at first i was thinking of just jump drives and scanners, but there are so many little things that can be enhanced, instead of making various posts, i'm making a vote page.
choices are unlimited, as in select as many as you like.
of course, this is merely a poll for the devs to see, making it easier, i'll add to it from time to time, but i'm not often online, so if moderators and such wish to add to it, by all means.
for fairness reasons, i am not casting a vote myself. so it's entirely up to you's to point the direction. besides, in a matter of speaking, i'm casting my votes by putting the list up.
*1. "charge" systems should be able to be activated at any charge state.*
things like the new "scanner" block, or a jumpdrive...
of course, it's not that precise...
i propose the game divides the charge percentage from the max, then adds a dynamic penalty based on how much charge is left.
basically, the earlier you activate the system, the worse the penalty would be, where spamming activation may actually be more harm then good. (like massive power drain), at no point should this nullify the power requirement. in fact it should actually drain the ship power, and re-calculate the difference minus 10%...
making power generation more important then storage (like vessels with barely any generation, but with insane storage capacity)
*2. over-charge *
i'm sure many of you have wished that the jump drive was slightly more efficient that one time... (like when you have sector size at 9000, and jumpdrive takes a few minutes to charge... but your SO close...)
we could take a few ways of actually triggering this, but the one i propose is automatic, if your just short of a destination, it should ask if you wish to use the overcharge feature, say 150% efficiency at the cost of 200% power... and a 50% increase in charge time...
in essence, a recovery time due to overworked components.
the same charge style would be applicable to other "charge" style systems.
*3. exposed modding functionality.
this one we do know is coming, i'm proposing that we prioritize access to existing functions, i'm talking server to client modding. for prime examples (although more complex then what i'm currently thinking), Grand Theft auto :san Andreas has two multiplayer mods, (multi theft auto, and SA:MP)
just cause 2 also has one (same team as SA:MP)
(you can ignore this paragraph if you know what a server to client setup is)
the client connects to the server, and awaits instructions, what to download... what to load.
the advantage is the incredible flexibility, this allows the server to radically change the client game, loading new cars, new people, new guns... even new maps or map elements...
this is achieved by exposing the games core to a "simple" API.
honestly, most of the work is already done, there is no fixed things in starmade, and it's already server based, but we need to allow a server operator to add blocks to the game, and call existing functionalty easily. we need a drag and drop modding layer for server operators. and a scripting access, this would drastically speed up the games development too, the community would build things that schema could use, or even provide inspiration for a new idea (like minecraft's horses, they are actually from a mod from dr zhark, but were incorparted later...)
once this was done, it'd be a floodgate.
i'm not talking about script access to the game's base code, i'm talking a "simplified" API for the majority of starmade's functions.
*4. scanners *
they are simple, (okay, to be perfectly fair, i have NOT used a scanner, but i've been reading everyone's complaints so far)
they should be more diverse, they need to scan planets, provide co-ordinates to objects in scan range (unless it's a ship...), and they need logic activation, this will allow people to launch scout drones...
*5. power control *
damn near every sci fi ship I've seen has the ability to transfer power to various systems, extra power to engines... divert power from a system to shields....
it'll allow more customization in fights, later they could be controlled by "engineering"...
boosting a components overall efficiency...
*6. advanced customization *
this is more an enhancement on the power control, but able to be implemented seperately to it... so i seperated it.
i'm talking weapons customization... projectile size (energy weapons, not solid projectiles)
projectile speed, fire rate (means damage rate for lasers), weapon cooldown (the actual physical refire rate)...
shields would have capacity, recharge rate, or damage mitigation (i think starmade supports it)
thrusters would allow focus on turning, speed, acceleration... or even strafing...
