Using Build Mode to break planets, asteroids, stations in Multiplayer just instantly ruins the econo

[Kane]

Hello! My name is Kane Hart and I been just starting to play your wonderful game and I love what I seen and heard and the future features you are adding. I have come across though one of the most nasty "features" that really breaks the economy instantly. Clearly this game is in Alpha and I don't blame or get mad just only offer an idea to fix the issue and keep everyone happy.



Mark blocks that get generated as a generated block. If this is possible to add data like a player name also consider adding a player name to the block and I will explain more on this now.. So when a Player places a block or the world generated a block you make it so you can't delete it in build most period only through manual mining by the player or salvaging through the ship.



From here you can also add a bonus feature a very elementary blocklog. Pretty much have a admin command or tool that just tells you who created the block.



Not everyone will like this feature so make sure you add 2 configs. One for players and one for generation on and off so people can still use build mode for terrarforming if they choose.



Why the name feature btw? Imagine working weeks on a base and pirates come to take your loot and now they place a single build block and tear your entire station up within 30 seconds. That is why for that.



This will fix our issues with Stations, Planets and Asteroids



Here is a video on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tXz255wx8U

 

[Archer6621]

Small correction: You can\'t do this on asteroids.

Other than that I agree, think of how much worse you can make it with cheatengine... 100x100x100 brush

 

[Kane]

Thanks for the info on ataroids. I would not mind if there was even a temp option like astroid.

 

[Captain Fortius]

If someone wants to own millions of units of rock and dirt and a few L1 minerals, let them. It still takes an awful lot of clicking.

It\'s not terribly complicated -or expensive- to build a giant salvage array that can do the same job legitly, perhaps a little slower. It doesn\'t make much of a difference.

I\'ve harvested a few planets the hard way, and I found it\'s a waste of time. I haven\'t found any of the more valuable minerals, and I\'d have to spend hours cruising from shop to shop to sell all the garbage I gathered. It\'s not a terribly efficient way of gathering wealth. I ask that you try it as well before asking for a feature that\'d hurt half the community. Salvage or deconstruct, I don\'t mind, but know that all those millions of blocks do you no good if you can only sell a few thousand of them per shop.

There\'s nothing to gain from making the game stricter. If you can\'t remove blocks in construction mode from planets or stations, digging basements and doing some remodelling would be a pain in the rear, and as such, it\'d take away from the already meagre content of the game; Nobody would bother building there anymore.

And, if you\'re worried about pirates picking apart your base in half a minute;

-Who spends a week in multiplayer, building a base that\'s not their faction home (and as such, not invulnerable), knowing full well that it could be destroyed any time?

-Why wouldn\'t that base have a bunch of turrets and shields to keep attackers away?

-Why wouldn\'t you at least put a faction block on it? Even if it\'s not the home base, other players won\'t be able to put the dreaded construction block on it until they destroy the faction module.

-Once they defeated all your defenses, what does it matter HOW they loot the place?

 

[Archer6621]

It\'s not terribly complicated -or expensive- to build a giant salvage array that can do the same job legitly, perhaps a little slower. It doesn\'t make much of a difference.


Right.

Remind me again, why should I waste resources, time and effort on a salvage array if a build block can do all the harvesting for me just as fast as I want it to, with less costs and setup time?

You aren\'t looking at this issue correctly if you don\'t think this is a big game flaw, because basically one game mechanic is defeating the purpose of another. The same thing would be if schema would add another type of weapon that is much more powerful than the amc with the same cost/power requirements and effectiveness.. what would AMCs be good for then?

The very least that can be done, is to add a click delay that increases with the brush size.

 

[Captain Fortius]

You don\'t \"waste time\" building a salvage array, you\'re going to do it because you want to be a space miner that day.

Well, maybe not You, but someone else. It\'s there to have fun with.

This argument is exactly the same as \"why build a nice ship if a doomcube is more effective\".



Also; why do you think of a new weapon as something bad? Variety is good. It doesn\'t have to have better stats. Just look and feel different, to give players more options.

 

[Archer6621]

This argument is exactly the same as \"why build a nice ship if a doomcube is more effective\".


Exactly!

There, you wrote down another gameflaw. The game stimulates people to make so called \"doomcubes\" because they are the most efficient design.

I can tell you now already that there are various ways to disencourage this, they just need implementation.



Also, I never said new weapons are bad, I said new weapons that would make AMCs -redundant- would be bad, because you add a new mechanic that breaks another... It wouldn\'t add much value to the game then if it is just as easy to get/setup/use with higher damage rate, wouldn\'t it?

