Thoughts of a returning player

[Agame3]

Thoughts of a returning player:
- Directional thrusters

Spoiler

are fun, but they force me to make compromises between ship mobility (turning speed) and ship mobility (sideways acceleration) in small warships that need all the mobility they could ever get to survive. It's simply too hard for my neural lonely cell to choose between what I need and the same thing, knowing I can't have them both but they still are the same thing.

I don't need these to enjoy this game.
- Strong sound amours

Spoiler

... Against what? I mean, come on, in almost any space game and even in some that are not (Protoss race?) once your shield is gone you are gone, no way to avoid that. It's natural, expected and obvious. If some Ion weapon does more damage to the shield or makes shield last longer, that is your ship's life it shortens or lengthens. With this in mind, can anyone explain me the need for SHP, AHP, balancing and rebalancing of their values over the time in order to make a colorfull egg-shell as important as the shields? I may be wrong here, but I think

I do not need these to enjoy the game.
- Weapons...

Spoiler

Well, I DO need them to enjoy the game. Damage Beam/Pulse are instantaneous, but so short ranged that I think I am not skilled enough to ever use them efficiently in PvP. And PvP is all that matters once development of warships gets to the point when pirates are no longer a threat. (Using Pow 1 in a Pow 2 game, pirates are no longer a threat anyway, poor virtual souls...) But I still have Torpedoes (one area trigger in front of a warhead in front of a fast clock connected to a computer with a few push pulse modules), my favourite 3 types of missiles that I knowwhat to expect from (Snipers'=Damage Beam supported missiles, Nukes = Damage Pulse supported missiles, Heat-seekers and just for the last blows, to make sure I do not spoil the loot from enemy chests by creating explosions near them, a Scalpel. Scalpel is my name for a single group Cannon-Cannon-Punch Through weapon as big as I can build it in a warship. I never actually need it stronger than needed to pass through 10 AA per second (one AA per hit) while aiming straight for the core of a target that got his shields already stripped out by missiles. Missiles can do whatever they want as long as they go and hit their target by their own and are not expecting me to sling-shot them. I men I do not care if they make round holes, conical holes, icosaedron or piramidal shape holes in the enemy still active shield. All I need is that my Scalpel has no explosion effect and that it cuts like a laser in a straight line as thin as possible to not ruin the blocks I will salvage from the ship as soon as I overheat it. Explosions near a ship that starts to overheat also nulify/kill completely the random generated loot from the enemy chests which is a major failure for me, if I destroy the loot when I only fight for that loot. So,

I need that at least some weapons (cannon-cannon especially) never change. I need that to enjoy the game.
-

Spoiler

Since random loot can help me get materials I need plus money from shops (by selling what I do not need and buying only what I need) and helps me avoid at least for a while the mindless asteroid/planet mining that is extremely boring,

I desperately need random loot from pirate ships that I can spawn at will by shooting a pirate station (Isanths or anything else) to enjoy the game.
-

Spoiler

Knowing that my way of playing heavily relies on pirating the pirates, do I need limited cargo capacity on any of my ships, for the sake of realism?

No, I need not to have the cargo taking any more volume than a few chests

Spoiler

and I do not really need realism in a game that limits cosmic speeds to 75 m/s, like 4 times lower than the speed of sound in Earth's atmosphere.
- All anti-missile turrets can deal with a really limited number of missiles simultaneously. So the way to go if I am ever to PvP is not 500 missile modules in one weapon group, but 500 groups one module each. Even if I get power usage or damage reduction penalties for too many weapon groups, it's still better than having my entire salvo denied by one single turret. Do I need integrity checks on my sniper/nuke weapons? No,

I need no integrity check at all to be able to enjoy the game.
- I also do not think I need localized shields and any other features that came with Pow2 and the last updates.

So, while I do admire the work and the game Schema created up to a point, I want to become outdated and stop at that very point. I wish only the best to Schema while he balances and improves his game until it will feel less and less like the game we love (it already does that since pow 2), then less and less playable, then less and less desirable and so on.