*7. Ai *
i don't know if we would call this a re-work... or the beginning of it, as i'm not really sure any of us would call the current setup... ai...
we should begin at the beginning, the ai need to "see" ships, if your nose to nose with a hostile, it should be firing at you, even if you have a radar jammer...
turrets should not risk firing on friends (this one i think is "easy" to fix, at least from my point of view, the ai should compare distance, to weapon type, to friendly distance, and velocities...
if a friend COULD get within the projected area, plus a 25% margin of error, it does not fire)
this would solve the issue of turret friendly fire, but it WILL make a AI turret inferior to a player one, since a player may risk a shot the AI would not.
the AI need to "return" to docks they were docked to, IF they were released by a pilot on a mother ship, automatically, once hostiles are dead.
and they need some battle sense, waves of small fighters, should not rush into a hopeless battle, no matter how "large" the force is,
if it's a certain death, they should not attempt it.
if a superior force heads in, they should retreat, if the force is faster, they should attempt distraction, to allow others to escape...
and they need to use advantages, like cloaks, radar jammers, even jumpdrives...
an Ai that can only beat you with a vastly superior ship is not a challenge. even when given a fleet of ships, more then capable of shredding a ship, their current "tactics" end up costing them what should be a decisive victory, and a fleet...
and just as important, they need to use "resources" (perhaps the new faction point system?)
if they have been successfully repressing players, they should get stronger, encouraging players to strike them, or even factions to team up against a serious threat. by stronger, i mean they should use stronger ships.
if they are getting smacked around, they should consider numbers over raw power...
*8. mechanical setups *
if anyone has played space engineers, they would probably know about the rotor, and piston blocks...
i'm suggesting a modified docking block, it would combine the functions of the two, being able to extend, and rotate...
the base functionality is already in the game, it treats the other side as a seperate entity, docked... which means it'll need to be built Seperately as a ship (the piece should have a special docking point block, which when connected to a mothership, is where the connection is actually made), BUT when docked, it's stats become part of the host ship. this includes power, shields, weapons, and even thrust...
by extension, we'd be able to build moving platforms for turrets, automated ship docks... or even ram weapons when collision detection is on (and working correctly)
when the rotary-piston "extends", it simply "pushes" the entity away, and adds a "block" between it, counting it as a block to hit, allowing the rod to be destroyed, and hence, sever the connection between a piece and the main ship...
this means there is a risk to the benefit. the piece should "repair" by retracting whatever is left of the rod outside, back inside, plus a "cooldown" of say 1 second, a block.
connecting a few of these blocks together, should allow them to hold bigger items on the "dock"
rather like extenders do now,
allowing longer "pillars" to connect vessels, also allowing someone to decide on elegance, with say 1 pillar for a small ship, or maybe 4 pillars for the same ship, making it seriously harder to disconnect...
this would also open the door for "airlocks" between ships...
*9. airlocks *
we can make the appearance, but we can't make them, we've all had to jump out of our ship to fly through space to a station, simply because it's too big for a hanger... (okay, maybe not all, but most)
air locks would be a 3X3 ring of blocks, which when activated, would look for another airlock directly across from it, (and snap the ships to connect if they were close enough, but not quite)
i propose two variants, the standard, which co-operates with an existing airlock, and the boarding, which is short ranged, less precise, and gains control of the airlock on the target, more precisely, it stops the target ship from disconnecting the airlock connection. making it important to defend airlocks.
it would count as a weapon, which when lock is achieved, would only then nullify a ships cloak, allowing surprise boarding parties.
there are disadvantages, a boarded ship must be protected, so it has access to power and shields from the attacking ship's stores... meaning a pure boarding vessel would best function with minimal power and shields, since they are available to the victim...
this would NOT work backwards, meaning attempting to hijack a ship in combat could quickly become dangerous if re-inforcements arrive, and since shield and power is being drained by the boarded ship, it's defenses go down last. meaning being the attacker carries serious risk. once the boarding airlock is broken, the victim ship regains control of the airlock (aka, they lock and can only be opened by friendly faction members).
since handheld weapons are well... useless on a ship, it forces the boarding party to attempt to gain control, as they no longer have an exit. until a literal hole is blasted in the side at least...
choices are unlimited, as in select as many as you like.
of course, this is merely a poll for the devs to see, making it easier, i'll add to it from time to time, but i'm not often online, so if moderators and such wish to add to it, by all means.
for fairness reasons, i am not casting a vote myself. so it's entirely up to you's to point the direction. besides, in a matter of speaking, i'm casting my votes by putting the list up.
