Planned Uneven Resource Distribution and Density: Getting the Wheels Turning

[Ithirahad]

As it stands now, every galaxy, nearly every system and every planet, has each type of resource needed to survive and thrive in the world of StarMade. Plenty of each type of resource. With all resources plentiful and distributed equally, resource/item scarcity is usually only derived from player laziness. Someone doesn't want to go mine out all the resources needed to make something, so they trade with someone who happens to already have lots of it. This is kind of okay, but it's also dull and doesn't amount to a very active economy. Furthermore, there's no reason for a faction to expand their territory beyond their homebase and maybe one system at a time for mining. There is also really no incentive for PvP that outweighs how valuable ships are, either, turning the game into a giant (and rather boring) hugfest, and leaving anyone who wants to PvP forced to either play against others for fun, or attack people randomly and look like a dick because there's no justifiable reason for it.​

...This has to change.​

What I propose is that different regions of the galaxy have different amounts of different resources, and for some systems to have far higher amounts of minerals than others. For instance, one spiral arm might have lots of Parseen and Sapsun, needed for Shield-Rechargers, but almost none of the Rammet and Sertise needed for Shield-Capacitors. Due to this, inhabitants of that spiral arm will be forced to trade with areas that DO have Rammet and Sertise, or alternatively they'll have to conquer those areas so they can mine the resources themselves. Very rare systems rich in more than two or three resources will be valuable points of interest for many factions, so battles over those systems will probably be common. Overall, factions will probably start claiming larger areas of territory since they can't mine every resource in every system, and trading/merchant factions would begin to spring up to take advantage of the whole situation. Roles within factions will begin to have more relevance, since it will no longer be practical for shipbuilders and naval captains to act as miners and traders as well, and factions in general will most likely grow and merge to some extent since players are needed to fill in roles more. Large forward bases will also have more value, since they'll be needed to maintain control over key areas. True trading stations would probably start to spring up, too, and being a freighter captain might become a fairly profitable occupation. Teaming up to raid pirate bases would become more common and useful too, since they would hold resources that may not be available for systems around otherwise.

This leaves one question, really: What happens to shops? Currently, they contribute even more to the lack of scarcity by offering hundreds, sometimes thousands, of items you wouldn't be able to get anywhere else in a system.

The fix for this is simple: They offer more of resources and items that you can find or craft with materials in the immediate area, and offer far, far less of items not found in the system or that can't be crafted with minerals you can find locally.

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I'd like to note that for maximum effectiveness, this should be combined with Keptick's suggestions regarding planets.

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EDIT 12/6/15: Cargo is now implemented! I can now remove all the sidenotes about cargo :D​

 

[Valiant70]

I may become mildly frustrated if this doesn't get a "Planned" tag.

 

[psteiner]

Use "grouped systems" with similar resources generated randomly around. Resources get rarer when you get farther from the center of the current galaxy to prevent remote bases which get little to no PvP and to force players to compete for systems in center. Decrease amount of stations in empty space as well, at bit too dense...

 

[aceface]

As it stands now, every galaxy, nearly every system and every planet, has each type of resource needed to survive and thrive in the world of StarMade. Plenty of each type of resource. With all resources plentiful and distributed equally, resource/item scarcity is usually only derived from player laziness.​

​

This.

and leaving anyone who wants to PvP forced to either play against others for fun, or attack people randomly and look like a dick because there's no justifiable reason for it.​

Exactly. Look at the replies: http://starmadedock.net/threads/piracy-aceface-the-evil-sniper.4938/

I'd like to note that for maximum effectiveness, this should be combined with Keptick's suggestions regarding planets and a new cargo system - something like this - along with the reduction of maximum stack size in an astronaut's inventory to around 1000 blocks, and the already-planned addition of shipyards.​

This.

 

[Snk]

I love you.

Also, to make things a little more spread out, maybe interstellar space between different systems? Basically, empty stretches like in real life.

