What is Wrong with Starmade

[Reilly Reese]

But would you really have wanted to wait a year, year and a half for just one update? Most people would get tired of waiting by then.

Personally I think the entire update is a waste of time but yes, at least the game would be playable during that year and a half.

Well youz go another one come I dont think this will kill the game.

Hahahaha

 

[YamiHikari]

Personally I think the entire update is a waste of time but yes, at least the game would be playable during that year and a half.

I don't know if you realize this, but you don't have to update your game to the latest version, and it is possible to revert your game to earlier builds.

 

[Reilly Reese]

I don't know if you realize this, but you don't have to update your game to the latest version, and it is possible to revert your game to earlier builds.

Oh I do, I just don't feel particularly enticed to continue playing a game I feel is going down the gutter due to developer decisions.

 

[madman Captain]

You clearly have not tried resysteming a Power 2.0 ships yet. In the old system, if you for example wanted an extra turret, you could spawn in a new turret with its own power system and some thrusters to offset its weight, and your ship will continue to function exactly as it did before (with just a tiny bit of extra draw from the extra docked thrust). Now, that turret will put strain on your reactor that was not there before so you need a bigger reactor which also means bigger chambers. You then have to remove your entire power system AND large chunks of hull to fit the new system just to accommodate the extra turret.

This also demonstrates another flaw: all-or-nothing chambers. If I had to add an additional system to an old power ship and my passives became to small, they would still work but at a small malice (oops! my ion is now 58% instead of 60%, I can fix that later.). With chambers, if an addition to your reactor drops below the hard size cap you lose 100% of its effectiveness.

There will be no addional turrets after systems for me. When I start systems the hull is done with all turrets. And for what I should rework my ships now? I wait for the weapons update before I rework my ships (or start to finish them).

 

[Edymnion]

My point is that by pushing the game into a state where it's in a transition they're effectively killing the game. It's not worth playing right now and most people including myself won't bother coming back when they finally finish what they started.

Well, not to sound rude, but none of us are vital to keeping the game going right now. Its an early access alpha.

Every single person playing or who has ever played right now could stop or be banned tomorrow, and the overall course of the game would not change in the slightest.

In such a scenario, Schine would likely finish up the weapon and universe updates on their own in peace and quiet, then make a new trailer, and push it out there. The only reason there are as few players as there are now is because Schine actively does not want any more, we are sufficient for testing purposes, which is the only reason we're here.

We could all vanish tomorrow, and Schine would simply finish what they're working on, do a tiny bit of advertising, and they'd replace us all 3 fold within a month.

The proper way to do this would have been to wait until BOTH were done because now we're waiting for crucial balancing and updates to the other half of the system and when they do finally get here I guarantee there'll be a good 2 months after of balancing still having to happen.

Except that isn't the proper way.

I'm a programmer by trade myself. You do not put massive overhauls to the entire system in place at the same time, because it is a testing nightmare. You do exactly what Schine has been doing and roll them out in stages. Make sure one stage is at least stable enough, and then release the next stage. You limit the number of variables to an amount you can control.

 

[CyberTao]

Well, not to sound rude, but none of us are vital to keeping the game going right now. Its an early access alpha.

Yes, because a game does not go into early access for player feedback.
If no one was needed, then why are any of us here?

 

[Reilly Reese]

We could all vanish tomorrow, and Schine would simply finish what they're working on, do a tiny bit of advertising, and they'd replace us all 3 fold within a month.

In a perfect objective world, sure.

But this isn't one. The game already has a reputation for going nowhere slowly.

Now it's getting one of poor management and a bleeding fanbase.

Tarnished reputations don't heal over night, or 3 months.

 

[Edymnion]

But this isn't one. The game already has a reputation for going nowhere slowly.

Just saw someone post the other day about being excited the game was still up and making progress, whereas all their other early alpha stuff had died off.

Was also reading an article on indie game development that mentioned one of the successes having been in development for over 7 years.

Real world stuff happens slowly when you don't have teams of a hundred plus people working on it. We knew this when we signed up. Its actually been long enough these days most people don't know Starmade is a thing. Bit of advertising would bump the numbers up considerably, but again, thats not what the game needs right now.

Game only needs enough players to keep real world feedback coming in. In virtually any other game, the state we're at now would be a closed alpha with maybe a dozen or two players total. Thats all they need.

 

[Non]

why not suggest some new values that might work better?