Any game version between docking on rails and directional thrusters is fine for me. Around version o.19 or something. But my question is, where to download an installer fit for that version and that version itself? I would rather go for original .cfg values and genuine files on the version you can advise me about, but not for a current copy of some custom server data that may differ from the actual game as it was at its best. Please, help me find what I need even if you do love the way the game feels and looks now and you disagree with me. Thank you!

 

[DukeofRealms]

Any game version between docking on rails and directional thrusters is fine for me. Around version o.19 or something. But my question is, where to download an installer fit for that version and that version itself? I would rather go for original .cfg values and genuine files on the version you can advise me about, but not for a current copy of some custom server data that may differ from the game as it was at its best. Please, help me find what I need even if you do love the way the game feels and looks now and disagree with me. Thank you!

You can change the build version in the launcher, this will update/downgrade your game to a correct version (configs and all).

If you're really concerned about having a 'pure' file structure, you can download the standalone launcher and only download the version you want. This will ensure all the files are exactly as when released.

I have converted your post into a thread, as the original thread hasn't had any activity for 3 months and this post does not directly address the original topic, it fits as its own.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Well, even I have to say, MOST of these complaints are kinda wrong, however I do strongly agree with three:

- Integrity. Bad decision. Makes brick ships with brick systems healthier than ever, makes anything pretty more fragile than ever. Delete, remove, no loss.

- Limited shield coverage, separate shield groups. Extra bad decision. It's difficult to fill up a good looking hull, not to mention one with interiors, in such a way that you can keep your shields in one group. Especially true for small ships. Favors spacebricks again.

- Directional thrusters. Exactly how is a ship strafing at combat speed when it's main thrusters (save for perhaps some rare, exotic alien designs) are aligned lengthwise and generally serve for forward acceleration? It should be move forward and turn, with minimal strafing from manouvering thrusters. Would make for more interesting combat than the current "face each other, match speed, and drift sideways through half a system 'till one of us dies" method. Like, ACTUAL combat manouvers...

I think integrity and the new shields were a response to the dreaded spagetthi ship meta, but you could simply have made unconnected block groups die off, to simulate falling apart.

 

[Agame3]

You can change the build version in the launcher, this will update/downgrade your game to a correct version (configs and all).

If you're really concerned about having a 'pure' file structure, you can download the standalone launcher and only download the version you want. This will ensure all the files are exactly as when released.

I first tried that, but the only versions available for me are the pow 2 versions. I thought someone might have removed the old ones from whatever site the launcher downloads from.

I have converted your post into a thread, as the original thread hasn't had any activity for 3 months and this post does not directly address the original topic, it fits as its own.

Ty, I should have done that myself. I just read that old topic and then decided I want back to the StarMade I used to love and posted, but it was not really the right place to post.

 

[Kaelani Revyruun]

lol Agame, why not just join my server, Novus Galaxy: endeavour? xD I hates the default config so I threw it out the window. Boosted shields, boosted integrity, boosted stability, boosted shield area and recharge as well as capacity, boosted inventory sizes, boosted sector sizes, boosted top speeds (I think the max is like a couple thousand m/s on my server), chambers only use up ~0.01% to 0.1% RC, meaning a fully decked out ship only uses around 68% RC, lowered chamber block cost between reactor levels (I think you need 2 chamber blocks by the time you have 125k reactor blocks total), instant reactor rebooting, and also stabilizers have no noticeable effect on my server :P

 

[Nosajimiki]

- Directional thrusters. Exactly how is a ship strafing at combat speed when it's main thrusters (save for perhaps some rare, exotic alien designs) are aligned lengthwise and generally serve for forward acceleration? It should be move forward and turn, with minimal strafing from manouvering thrusters. Would make for more interesting combat than the current "face each other, match speed, and drift sideways through half a system 'till one of us dies" method. Like, ACTUAL combat manouvers...

I think integrity and the new shields were a response to the dreaded spagetthi ship meta, but you could simply have made unconnected block groups die off, to simulate falling apart.

Agree strongly with first half of this post, but...