 

[Monchoman45]

This is interesting, but it does raise a few issues. Spawning in a system where nocx/macet is plentiful - the stuff you build jump drives with - would be WAAAAAAY more useful than spawning in a system with parseen/sapsun.

What's the granularity for "regions of the galaxy"? One system? A 4x4x4 block of systems? An eighth of the galaxy? If I start a new singleplayer world where I'm in a varat/hylat region, how far am I going to have to fly on sublight engines to get to a nocx/macet region?

I feel like one system is reasonable - since that's the most you can claim at one time - but also maybe too small. A config option would be nice, but I don't think that's strictly feasible.

 

[VendettaDFA]

While that addresses the resource issue well, the endgame of this leaves you with a ship that is even more valuable when complete and may have players even less inclined to engage in PVP. I'm not so certain a fully co-op game is what you are looking for here. For every action there is a reaction.

 

[Ithirahad]

This is interesting, but it does raise a few issues. Spawning in a system where nocx/macet is plentiful - the stuff you build jump drives with - would be WAAAAAAY more useful than spawning in a system with parseen/sapsun.

Eh, the spawn system might have equal amounts of all resources, and the spawn shop might start off stocked with a whole lot of everything. (It would also ideally be pre-claimed by the Trading Guild, ideally. The ability for a player to be able to claim this system seems kind of silly to me.)

What's the granularity for "regions of the galaxy"? One system? A 4x4x4 block of systems? An eighth of the galaxy? If I start a new singleplayer world where I'm in a varat/hylat region, how far am I going to have to fly on sublight engines to get to a nocx/macet region?

If you start a new singleplayer world in a Varat/Hylat region, you can always just buy your first few (small) jump drives from shops; if all else fails just make a ton of cannon or Ion Effect computers and sell them for the needed credits... Then get a small warpgate running to a nocx/macet region, and you've got it made. I generally envision the regions as being somewhere around the equivalent volume of a 4x4x4 block, but as a blob rather than a cube (So, 4 systems^3?). It could probably be turned into a config option, though.

I feel like one system is reasonable - since that's the most you can claim at one time - but also maybe too small. A config option would be nice, but I don't think that's strictly feasible.

Per-system is way too small. It would help a bit, but if each system has a different set of resources then it renders my suggestion kind of pointless. Then, factions would just have to claim a 3x3x3 cube around their homebase or something and defend that, and they'd be completely set... Kind of boring too.

 

[Proxy_PlayerHD]

that would make factions way more important. now it's just like: "jo, this is my system, don't dare you to enter it, because it has nothing rare or special in it!". but with your idea of different regions with different resources, this becomes more like: "omg! this system has alot of rare materials! quick! claim it and mine it, so that we can sell it for a high price". and this would cause "worldwide" trading (or space Wars) and i love that! wait... one thing: it would be kinda cool if you could upload a 64x64 pixels large png file for you faction... as a logo or something that would be shown on the map when a system is claimed by a faction.

 

[Monchoman45]

Eh, the spawn system might have equal amounts of all resources, and the spawn shop might start off stocked with a whole lot of everything. (It would also ideally be pre-claimed by the Trading Guild, ideally. The ability for a player to be able to claim this system seems kind of silly to me.)

Fair. This guarantees that you can at least access all the crafting recipes you want without having to travel far and wide. The real kicker is that if the system is claimed by the trading guild, you can't get a mining bonus for it, so if you want to build anything of substantial size, you have to go out and claim your own systems.

 

[CyberTao]

you can always just buy your first few (small) jump drives from shops

There is plans to be able to set a starting ship for new players, in addition to the starting inventory, so the ability to get around to collect stuff in a (albeit shitty) starter ship would cover most of the 'No [Block]' issues when people are starting out.

 

[MacThule]

Agreed. Regional resource scarcity would bring many important things to the game. Not least, as mentioned, a good reason to PvP instead.