In response to this, you are making your assessment entirely off of an incomplete shift from 1.0

How the hell am I supposed to suggest new values if I'm not allowed to base them off other values previously seen?

I love building ships

Yet you want to spend more time in menus?

I HATE building systems cause I HATE to rebuild my ships everytime when I want to ajust systems

Even though thats not at all necessary? Manowar, mayfly, despoiler, hidatsa (fucked up the spelling I think), there is a big list of ships that have undergone significant redesigns and refits to improve quality without requiring anything near a full rebuild.

They've said the weapons revamp is next on the list. They're working on redoing them right now. Why would they spend all the time and effort to try and rebalance existing weapons when they're getting rid of them entirely in the very near future?

Then why don't they wait to release it all at once? Or just do power and not try and remake the whole system in one day?

You do not put massive overhauls to the entire system in place at the same time, because it is a testing nightmare.

Like how they went from doing just power systems to doing power systems, shields, weapon balance, thrust balance, and integrity in one update?
Honestly bud, be consistent.

So, take a month or two off of the hardcore PvP and work on bettering your ship aesthetics, or doing some station design, or work up some fleet mining designs. This one area of the game is broken, so do one of the other things available until it gets fixed.

No passive-aggressive statements here.

But would you really have wanted to wait a year, year and a half for just one update? Most people would get tired of waiting by then.

Those who got tired already left a few months after this update was initially announced, in fact people were coming back, both Distant Lifeform and NuclearDoughnut appeared in the LvD discord shortly before this update came out. People had already waited a long time and were fine with continuing to do so.

I don't know if you realize this, but you don't have to update your game to the latest version, and it is possible to revert your game to earlier builds.

Definitely. I don't know if you realize this, but any servers operating on earlier versions probably have little to no support from any admins capable of helping players should anything go wrong. This is SM, everything goes wrong, there have been a lot of separate reports of chunks missing on LvD. And don't you dare suggest singleplayer.

We could all vanish tomorrow, and Schine would simply finish what they're working on, do a tiny bit of advertising, and they'd replace us all 3 fold within a month.

Nah, they don't have good enough reviews for that, we are all they've got.

 

[Nosajimiki]

There will be no addional turrets after systems for me. When I start systems the hull is done with all turrets. And for what I should rework my ships now? I wait for the weapons update before I rework my ships (or start to finish them).

And this is why re-systeming is hard for you. My Ddraig class had it's entire turret set replaced 4 times to adapt to different enemies and new information about weapon metas. It also had no less than 9 alterations to the internal systems after it was "finished". (Thankyou constant changes to scan/stealth system). Each one was able to focus on just the sub-system that needed to be added or changed, and if things changed shape, I could just flood fill systems around things when I was done so they all only took 30min-2hours. The entire time, I never had to alter the hull or delete entire un-related systems to make it work.
Also, since flood filling systems isn't even viable anymore, you can no longer just cut out a random number of shield capacitors to push another system into

I'm a programmer by trade myself. You do not put massive overhauls to the entire system in place at the same time, because it is a testing nightmare. You do exactly what Schine has been doing and roll them out in stages. Make sure one stage is at least stable enough, and then release the next stage. You limit the number of variables to an amount you can control.

Yes and no, if he handled the development more like he used to where he introduced 1 new mechanic at a time, we could help him fix one thing, then move on to the next in a standard Agile development cycle sort of way. But doing an incompleate waterfall release like this is already confounded by tons of "what update broke that" questions, so it would have been more valuable to release a buggy but ballneced system so that bugs and ballencing issues could be addressed together. Besides, if he wanted debuging done on an incomplete system, that is what having a dev build is for.

 

[YamiHikari]

How the hell am I supposed to suggest new values if I'm not allowed to base them off other values previously seen?

I don't quite understand what you're trying to say here. The new values I mentioned are regarding integrity, which doesn't really need to be based off anything else. We don't have any previously seen integrity values because the current ones are the only ones we've ever had. You can look at and play with the values all you want (already created a separate post for it). As for the assessment, I was referring to damage, shields, and armor interactions, which you don't really need to make a judgement on right away because they are all about to change pretty much entirely.

And don't you dare suggest singleplayer.

As for this, I won't suggest single player and never will unless your only objective in playing Starmade is building. Singleplayer is boring if you intend to actually interact with the universe. The only reason I haven't started doing multiplayer myself is that I'm taking the time to build some ships for myself that I can then recreate in multiplayer servers later on.