*1. "charge" systems should be able to be activated at any charge state.*
things like the new "scanner" block, or a jumpdrive...
of course, it's not that precise...
i propose the game divides the charge percentage from the max, then adds a dynamic penalty based on how much charge is left.
basically, the earlier you activate the system, the worse the penalty would be, where spamming activation may actually be more harm then good. (like massive power drain), at no point should this nullify the power requirement. in fact it should actually drain the ship power, and re-calculate the difference minus 10%...
making power generation more important then storage (like vessels with barely any generation, but with insane storage capacity)
*2. over-charge *
i'm sure many of you have wished that the jump drive was slightly more efficient that one time... (like when you have sector size at 9000, and jumpdrive takes a few minutes to charge... but your SO close...)
we could take a few ways of actually triggering this, but the one i propose is automatic, if your just short of a destination, it should ask if you wish to use the overcharge feature, say 150% efficiency at the cost of 200% power... and a 50% increase in charge time...
in essence, a recovery time due to overworked components.
the same charge style would be applicable to other "charge" style systems.
*3. exposed modding functionality.
this one we do know is coming, i'm proposing that we prioritize access to existing functions, i'm talking server to client modding. for prime examples (although more complex then what i'm currently thinking), Grand Theft auto :san Andreas has two multiplayer mods, (multi theft auto, and SA:MP)
just cause 2 also has one (same team as SA:MP)
(you can ignore this paragraph if you know what a server to client setup is)
the client connects to the server, and awaits instructions, what to download... what to load.
the advantage is the incredible flexibility, this allows the server to radically change the client game, loading new cars, new people, new guns... even new maps or map elements...
this is achieved by exposing the games core to a "simple" API.
honestly, most of the work is already done, there is no fixed things in starmade, and it's already server based, but we need to allow a server operator to add blocks to the game, and call existing functionalty easily. we need a drag and drop modding layer for server operators. and a scripting access, this would drastically speed up the games development too, the community would build things that schema could use, or even provide inspiration for a new idea (like minecraft's horses, they are actually from a mod from dr zhark, but were incorparted later...)
once this was done, it'd be a floodgate.
i'm not talking about script access to the game's base code, i'm talking a "simplified" API for the majority of starmade's functions.
*4. scanners *
they are simple, (okay, to be perfectly fair, i have NOT used a scanner, but i've been reading everyone's complaints so far)
they should be more diverse, they need to scan planets, provide co-ordinates to objects in scan range (unless it's a ship...), and they need logic activation, this will allow people to launch scout drones...
*5. power control *
damn near every sci fi ship I've seen has the ability to transfer power to various systems, extra power to engines... divert power from a system to shields....
it'll allow more customization in fights, later they could be controlled by "engineering"...
boosting a components overall efficiency...
*6. advanced customization *
this is more an enhancement on the power control, but able to be implemented seperately to it... so i seperated it.
i'm talking weapons customization... projectile size (energy weapons, not solid projectiles)
projectile speed, fire rate (means damage rate for lasers), weapon cooldown (the actual physical refire rate)...
shields would have capacity, recharge rate, or damage mitigation (i think starmade supports it)
thrusters would allow focus on turning, speed, acceleration... or even strafing...
