What actually failed in Starmade - if you care to listen.

[OfficialCoding]

Because it wasn't exactly easy to work on, and wasn't what they wanted for the final game ?
IMO P1 makes less sense than P2. I never saw any scifi universe with such kind of reactors. Even the stabs are easier to justify on this universe than a mysterious energy which likes optimized cubes and magically stop optimizing after 2M cap. It was a pain to build with these cubes in mind when building little to medium ships. No wonder why I didn't bother trying ratio effects.

This is what I've been saying for a while

Because it wasn't exactly easy to work on, and wasn't what they wanted for the final game ?

Yeah it was a bitch to build, now pretty much all you need to do is put stabilizers far away, it's a lot simpler.

IMO P1 makes less sense than P2. I never saw any scifi universe with such kind of reactors.

ikr, those old reactors were incredibly stupid. Ain't no sci-fi has ships with 500 reactor lines that can't touch for some BS reason.

Even the stabs are easier to justify on this universe than a mysterious energy which likes optimized cubes and magically stop optimizing after 2M cap

this ^

. It was a pain to build with these cubes in mind when building little to medium ships

It was a pain to build ANYTHING with the old system. That's why I sucked so bad at it, because it was horribly illogical.

 

[kiddan]

I gotta say, for a thread about past and present there's sure a lot of, "But it's gonna be fixed!" While quite a bit of it may be correct, that isn't the purpose of this discussion, yea?

 

[klawxx]

I wish...
A) Weapons where more powerful so we could build a ship like the ones on EVE Online and the turrets could actually be usable. Not sure if this could be modded out by changing XMLs stuff... One Idea was that you could link blocks from inside your ship to the turret to make them more powerful, this way you could have prettier turrets that work. Some kind of wireless linking blocks through the rail.

B) The ship had some calculation of HP based on its mass or whatever you like, BUT the damage to other parts of the ship be meaningful. It feels really stupid to have a ship with a huge hole from one side to another being OK just because some of its reactor "fragments" are still intact, if you know what I mean.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I wish...
A) Weapons where more powerful so we could build a ship like the ones on EVE Online and the turrets could actually be usable. Not sure if this could be modded out by changing XMLs stuff... One Idea was that you could link blocks from inside your ship to the turret to make them more powerful, this way you could have prettier turrets that work. Some kind of wireless linking blocks through the rail.

B) The ship had some calculation of HP based on its mass or whatever you like, BUT the damage to other parts of the ship be meaningful. It feels really stupid to have a ship with a huge hole from one side to another being OK just because some of its reactor "fragments" are still intact, if you know what I mean.

A) Agreed: Weapons take up far too much space for the little bit of damage they do. If I were to make a mod, I would multiply the per block damage and power consumption by 4-5. That way, you'd have more realistic weapon sizes without suddenly jumping from pea shooters to OP death guns.

B) Also agreed: The most realistic system would be a hybridized system where every ship has structural hit points that can be depleted; resulting in the destruction/disabling of the ship (structural collapse, all crew killed, atmospheric pressure lost, power distribution failed, etc.)
and the reactor serves as "critical hit zone" which can either be destroyed for an instant kill (star Trek or Elite Dangerous) Or contribute to Structural hit point loss to disable or damage the ship (on-board fires or radiation leakage kills crew, plasma conduits/power coupling overload and rupture causing power loss, etc.).

There's a LOT that could be done make this game more attractive, but Schema seems more focused on making the game he wants rather than the one his audience has been asking for. Hopefully when the Universe update finally comes out in 2030 the game will be both of these.

 

[klawxx]

I like your expected release date for the next ALPHA UPDATE. sounds very optimistic.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I like your expected release date for the next ALPHA UPDATE. sounds very optimistic.

Just trying to keep my expectations realistic.

Hopefully they'll get the lead out and release it sooner but I'm not holding my breath for it.

 

[tsmspace]

well, I'm a real newbie to both games in general and starmade, and my opinion is,, ,it's kind of a lot of work to play starmade.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I really miss this game and what it used to be.