Directional thrusters can be configured to just forward/backward and rotating if you want to perform more like a "fighter". If you've ever flown a LiCorp ship (Molach, Baal Berith, etc.), they are configured like this by default. There are even some advantages of doing this, but there is actually no scientific or logical reason that a warship would not be able to have substantial strafing engines at the sacrifice of forward speed. Especially in a sci-fi universe where FTL systems make large rear thrusters unnecessary for fast point-to-point travel. Spaceships, even big ones, can move more like helicopters than planes because they don't need to maintain lift or worry about aerodynamics; so, this movement model actual makes more since. Also, how many times have you hear the phrase "evasive maneuvers" said in things like star-trek? How do you suppose they always do that while keeping all their hull mounted weapons facing the enemy?

As for break-off mechanics, that fixes nothing. Various proofs of concept have shown that solid build ships loose more to that mechanic than a mesh built spaghetti ships. This is especially true with the new beam/beam weapons that can slice off a nacel with relative ease, and anti-integrity waffle guns.

 

[Zephyrim]

As for break-off mechanics, that fixes nothing. Various proofs of concept have shown that solid build ships loose more to that mechanic than a mesh built spaghetti ships. This is especially true with the new beam/beam weapons that can slice off a nacel with relative ease, and anti-integrity waffle guns.

Right, the new weapon systems need quite a bit more balancing done to them which will partially alleviate the damage. It's also likely that players will significantly change their armor layouts as a result of this update, and we've yet to seen exactly how that will pan out.

But what is lost by break-off systems is a different story. Sure, you lose more blocks with a non-spaghetti ship, but if, with break-off mechanics in play, your spaghetti ship gets hit in the correct spot, you'll lose just as much if not more. Also on the more detailed ship just because you've lost more blocks doesn't mean you've lost more systems.

But yeah, I honestly hate integrity. Maybe hate is a bit strong. I can kinda sorta almost see where it was going, but at the end of the day it leans towards railroading system designs to be even simpler. I'm penalized unless my weapons, shield, and power are in perfect prism shapes, and people can even try to abuse the system with stuff like the "waffle" guns you mentioned. If anything we need to be penalizing the uninspired mass 1x1x1 systems further, not the big doomsday weapons; though I don't want the meta to shift too far towards big weapons either.

 

[Nosajimiki]

But what is lost by break-off systems is a different story. Sure, you lose more blocks with a non-spaghetti ship, but if, with break-off mechanics in play, your spaghetti ship gets hit in the correct spot, you'll lose just as much if not more. Also on the more detailed ship just because you've lost more blocks doesn't mean you've lost more systems.

Mesh-spaghetti cannot be critically hit by break-off, it is a variant of spaghetti where you use a grid pattern instead of parallel lines like you may be used to seeing. It specifically counters break-off mechanics because no matter how you shoot it, it will take several, very luck shots to ever break off any more than 5-10 blocks, and even that would be very rare in comparison with DoT damage patterned on solid systems. Also, break-off mechanics will cause all sorts of shit to break when building things since non-contiguous structures are very common during the design phase of things. Think of it like this: imagine you are designing a 50,000 block chamber for your new flagship, it is connected by a single block to the reactor and nothing else, but it comes in at 55k blocks; so, you decide to shave a layer off to reduce weight and cost, but you accidentally cut it off... you've just lost over $100 million worth of blocks because you shaved the wrong side of your chamber.

 

[Zephyrim]

Mesh-spaghetti cannot be critically hit by break-off, it is a variant of spaghetti where you use a grid pattern instead of parallel lines like you may be used to seeing. It specifically counters break-off mechanics because no matter how you shoot it, it will take several, very luck shots to ever break off any more than 5-10 blocks, and even that would be very rare in comparison with DoT damage patterned on solid systems. Also, break-off mechanics will cause all sorts of shit to break when building things since non-contiguous structures are very common during the design phase of things. Think of it like this: imagine you are designing a 50,000 block chamber for your new flagship, it is connected by a single block to the reactor and nothing else, but it comes in at 55k blocks; so, you decide to shave a layer off to reduce weight and cost, but you accidentally cut it off... you've just lost over $100 million worth of blocks because you shaved the wrong side of your chamber.

I'm confused, is it a series of hollow cubes connected together? What is this "mesh" spaghetti like? If it actually dense enough where it'd be as hard to cause a break off as it is on a more detailed ship then it's basically lost all of the advantages of being "spaghetti", more or less. If you have a picture or a more detailed explanation that'd be great, or a link.