Only thing I have to add in the resource scarcity concept is to leave the very core of the spawn galaxy abundant in a balance of all resources. For two good reasons. 1) New players start here and if it is their first multi-player server they will be very discouraged to find themselves stranded in a poor region of space with very limited access to certain items that they don't know how to do without. 2) It's one more reason to fight. Some places truly do have it all, but there's not enough room in the core for everyone.

I also agree about the NPC shops - I'd love to see the frequency of NPC shops out there cut to a small fraction of what it currently is. This would promote player economy AND reward exploration of distant galaxies by traders and explorers, since they would have un-tapped NPC shops. Especially if we can make scanning a new system reveal its shops on the map...
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While that addresses the resource issue well, the endgame of this leaves you with a ship that is even more valuable when complete and may have players even less inclined to engage in PVP. I'm not so certain a fully co-op game is what you are looking for here. For every action there is a reaction.

The more resources available, the bigger the BPs players want to spawn and so they're still terrified to PvP and lose their giant babies even with abundant resources of every kind. I don't know that it's possible to lower PvP inclination much below what it's already at.

IMO, the best way to encourage PvP is to make replacing ships from BPs more convenient (not cheaper). Maybe by raising the player shop capacity limit, and implementing credit banking so that economic infrastructure can support building the kinds of ships people want to fly in reasonable amounts of time if they've amassed the credits.

 

[Ithirahad]

Only thing I have to add in the resource scarcity concept is to leave the very core of the spawn galaxy abundant in a balance of all resources. For two good reasons. 1) New players start here and if it is their first multi-player server they will be very discouraged to find themselves stranded in a poor region of space with very limited access to certain items that they don't know how to do without. 2) It's one more reason to fight. Some places truly do have it all, but there's not enough room in the core for everyone.

Eh; as Cyber said, a starter ship will be added soon, which should cover all of the basics, and the starter shop would be a decent source of any first upgrades players might want to do to said ship. Beyond that, I don't really mind exploration being a necessity - for reasons already explained, using a jump drive to fly out into the wider galaxy will still be viable from the beginning of the game under my universe gen system. Then, players can find their place in the universe, literally and figuratively.

...Besides, do you really want the big-wigs and their factions fighting over the spawn area, full of newbies? I feel that getting roflstomped by huge battlecruisers every time you try to jump out somewhere and set up a base would be a much larger discouraging factor than lacking a few resources in your area.

 

[aceface]

yeah i think it would be good if the game itself forced players to keep big resources only for themselves, and when they had to fight they would mostly use fighters or frigates that are fairly easy to replace if lost.

 

[Ithirahad]

yeah i think it would be good if the game itself forced players to keep big resources only for themselves, and when they had to fight they would mostly use fighters or frigates that are fairly easy to replace if lost.

"Forced" is a bit of a strong word, but yes, the current game where it's generally a good idea to fly the biggest and most powerful ship possible everywhere you go has to change. Servers will have a lot less load on them, for one thing, and additionally it'll be a lot less of a pain in the ass for both newer players and people like me who don't really care for flying giant ships (My largest ship currently is 25,000 mass and I really have no intention for that to change much unless someone wants to build me a 100,000-mass dreadnought. :P)... Regardless, though, this is a discussion for another topic.

 

[MacThule]

Eh; as Cyber said, a starter ship will be added soon, which should cover all of the basics, and the starter shop would be a decent source of any first upgrades players might want to do to said ship. Beyond that, I don't really mind exploration being a necessity - for reasons already explained, using a jump drive to fly out into the wider galaxy will still be viable from the beginning of the game under my universe gen system. Then, players can find their place in the universe, literally and figuratively.

...Besides, do you really want the big-wigs and their factions fighting over the spawn area, full of newbies? I feel that getting roflstomped by huge battlecruisers every time you try to jump out somewhere and set up a base would be a much larger discouraging factor than lacking a few resources in your area.

I saw that. A starter ship would be be great. When it happens
I already make a habit of handing out cheap starter ships to noobs at spawn for this very reason.

And good point - conflict over the spawn region would probably be worse than a resource shortage there, but as mentioned above there are alternatives; such as having the spawn region trade-guild claimed at server launch. In developing a simulation like Starmade, there are very few obstacles that can't be overcome with creativity, as long as there is a will to do so.