I can't speak for everyone here but, my reason for taking a break from StarMade is that I find that the game can no longer "contain" what I am trying to build.

Graphically: Whenever I build above a certain size limit, the game fails to display the whole structure unless I "camera scout" it at close range. Basic logic animations either don't display or fall out of sync. Large build helpers are extremely taxing on my PC, simply by being displayed and not even having placed any blocks yet. Using helpers, it took me hours to build a sphere for a planet base that should have only taken minutes.

Gameplay-wise: (Edited; as it's been discussed repeatedly) There are a lot of features in the game that are not working as intended; many of which limit long term playability at the scale Schine originally intended. Some of the more ambitious features that work in single player do not work well or at all in multi-player.

(Edited for clarification) In short; StarMade no longer supports the level of design complexity or creativity I am aiming for. Who knows? Maybe I got too ambitious. Maybe the problem is my PC (I'm not running a potato BTW). In any case, I cannot advance further with the current system and I've actually been forced to scale back my design/construction methods in order to fit within the game's limits.

ETA: It is my hope that the coding in the new update will address the graphical limitations and that some of the chamber/weapons/AI bugs will be worked out. As always, this game has near-limitless potential. We just need a platform that will support it.

 

[petlahk]

ManhattenProject

Yeah, at the time of writing this I did completely discount the update being god-awful, I think because literally nobody (including myself) really understood entirely what exactly was broken. I understand that now that the Quickfire config has been made efficiently, and the notes have been clear. However, at the time when I wrote this there was a lot of toxicity and bad-explaining going around that made it very, very difficult for anyone who didn't already understand what was going on, to understand it.

Additionally, I was in a worse mental state at the time I believe, so I was more likely to be frustrated at people, which affected my own ability to understand.

All of that said, game is probably still dead.

 

[Az14el]

not enough hoppy spawns

fr tho, the games moved away somewhat from its engineering roots (build your strengths) to more rpgish (pick your buffs), which is a damn shame. It still has a lot going on the actual practical design end than its competitors for now imo so it's still very much got my interest. That literally everything ive built since .200 dropped is fully of chunk errors, broken ai and weird texture glitches has also been kind of a bummer, .199 could have lasted a lot longer than it did, dev releases could have been more utilised in bringing out .2, the usual complaints

 

[Minsc]

I can tell the main reason I haven't been playing the past couple years (aside from playing for the past few days), my own time and life management. To keep playing this game I want to do so in a way which does not consume my life. As of yet I haven't matured enough to do so. Writing out a list of goals for myself in this game may help.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Any discussion of P1 vs P2 on simplicity is really missing the whole point of this. How you design your reactor system to be optimal isn't what keeps players around or pushes them out, what matters is that you place some limitations that give tradeoffs so there isn't only one optimal approach and encourage ship variety.
The fundamental problem with StarMade is that there is a dearth of structure in shipbuilding and necessary support infrastructure in everything as a whole.

The shipbuilding problem is simple: The entire game is based around making whatever shell you want and shoving blocks in. This gives enormous RP freedom, but in the end it results in the most ideal ships for actually using being...no shell at all, just a twig with weapons attached. P2 actually is a big step to making this better (altho IMO it really missed what the core issue was), but fundamentally we're still in the situation where you just cram in everything else instead of actually trying to build something that makes sense with modules and hallways and whatnot.
Crew will probably help on this matter, but I think thrusters need to change too because right now they're basically just filler to add.
To further this, I think P2 would've been better if, instead of stabilizers, you simply would get some kind of extra damage from shots landing near the reactor, based on its size, so that an overly-huge reactor for its shell meant high risk and reward, forming tradeoffs. Stabilizers really don't do this.