 

[Captain Fortius]

Really, all those are indeed bad things, at least the way we see it.

But imagine that we\'re all children, sharing one big sandbox. The boys never liked how the girls build silly sand cakes instead of cool sand fortresses, but looking back on it with adult eyes, what does it matter?

Everyone played the way they wanted to play, and no one forced boys to build cakes, or girls to build fortresses. ...At least while the teacher was watching.

So I\'ll keep mining with salvage lasers, even though there\'s an easier way, because I like it. I\'ll build nice ships, because I like it. I\'ll even leave the core in an exposed glass-fronted bridge because I think it\'s cool to pilot from there.

I don\'t mind that there are other people who have their fun by playing as effectively as possible.

 

[Kane]

Thanks Captain Fortius for the trolling. Lets stay on topic about the issues and not about your dick.

 

[Qweesdy]

Hi,

There\'s a powerful technique called \"root cause analysis\". The idea is to find the actual cause of a problem, rather than just a finding a symptom of a problem and fixing that.

For example; let\'s start with the \"people are using build blocks to gobble planets\" problem. What causes this problem? I\'m sure people aren\'t using build blocks to gobble planets just for fun. They do it because they want/need the blocks.

So, why do people need the blocks they get from gobbling planets (with build blocks or salvagers)?

The answer to this is simple: factories. To get one good recipe (e.g. with only one ingredient) you buy about 50 recipes and one will be good. Recipes (normally) cost 5000 blocks each, but the bad recipes you sell and get 2500 of the blocks back. Therefore, on average, to get one good recipe you can expect to waste about 49*2500 blocks. Of course then you need ingredients for the factory, or recipes to produce the ingredients that other recipes need.

Basically, the problem is that the recipe system is retarded (and shops are mostly broken too, which doesn\'t help), and people gobbling planets is just a symptom of the real problem. If the recipes were fixed then the planet gobbling wouldn\'t be necessary.

 

[Comr4de]

He is on topic. He just doesnt agree with you. Deal with it.

 

[Kane]

I\'m pretty sure he is trolling us just because if this gets added with the option to enable it so it does not effect him it will. Because I\'m sure most servers would enable it and he is worried for his main source of exploitation.

 

[Iskandar]

Personally, I see strip mining a planet with a build block as an exploit, as it circumvents the reason for salvagers -- what\'s the point of having salvagers if you can just plop down a build block and gobble everything up?

But, on the other hand, a build block is essential for large planetary and station builds... I couldn\'t imagine rebuilding any of the stations I\'ve made one block at a time -- I\'d lose interest long before the landing bays were even done haha!

So a simple fix to limit the effectiveness of the exploitative nature of the build block is needed, one that doesn\'t interfere with the intended creative uses of it. And the simplest way to do that is to just put a time limit on when a build block can be used.

Essentially, a planet or station would need to be factioned and held by that faction for a certain number of hours (12? 24? 48? it could be a server adjustable number) before a build block could even be placed.

At the end of the timer, the player could strip mine the planet/station if they wanted... but the delay would make the use of salvagers far more time effective for bulk mining operations (my current multiplayer stripmining ship can reduce a planet to nothing in about 90-120 minutes, depending on how focused I am... my sandbox one can do it in about 30 minutes... and there\'s stripminer builds uploaded here that can do it in as little as 10-15 minutes).

It\'s not a particularly harsh requirement (actually being in a faction, plopping a faction block on a planet in some random hidden location, and maybe parking a ship in orbit to defend it isn\'t exactly pushing the envelope haha!), and it doesn\'t interfere with the construction/deconstruction role of the build block (so you\'d have to wait a day to build or devour the sanctum of doom... oh noes! ^_^ ).

 

[Iskandar]

I still think a combination of the factory and cubatom system would be neat... a player would break down blocks into cubatoms and feed those into a factory block for reassembly into something else. The current recipe system is just too awkward and inefficient imho

 

[Captain Fortius]

Those are all valid points I raised. I even gave you a hint on how to protect your stations.

Your reaction on the other hand...

Never mind.

If you don\'t like deconstruting planets, then don\'t do it. Simple as that.



Iskandar\'s suggestion above would make sense though. \"It takes time to claim a station / planet.\"

Pure and simple. It\'d work great. You could never just take away the deconstruction ability, since there\'s no way to differentiate between mining and terrain editing, so imposing a little delay is the best you can do.