 

[Non]

As for the assessment, I was referring to damage, shields, and armor interactions, which you don't really need to make a judgement on right away because they are all about to change pretty much entirely.

Last time I'm saying this, and what about the probably 3-6 months between now and when weapons are done?
And about after, when those weapons need balancing?
Besides, we are talking conceptually here, so unless Schine is going to reinvent alpha and/or how alpha weapons use power, that part will still be relevant.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Last time I'm saying this, and what about the probably 3-6 months between now and when weapons are done?
And about after, when those weapons need balancing?
Besides, we are talking conceptually here, so unless Schine is going to reinvent alpha and/or how alpha weapons use power, that part will still be relevant.

tdlr this game is unplayable for the rest of the year.

 

[Non]

tdlr

Ten Dongs Lent to Red?

 

[YamiHikari]

Last time I'm saying this, and what about the probably 3-6 months between now and when weapons are done?
And about after, when those weapons need balancing?
Besides, we are talking conceptually here, so unless Schine is going to reinvent alpha and/or how alpha weapons use power, that part will still be relevant.

I'm sorry, but who was it that said the community was willing to wait a year for the update to come out? And Schine is, in fact, reinventing weapons with the introduction of damage types and armor types. Weapons will no longer be universally effective against everything. Additionally, the change in how weapons use power has already happened. All weapons now require a constant power feed to stay ready for use.

 

[Non]

I'm sorry, but who was it that said the community was willing to wait a year for the update to come out?

Oh, I did, and I stand by it, because if we had waited with a functional power 1.0 we would have been happy. Now we are being asked to wait with a half-assed update where pvp is almost impossible. Weapons dont reliably work and ai cant properly operate them.

And Schine is, in fact, reinventing weapons with the introduction of damage types and armor types. Weapons will no longer be universally effective against everything.

Pls, reread:

reinvent alpha and/or how alpha weapons use power

Alpha is front loaded damage, unless they are entirely removing the idea of reload times and standardizing them, alpha will exist, and I have no idea how they could make a system that effectively balances dps and alpha without being a redo of capacity.

All weapons now require a constant power feed to stay ready for use.

I'm aware. 3e/s resting, 15e/s recharging. That means that an alpha weapon with frontloaded damage can be 5x the size of a dps one for the same power usage. Which considering I can get about 25 mil alpha for about 150k e/s on beam/pulse, means that I can probably instakill anything you throw at me.
Worried your alpha wont instakill the enemy? Put it at the bottom of the power priority list and put some other weapon type or turrets higher up. Then you can have stupid high alpha that one shots the shields of a ship 10x your mass and keep good sustained dps.

 

[kikaha]

I'm aware. 3e/s resting, 15e/s recharging. That means that an alpha weapon with frontloaded damage can be 5x the size of a dps one for the same power usage. Which considering I can get about 25 mil alpha for about 150k e/s on beam/pulse, means that I can probably instakill anything you throw at me.
Worried your alpha wont instakill the enemy? Put it at the bottom of the power priority list and put some other weapon type or turrets higher up. Then you can have stupid high alpha that one shots the shields of a ship 10x your mass and keep good sustained dps.

Actually you can with chambers design your shields to be better at taking high alpha damages or dps. So you run your high alpha shield when you get into the fight then switch reactor and use the dps shield for the rest of the fight.

 

[Non]

Actually you can with chambers design your shields to be better at taking high alpha damages or dps. So you run your high alpha shield when you get into the fight then switch reactor and use the dps shield for the rest of the fight.

Alpha shields dont really work. From my understanding the mechanism is easily beatable, and at best they are giving you a 50% damage reduction, which is less than old ion (granted shield values are still higher). Nowhere near enough to make a difference when your opponent is shooting 10 25 mil damage beams at you.
Theres also absolutely no way that you wouldn't ruin your chances of living by switching reactors mid fight.

 

[Dire Venom]

From what I know switching reactors is like re-booting mid fight.
Pretty much a death sentence.
At least the devs are awear of the game being very Alpha orientated atm (from our disscusions on discord), so hopefully that will show in the next few updates.

 

[dwwojcik]

Switching reactors is nowhere near as bad as rebooting, your shields don't go down.

You new reactor comes online immediately, although your systems will need to recharge their power buffers, and there is a short timer for each of the chambers before they come online. You can fire your weapons during this time however.

So if you're caught out by an enemy with the wrong reactor running you'll definitely be at a disadvantage, but I don't think it would be fair to say it's a death sentence.