As for infrastructure, the fact of the matter is you need nothing to keep a ship running, you just need a homebase to refine materials after making mining runs. This is boring. At the very least, ships should consume some resource like fuel to stay powered and fly about, encouraging you to expand your infrastructure as you get a bigger and bigger vessel, and making things less of a rush to get the titan that'll own everyone you meet. Without a resource requirement, things will always just degenerate to massive ships and camping on nothing.
Also, good infrastructure stuff means places to go. Right now, planets are just big asteroids, basically, instead of something you want to really interact with. Consider Minecraft villages and the crucial roles they play, or Nether Fortresses. Those are the things that make Minecraft good in the end, not the Ender Dragon or whatever achievement there is to earn.
StarMade tried a bit with pirate bases and factions, but it's all just empty structure right now. There's no real paint to raiding a pirate base, and you don't get good treasure. The factions are little more than annoyances as well. StarMade needs to really start putting stuff behind factions for the player to got to through them.

 

[OfficialCoding]

Any discussion of P1 vs P2 on simplicity is really missing the whole point of this. How you design your reactor system to be optimal isn't what keeps players around or pushes them out, what matters is that you place some limitations that give tradeoffs so there isn't only one optimal approach and encourage ship variety.
The fundamental problem with StarMade is that there is a dearth of structure in shipbuilding and necessary support infrastructure in everything as a whole.

The shipbuilding problem is simple: The entire game is based around making whatever shell you want and shoving blocks in. This gives enormous RP freedom, but in the end it results in the most ideal ships for actually using being...no shell at all, just a twig with weapons attached. P2 actually is a big step to making this better (altho IMO it really missed what the core issue was), but fundamentally we're still in the situation where you just cram in everything else instead of actually trying to build something that makes sense with modules and hallways and whatnot.
Crew will probably help on this matter, but I think thrusters need to change too because right now they're basically just filler to add.
To further this, I think P2 would've been better if, instead of stabilizers, you simply would get some kind of extra damage from shots landing near the reactor, based on its size, so that an overly-huge reactor for its shell meant high risk and reward, forming tradeoffs. Stabilizers really don't do this.

As for infrastructure, the fact of the matter is you need nothing to keep a ship running, you just need a homebase to refine materials after making mining runs. This is boring. At the very least, ships should consume some resource like fuel to stay powered and fly about, encouraging you to expand your infrastructure as you get a bigger and bigger vessel, and making things less of a rush to get the titan that'll own everyone you meet. Without a resource requirement, things will always just degenerate to massive ships and camping on nothing.
Also, good infrastructure stuff means places to go. Right now, planets are just big asteroids, basically, instead of something you want to really interact with. Consider Minecraft villages and the crucial roles they play, or Nether Fortresses. Those are the things that make Minecraft good in the end, not the Ender Dragon or whatever achievement there is to earn.
StarMade tried a bit with pirate bases and factions, but it's all just empty structure right now. There's no real paint to raiding a pirate base, and you don't get good treasure. The factions are little more than annoyances as well. StarMade needs to really start putting stuff behind factions for the player to got to through them.

yeah that's the main issue with starmade. there is just no content and nothing to do. However, I think that there is going to be more content added in the universe update. Just hope that Schema delivers.

 

[Sildaran]

Assumptions and miscommunications.
RPers assuming PvPers built newb cubes.
PvPers assuming RPers had no idea how systems worked.

Reality never saw anything approaching a newb cube while in vayger or fighting vayger opponents.
RPers built more to aesthetics and with all that interior and focus on looks components where suboptimal.
Honestly there was nothing wrong with this. A luxury yacht looks rather opulent. Where as a navy cruiser is an angular lump of grey with guns. I wouldn't show off the cruiser has a vacation ship and wouldn't bring the yacht to a battle. They both did exactly what was intended.

Power 1.0 had some issues when going over that 4mil range, but lets be honest if you where building that yacht it didnt matter much. Where as if you where building that cruiser better learn docked reactors. I honestly never understood why people had a problem with this. The well built PvP ships where amazing in there usage of systems and balancing of capabilities. The RP ships where amazing to look at and explore. Both where great for what they intended to be. Why did there need to be changes to even this out? So we could have less effective PvP ships and more simplicity in RP ship systems? Makes no sense.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Assumptions and miscommunications.
RPers assuming PvPers built newb cubes.
PvPers assuming RPers had no idea how systems worked.