 

[Scypio]

I'm confused, is it a series of hollow cubes connected together? What is this "mesh" spaghetti like? If it actually dense enough where it'd be as hard to cause a break off as it is on a more detailed ship then it's basically lost all of the advantages of being "spaghetti", more or less. If you have a picture or a more detailed explanation that'd be great, or a link.

Have you ever shot at a ship from 2/3 km distance in the game ?

 

[Nosajimiki]

not cubes, a grid. So if the system is made of vertical and parallel lines 10-20m apart, then >90% of your shots will still pass through it, but those that do hit will just cut a little hole that is still connected on all sides. I'm not at my home computer RN, but think of something like this:

 

[Agame3]

My problem still remains. I want a version AFTER named chests (StarMade News - StarMade v0.1885 Hotfix and fast inventory management), preferably with rail docking (StarMade News - StarMade v0.19226 Rail System and more) but definitely without Torches and other boarding tools (StarMade News - StarMade v0.19282: Putting more fun into battles. Also, boarding!) and without Shipyards (StarMade News - Starmade v0.194 - Shipyards).

Launcher gives V0.1865 (no named inventories for the loot, everytime loot fills your personal inventory you must exit core, press R on a chest, deposit loot, reenter core, bleah!) and then next version is 0.19490, long after loot has to fill up large spaces inside ships, any newcomer with a torch can enter a 10M shields ship that was never his if he has enough patience, bleah! again.

So, where do I go to download today the old STARMADE versions that are not in the Launcher's list but were released years ago and were played by thousands of players then?

 

[alterintel]

My problem still remains. I want a version AFTER named chests (StarMade News - StarMade v0.1885 Hotfix and fast inventory management), preferably with rail docking (StarMade News - StarMade v0.19226 Rail System and more) but definitely without Torches and other boarding tools (StarMade News - StarMade v0.19282: Putting more fun into battles. Also, boarding!) and without Shipyards (StarMade News - Starmade v0.194 - Shipyards).

Launcher gives V0.1865 (no named inventories for the loot, everytime loot fills your personal inventory you must exit core, press R on a chest, deposit loot, reenter core, bleah!) and then next version is 0.19490, long after loot has to fill up large spaces inside ships, any newcomer with a torch can enter a 10M shields ship that was never his if he has enough patience, bleah! again.

So, where do I go to download today the old STARMADE versions that are not in the Launcher's list but were released years ago and were played by thousands of players then?

Index of /build/
The version your looking for should be there. But you'll have to figure out how to do a manual install.

 

[Agame3]

Index of /build/
The version your looking for should be there. But you'll have to figure out how to do a manual install.

OMG, none of them have actual version numbers in file name, gonna take a while to detect it
Ty a lot, you are a virtual life saver. I'm going to post here/edit this post if I do not find what I needed. I think I will find it.

Edit 1: I looked in Starmade news history, found out ideal for me is a version between 10 may 2015 (included) and 19 june 2015 (excluded).
The versions in the list you gave me have the same 1 year gap between 0.1865 and 0.19490, just like the launcher, only in dates this translates into this gap:

starmade-build_20141215_210741/ 15-Dec-2014 22:25 -
starmade-build_20151121_161908/ 21-Nov-2015 18:10 -

It's a whole year during which Schine worked a a lot, we played a lot, it was the "golden years" for me, where are the files?

 

[alterintel]

OMG, none of them have actual version numbers in file name, gonna take a while to detect it
Ty a lot, you are a virtual life saver. I'm going to post here/edit this post if I do not find what I needed. I think I will find it.

Edit 1: I looked in Starmade news history, found out ideal for me is a version between 10 may 2015 (included) and 19 june 2015 (excluded).
The versions in the list you gave me have the same 1 year gap between 0.1865 and 0.19490, just like the launcher, only in dates this translates into this gap:

starmade-build_20141215_210741/ 15-Dec-2014 22:25 -
starmade-build_20151121_161908/ 21-Nov-2015 18:10 -

It's a whole year during which Schine worked a a lot, we played a lot, it was the "golden years" for me, where are the files?