Personally, I agree with most of the OP and think that the idea of resource imbalance is worth trouble-shooting, because it brings potential for a level of strategy - both militarily and economically - to a game that is otherwise largely about spawning ships just to spawn them and look at them and show them off and chat a lot about them. The challenge of building efficient ships is fun, but efficiency has little application without competition. I, for one, think I would enjoy the additional challenges regional resource scarcity would bring to the game.

 

[Ithirahad]

And good point - conflict over the spawn region would probably be worse than a resource shortage there, but as mentioned above there are alternatives; such as having the spawn region trade-guild claimed at server launch. In developing a simulation like Starmade, there are very few obstacles that can't be overcome with creativity, as long as there is a will to do so.

The key word in the post I was responding to is not "all resources," but "abundant." If it had lots of everything, then even if players couldn't claim the system they'd probably be running all over it trying to pack all of the resources into their cargo bays, and would end up mining the spawn system dry, possibly even fighting over it depending on how scarce resources are in general. If it just had a few of each type of asteroid along with a planet or two, it wouldn't be seen as being so desirable for higher-level players and it would probably be left alone.

 

[MacThule]

"Forced" is a bit of a strong word, but yes, the current game where it's generally a good idea to fly the biggest and most powerful ship possible everywhere you go has to change. Servers will have a lot less load on them, for one thing, and additionally it'll be a lot less of a pain in the ass for both newer players and people like me who don't really care for flying giant ships (My largest ship currently is 25,000 mass and I really have no intention for that to change much unless someone wants to build me a 100,000-mass dreadnought. :p)... Regardless, though, this is a discussion for another topic.

I also prefer smaller ships. They're more fun, less choppy to fly, and faster to replace. Very frustrating that so many players won't fly in anything reasonably sized. Of course how can you roll all day in a frigate when every system has a dozen pirate bases and alpha damage from some rat mobs exceeds 1M. Very challenging PvE environments directly inflate the size of ships needed for basic survival and contribute to undermining fun, functional PvP. Maybe a server setting for either PvE focus (tons of NPC shops and uber pirates) or PvP focus (scarce NPC shops and a few, weak pirates mostly for decoration - player pirates will come instead).
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The key word in the post I was responding to is not "all resources," but "abundant." If it had lots of everything, then even if players couldn't claim the system they'd probably be running all over it trying to pack all of the resources into their cargo bays, and would end up mining the spawn system dry, possibly even fighting over it depending on how scarce resources are in general. If it just had a few of each type of asteroid along with a planet or two, it wouldn't be seen as being so desirable for higher-level players and it would probably be left alone.

I like that solution. Balanced but poor core region. Even better in combination with a strong trade-guild presence and territory claimed so that players can't even get a bonus in those systems. Becomes nearly worthless to anyone who isn't very new to the server.

 

[Admiral_Wolf]

why is their no I love this idea tab.
In all seriousness though, one problem with this would be getting around the problem of single player or local host servers. one person cannot realistically travel around a galaxy as large as these are and gather all the resources necessary to build something. perhaps one solution to that could be an option when creating a server that would allow the manger to choose whether our not he would like the world (or sever) to have dispersed sorceresses.
It is debatable whether or not that would actually be a problem. And I still do love the idea for multi-player servers.

 

[Ithirahad]

why is their no I love this idea tab.
In all seriousness though, one problem with this would be getting around the problem of single player or local host servers. one person cannot realistically travel around a galaxy as large as these are and gather all the resources necessary to build something. perhaps one solution to that could be an option when creating a server that would allow the manger to choose whether our not he would like the world (or sever) to have dispersed resources.
It is debatable whether or not that would actually be a problem. And I still do love the idea for multi-player servers.

When creating a new world, there should always be options, as there are in Minecraft. Planet size ranges, galaxy min./max radius, resource zone sizes, resource density, shop/NPC station rarity...