Reality never saw anything approaching a newb cube while in vayger or fighting vayger opponents.
RPers built more to aesthetics and with all that interior and focus on looks components where suboptimal.

I'm going to say that back in the day when Bobb's GenXnova was still a big deal this kinda thing DID happen. I know. I did it. Absolute Zero (my homebase at 0,0,0 constantly at war with Bobby's pirate base at 2,2,2) Was entirely a metabuild doom-cube with doom-cube turrets and a couple minimalist cloaking sticks with doom-cube turrets because it was downright funny to see how broken the game would let you be. 'curse after that funny-fun wore out my faction found our own endgame meta trying(succeeding) at making a post-scarcity society.

When post-scarcity got patched out with the to-this-day-never-fleshed-out crafting 2.0 that endgame was gutted too; leaving only deep experiments and exploitation of mechanics was left as "something to do" beyond playing with a 3d version of MS Paint.

Really, that was AFAICT the first knife in the kidney causing SM to hemorrhage lifeblood/players from the initial yog buff.

Honestly there was nothing wrong with this. A luxury yacht looks rather opulent. Where as a navy cruiser is an angular lump of grey with guns. I wouldn't show off the cruiser has a vacation ship and wouldn't bring the yacht to a battle. They both did exactly what was intended.

Power 1.0 had some issues when going over that 4mil range, but lets be honest if you where building that yacht it didnt matter much. Where as if you where building that cruiser better learn docked reactors. I honestly never understood why people had a problem with this. The well built PvP ships where amazing in there usage of systems and balancing of capabilities. The RP ships where amazing to look at and explore. Both where great for what they intended to be. Why did there need to be changes to even this out? So we could have less effective PvP ships and more simplicity in RP ship systems? Makes no sense.

Mostly agree here. Half-assed knee-jerk patches to silence squeaky wheels kinda murdered what was working well enough for the silent masses. "placeholder" systems need to get either torn the F out untill they can be properly implemented, or properly implemented from the get-go. Crafting, looking at you. Resource gathering & fleet automation, looking at you. NPC factions, looking at you. AI fkin dumb piloting, looking at you.

 

[Aratar]

My only real disappointment in StarMade is that Schema abandonned his ideal of having blocks and block placement determine everything where every block counts, in favour of reactor levels and menu shit.

This. I never much liked the old power system, with its strange dimension-based mechanics for reactor blocks. The new one at first seemed like an improvement, even though stabilizers recreate dimension mechanics of a new kind, for no sensible reason. BUT the reactor/chamber system moved away from the very heart of the game, into something dumbed-down and dull.

 

[philthy mcnasty]

"The reason Starmade died is because there isn't enough to do. "

I would not say that the game is dead, but i can agree that it needs more things to do.

I have over 2000 hours in Kenshi. Why? because there is stuff to do and there are new stories in each game.

I started playing mount and blade before the A18 7days update, because there is stuff to do and new stories each game.

I am playing 7 days to die now, and have almost 1000 hours in that game, because there is stuff to do.

When i got bored and left starmade, i found that there pretty much was nothing to do. A giant universe? Great, but what is in it?

Early Access game is in Early Access, and the devs are still working on it. Kenshi took a decade so starmade taking a decade is ok too. Hell minecraft is STILL getting updates. It gets better updated than windows.

I have emperyon, but i don't really play it because i just don't like it. Now if it had the same type of ship building as starmade i might be more interested.

I have stationeers, it's a fun game but it gets a bit hard. I also don't like the tech level that much, but whoa boy if they ever get to the stage where you can build starships with that system?

Part of what screws with me is how i need a password to log into a game i have on steam, and it clears it from time to time. That is a nuisance and the game is just not that appealing to have to go through that trouble to reset a password you forgot. If i want to play a game now, i have a full library of games to play.

I left before the big power update, because i got bored and i found the game was too boring to want to do a password reset. I had better things to do with my time. I know that is not feedback that the devs want to hear, but that is the feedback i have to give. I got that bored.

I am going to try it again, maybe it will hold my interest? But at the moment it's a lot of big, empty creative space.