Scroll down to the bottom of the list, and you will see Zip files.

 

[Agame3]

I won't really name my kids after you, though I would feel a bit tempted to.
Ty a lot! Downloading the file I needed as we speak.

Edit: Works flawlessly.

 

[JumpSuit]

lol Agame, why not just join my server, Novus Galaxy: endeavour? xD I hates the default config so I threw it out the window. Boosted shields, boosted integrity, boosted stability, boosted shield area and recharge as well as capacity, boosted inventory sizes, boosted sector sizes, boosted top speeds (I think the max is like a couple thousand m/s on my server), chambers only use up ~0.01% to 0.1% RC, meaning a fully decked out ship only uses around 68% RC, lowered chamber block cost between reactor levels (I think you need 2 chamber blocks by the time you have 125k reactor blocks total), instant reactor rebooting, and also stabilizers have no noticeable effect on my server :P

You sir have INSANE values for your server... If anything that 'thousands of m/s' will make the game hate you in the long run

 

[Qweesdy]

You sir have INSANE values for your server... If anything that 'thousands of m/s' will make the game hate you in the long run

In the long run?

Nothing actually moves, at least not in the "normal physics" way. Instead, each tick things teleport from one place to another. If a tick is 1/60th of a second, then a missile moving at 2000 m/s will teleport 33 blocks per tick. It seems like things move because of "persistence of vision", but that's just an illusion.

Now imagine you fire your missile at an enemy Isanth. One tick it's about to hit the Isanth, and the next tick it's teleported past the Isanth - it wasn't overlapping with the Isanth's blocks in any tick, so it looks like the missile just passed straight through the ship without colliding with anything and without doing any damage. Yay!

Now imagine you fire your missile at an enemy titan. One tick it's about to hit the titan's hull, and the next tick it's teleported 30 blocks inside the titan (bypassing all the exterior hull) and overlaps with a reactor block, causing an explosion inside the titan. Yay!

Of course it's not just missiles, it's everything. Ships flying through the middle of other ships without colliding, ships and missiles flying through asteroids, ...

This is why speed is limited. For collisions to work 100% properly, everything needs to teleport no more than 0.5 meters per tick (in case two "1-block thick" objects are perfectly aligned and moving at max speed towards each other). With 1/60th of a second between ticks that means max speed would need to be no more than 30 m/s. However, it's a game and doesn't need to be "100% properly" - for max speeds up to about 100 m/s nobody is really going to notice if collisions are occasionally a little dodgy.

 

[JumpSuit]

In the long run?

Nothing actually moves, at least not in the "normal physics" way. Instead, each tick things teleport from one place to another. If a tick is 1/60th of a second, then a missile moving at 2000 m/s will teleport 33 blocks per tick. It seems like things move because of "persistence of vision", but that's just an illusion.

Now imagine you fire your missile at an enemy Isanth. One tick it's about to hit the Isanth, and the next tick it's teleported past the Isanth - it wasn't overlapping with the Isanth's blocks in any tick, so it looks like the missile just passed straight through the ship without colliding with anything and without doing any damage. Yay!

Now imagine you fire your missile at an enemy titan. One tick it's about to hit the titan's hull, and the next tick it's teleported 30 blocks inside the titan (bypassing all the exterior hull) and overlaps with a reactor block, causing an explosion inside the titan. Yay!

Of course it's not just missiles, it's everything. Ships flying through the middle of other ships without colliding, ships and missiles flying through asteroids, ...

This is why speed is limited. For collisions to work 100% properly, everything needs to teleport no more than 0.5 meters per tick (in case two "1-block thick" objects are perfectly aligned and moving at max speed towards each other). With 1/60th of a second between ticks that means max speed would need to be no more than 30 m/s. However, it's a game and doesn't need to be "100% properly" - for max speeds up to about 100 m/s nobody is really going to notice if collisions are occasionally a little dodgy.

Well, your call. Going like, 2000 m/s in a ship MAX Limit set is quite ridiculous. Every server I have been to the highest i have ever seen was 500 m/s. Any higher into the thousands and your going to think you are Doc from Back to the Future...