*7. Ai *
i don't know if we would call this a re-work... or the beginning of it, as i'm not really sure any of us would call the current setup... ai...
we should begin at the beginning, the ai need to "see" ships, if your nose to nose with a hostile, it should be firing at you, even if you have a radar jammer...
turrets should not risk firing on friends (this one i think is "easy" to fix, at least from my point of view, the ai should compare distance, to weapon type, to friendly distance, and velocities...
if a friend COULD get within the projected area, plus a 25% margin of error, it does not fire)
this would solve the issue of turret friendly fire, but it WILL make a AI turret inferior to a player one, since a player may risk a shot the AI would not.
the AI need to "return" to docks they were docked to, IF they were released by a pilot on a mother ship, automatically, once hostiles are dead.
and they need some battle sense, waves of small fighters, should not rush into a hopeless battle, no matter how "large" the force is,
if it's a certain death, they should not attempt it.
if a superior force heads in, they should retreat, if the force is faster, they should attempt distraction, to allow others to escape...
and they need to use advantages, like cloaks, radar jammers, even jumpdrives...
an Ai that can only beat you with a vastly superior ship is not a challenge. even when given a fleet of ships, more then capable of shredding a ship, their current "tactics" end up costing them what should be a decisive victory, and a fleet...
and just as important, they need to use "resources" (perhaps the new faction point system?)
if they have been successfully repressing players, they should get stronger, encouraging players to strike them, or even factions to team up against a serious threat. by stronger, i mean they should use stronger ships.
if they are getting smacked around, they should consider numbers over raw power...
*8. mechanical setups *
if anyone has played space engineers, they would probably know about the rotor, and piston blocks...
i'm suggesting a modified docking block, it would combine the functions of the two, being able to extend, and rotate...
the base functionality is already in the game, it treats the other side as a seperate entity, docked... which means it'll need to be built Seperately as a ship (the piece should have a special docking point block, which when connected to a mothership, is where the connection is actually made), BUT when docked, it's stats become part of the host ship. this includes power, shields, weapons, and even thrust...
by extension, we'd be able to build moving platforms for turrets, automated ship docks... or even ram weapons when collision detection is on (and working correctly)
when the rotary-piston "extends", it simply "pushes" the entity away, and adds a "block" between it, counting it as a block to hit, allowing the rod to be destroyed, and hence, sever the connection between a piece and the main ship...
this means there is a risk to the benefit. the piece should "repair" by retracting whatever is left of the rod outside, back inside, plus a "cooldown" of say 1 second, a block.
connecting a few of these blocks together, should allow them to hold bigger items on the "dock"
rather like extenders do now,
allowing longer "pillars" to connect vessels, also allowing someone to decide on elegance, with say 1 pillar for a small ship, or maybe 4 pillars for the same ship, making it seriously harder to disconnect...
this would also open the door for "airlocks" between ships...
*9. airlocks *
we can make the appearance, but we can't make them, we've all had to jump out of our ship to fly through space to a station, simply because it's too big for a hanger... (okay, maybe not all, but most)
air locks would be a 3X3 ring of blocks, which when activated, would look for another airlock directly across from it, (and snap the ships to connect if they were close enough, but not quite)
i propose two variants, the standard, which co-operates with an existing airlock, and the boarding, which is short ranged, less precise, and gains control of the airlock on the target, more precisely, it stops the target ship from disconnecting the airlock connection. making it important to defend airlocks.
it would count as a weapon, which when lock is achieved, would only then nullify a ships cloak, allowing surprise boarding parties.
there are disadvantages, a boarded ship must be protected, so it has access to power and shields from the attacking ship's stores... meaning a pure boarding vessel would best function with minimal power and shields, since they are available to the victim...
this would NOT work backwards, meaning attempting to hijack a ship in combat could quickly become dangerous if re-inforcements arrive, and since shield and power is being drained by the boarded ship, it's defenses go down last. meaning being the attacker carries serious risk. once the boarding airlock is broken, the victim ship regains control of the airlock (aka, they lock and can only be opened by friendly faction members).
since handheld weapons are well... useless on a ship, it forces the boarding party to attempt to gain control, as they no longer have an exit. until a literal hole is blasted in the side at least...
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