very boring).



    I think you get the point, if you need some clarifications or you want to debate about this idea feel free to post below :) !
     
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    I think your problem is that you dont want to expand enough. your just not competitive enough to have endless fun in the game. After you have a ship and are content then go explore. find pirates. attack and destroy them. buy sell mine and become rich. use your money and stuff to buy materials. build factories tyo mass produce the stuff you need. go and build space stations and colonies off in deep space and return home after your long adventures. then if that isnt enough you can add more competition/.difficulty to the game by putting bigger ships in your catalog so that pirates will become harder. then when your good go to multiplayer. fight win and expand. CONQUER THE UNIVERSE AND NEVER STOP! have fun. blow some people up. be awesome.
     
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    Instead of appearing in the middle of nowhere when first joining you should begin the game on a empty planet (if you\'re playing multiplayer with a friend you could start in the same one, or you also could join an already inhabited planet with the planet\'s owner autorisation).


    Please tell me where you will get materials to build a ship to get off planet.
     
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    As I said at the beginning I still enjoy the game because of its creation possibilities, but once I built all the things I wanted too there\'s nothing more to do, pirates are not fun to kill even with bigger ships in fact PvP actually is just about who have the bigger canon/shield.

    This is not only my opinion, almost all the players who stop playing starmade (including my friends) stoped because of this.

    EDIT : @Comr4de, You\'ll get materials from your planet in a minecraft-like way, of course we can imagine that later in the game (with robot tech for example) you\'ll have machines or robots to mine ressources for you (one of the last technologies could be an infinite matter fabricator which could create materials from energy or turn a material into another one).
     
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    @Trollerbobman : Do you really enjoy fighting pirates ? Actually fighting system is pretty bad even against players, that\'s why there are 1 million suggestions about that.

    Anyway pirates should stay a simple event, I don\'t think the main goal of the game should be killing pirates, that would be pretty boring in my opinion.
     
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    So to make the game take longer to get to the \"build a 3m capital ship phase\" you want to add a completely new mechanic/game that is basically Minecraft/Civ and will lock you out of actually playing STARMADE until you complete this Minecraft/Civ mode?

    How about you play that Minecraft space mod until you can \"make it into space\" then start playing Starmade. It won\'t have Civ conquest but I\'m sure there are mods for that too.



    Instead of splitting the game up into multiple modes and \"be more like minecraft\" there needs to be focus on expanding the game we have. There should be more to do in space, more PVE to interact with. Instead of just ai being bots that float in space you should be able to interact with them, talk to them, trade with them, possibly do missions for them. Of course this would be very difficult to do properly with a sandbox game who\'s primary goal is end user customization.
     
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    @Sven : It\'s not a new mechanic since most of features I talked about are planned (I\'m talking about NPCs, monsters, weapons, etc...).

    I\'m not splitting the game into multiple modes, I\'m proposing an evolving curve which will make starmade more interesting for sure (as I said, people stop playing because of this which is a problem). By the way, it\'s pretty funny because you\'re suggesting the same thing as me :

    \"There should be more to do in space, more PVE to interact with. Instead of just ai being bots that float in space you should be able to interact with them, talk to them, trade with them, possibly do missions for them.\"

    You\'re suggesting a civilisation-like feature too. I talked about this on planets but I would be happy to have it in space too.



    Actually I can start playing starmade and 1 hour later I\'ll be building my 300.000 blocks ship, do you prefer it that way ? Yes, building is fun but as you said what\'s the goal of a sandbox ? End user customization. If I can end my customization in a month I\'ll stop playing a month later.

    Adding my suggestion will make people stay even if they end their customizations because their ships and their buildings will have a real use which they have not now.
     
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    Better Pirates=more/better loot.

    If you keep buying blocks and ships, you will run out of money, so this is a good option.



    I do infact like fighting pirates, its fun and exciting when no-one is online on the server you go on, especially if the pirates are using super giant DFN Titan supercarriers.

    Besides, if it stayed simple it would get boring.
     
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    It\'s crazy that some of you are latched onto the idea of not making Starmade more interesting. After you build a ship or building or whatever, you have to be REALLY interested in playing with your digital legos to want to keep playing. At the moment there isn\'t much of a game here at all. Neezy is simply suggesting ways to expand it.

    I imagine planets fleshed out with creatures(some hostile, some helpful) spawned buildings, more interesting space stations with NPC communites, quests, better economy, etc. This program needs those things to even be considered a game in my opinion.
     
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    Planets being fleshed out, adding more life to them and the galaxy is fine, turning Starmade into Minecraft where you start on a planet with nothing and have to grind your way into space is not. Some people may even stop playing before they even get into space, if getting bored is your worry.
     
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    So what you pretty much want is it to be kinda like the game Spore? But obviously better, since here you can build ships that are bigger than a car (Something you can\'t do in Spore). That is actually a good idea. To make capital class ships harder to get, you could require certain \"Tech Unlocks\", such as upgrades, to access new levels of ships (Based on mass) You get those points required for new upgrades through purchasing or killing stuff (Such as other players). Also, maybe bigger ships take more people to operate fully functional. Maybe their could be missiles (More like what are called photon missiles) that go through shields (to combat super shields) but are really slow and dumb-fired (meaning they cannot hit small ships easily). This kind of mechanic is seen in many space combat games, matter of a fact, almost all space combat games. Also, perhapse a EMP gun as well, does no damage at all to a ship, takes a ton of energy to use, but hits shields HARD. Maybe? I have seen those used often in other games, why can\'t they be used here? Just a thought.
     
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    Templar got the point, it would be a spore like way to begin the game but different.
     
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    I agree with the idea but not so many of the specifics. The game really does get boring because of lack of features and diversity of play. The game simply does not advance fast enough for the community. Once you have a stable base set up there is no incentive to do anything else besides build more spaceships.

    The biggest problem with this game is lack of incentives.

    1. there is no incentive to colonize more than one planet
    2. there is no incentive to compete against other players
    3. there is no incentive to build a variety of ships. bigger is always better.
    4. the galaxy is minimally diverse so exploration becomes boring
     
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    What you are describing sounds alot like Minecraft with the Gilacticraft mod. This is its own game, and the developer cand do what he wants. You might like other kinds of games (and that is fine), but if you don\'t like this one, find another game.
     

    Zyrr

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    I don\'t support this for vanilla Starmade, however. As a mod? Of course. But to say building shouldn\'t be a primary focus is like saying humans don\'t need oxygen. This is a sandbox voxel game, it\'s pretty much dependent on building.



    If you can mod, or know a modder, run it by them. I\'m sure someone will be interested in this.
     
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    How about 3 gamemodes. Classic (the one right nao) Survival (pretty much your idea in a nutshell) and Creative (I don\'t think I need to explain this)

    There. Everyone happy?
     
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    I think starmade really needs more endgame content. like big wars and shit.

    but to start on a planet is not that a good idea, because in the beginning it would feel exactly like minecraft.