What would get me playing Starmade again

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    Hello all.
    I really love the whole building of Starmade, the construction is great, the systems are great, the gui is getting better, the bugs are getting less (slowly but surely), and everything is progressing well with this game. But there's one thing that for me is kind of vital that they seem to be missing: A POINT to playing, an objective to actually achieve and progression to properly follow.

    I don't know about you, but once you get a ship that can destroy the only enemy in the game so far, pirates, they drop everything you'll ever need (or that in worth of stuff you don't want that you can immediately sell). At that point you can build a ship powerful enough to destroy any base or pirate swarm, and they are all the same ship so it doesnt get any harder.
    For me this is a problem, because once you've done that, there is actually no reason to get a bigger and better ship because there is nothing to challenge you, other than just building ships for the sake of building it.

    What I personally would love to see is a nice fluid increase in size of enemy ships, that get progressively harder the further out you go in the galaxy, with many ships of varied sizes, weapon types, speeds, tactics and aggression. And then other galaxies that have EVEN HARDER difficulty levels, or just a threat of a different kind.
    Ideally, this progression would only end at the point your ship was the size of one of the monstrous gargantuan beasts you see on the workshop, as are the enemies. -imagine Space Pirates and Zombies, but you're working outwards rather than in, and there is no finishing point.

    As of this moment, this game is almost entirely sandbox and that to me is a real shame. Less so than Space Engineers, where there literally isn't even anything to shoot, but this game could be so so much more.
    But this is just what I think, anyone agree with me?
     
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    Almost entirely sandbox. Damn. The game description doesn't include the 'almost'. I think I got ripped off.
     

    BJammin

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    I see what you mean. When I first encountered one of the NPC shopkeepers and saw the 'quests' dialogue option, I got really excited. Unfortunately, nothing had been (and still hasn't been) implemented yet. Honestly, having some goals other than, "design a ship, build the ship, fly the ship," would be a very nice addition to the game, and it could potentially add a whole lot more depth to how StarMade is played.
     
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    Yeah, it's like the game isn't even finished yet. What a crock.
     
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    Yeah, it's like the game isn't even finished yet. What a crock.
    I just think they should start expanding in that direction about now, as the whole system is working now (more or less). They keep adding mechanics and things, but I think that you should have an objective for the player to work towards before trying to add more and more mechanics like they are, so you can at least test it through the progression.
     

    Winterhome

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    I would really like Dwarf Fortress level detail to NPC faction interactions and fleet movements :|

    could easily build a randomly generated quest system off of that.
     
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    Yup. Good ideas, folks. We'll put the roof up first so we know where the walls go.

    Ps: love the dwarf fort idea and agree about the quests,but maybe we should have dwarves first.
     

    Reilly Reese

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    For now your best option is to just diversify the pirates options with CC ships.

    You might get a kick out of adding yourself to the pirate faction and attacking Trade Guild though. ;)
     
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    Do you even multiplyer lol??

    Playing with other players IS MUCH more fun than playing by yourself, theres plans on adding a more dynamic universe but itll take some time to code and test
     
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    Procedurally assembled enemy ships would be a FANTASTIC thing to have in the game. Fully agree with OP.
     

    Groovrider

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    This happened to me so I subbed my old ships to spawn as pirates instead. It's not perfect but it makes you raise your game a bit.
     

    Blaza612

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    Once the fauna is released, I believe the devs will be shifting to focus to making a system similar to the one I proposed in the Dynamic Galaxies which'll be all about adding in some goals/objectives into a constantly changing world.
     
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    Yup. Good ideas, folks. We'll put the roof up first so we know where the walls go.

    Ps: love the dwarf fort idea and agree about the quests,but maybe we should have dwarves first.
    I think its more like, they've got the walls, they haven't added the roof yet, but now they're painting the walls and hanging pictures.
     
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    I think its more like, they've got the walls, they haven't added the roof yet, but now they're painting the walls and hanging pictures.
    Funny, but that actually describes pretty well how coding works. Once you put the roof on you don't want to mess about with the insides too much... Another analogy would be a nuclear reactor.
     

    jayman38

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    Dwarf Fortress has been known to bring powerful CPUs to their knees due to the detail. Combine that with a complex 3D universe simulation and you get a game that requires a level of computing hardware that excludes most servers. A single StarMade instance might require a server farm.

    StarMade really does need a modular ship-building algorithm to build bigger and bigger pirates dynamically, in order to always provide that next level of challenge. (Preferably, a way to dynamically build Space Stations as well, but that's another issue.)

    Maybe the algorithm could use something like the classic Ship Pallete system that is already available in Community Content to build up ships from standard-sized modular "cubes". Maybe set it up so that they are always the same kind of shape, but can be farther "around" with large wedge and block pallete elements on the outside to keep it looking relatively nice and not just a collection of bricks, both outside and in.

    Using something like the maze-mod linked below would create odd, asymmetrical ships that would be interesting and any size.

    http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum...sp-lan-mp-dynamic-mazes-1-31-67-000-downloads

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_generation_algorithm
     
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    I don't neeed bigger pirates built dynamically and other such things in all honesty. The point OP was bringing seems more like lack of overarching goal and development rather than lack of variety. To that I can answer that it is planned to improve it - quests were mentioned in the past, so were NPCs and with those it'd be downright weird if Starmade wouldn't include procedurally generated (potentially based on real in-game events) news, things to do and see.

    Though in all honesty, going for proper simulated world a'la DF would be a stretch. Unless we'd turn the whole game into realistic simulator (and we won't, though I'd love seeing reaction of some people if we would), there's neither need to keep track of so many details, nor need to implement those details in the first place. Also, as mentioned above, that'd be a murder of average hardware rig. Starmade already deals with noticeable system requirements creep as features are introduced and refined and optimization is a constant and necessary work.

    I do agree that right now there's no late-game objectives because there's no late-game unless you play with others who would provide such for you. Ships, even huge and detailed ones are easy to construct and to maintain, resources/credits are abundant - but that's not surprising as currently there's not much to the game at all beside building things and making them shoot other built things. I do believe that once there will be more to the game than that, it will be adjusted.

    Personally, it's eay to understand OPs feelings and more than once I felt the same, taking a break from the game from time to time as there was no point for me to continue playing beside going out of my way to look for new challenges - and with those, completion is usually just a matter of time and the whole process feels like forcing oneself to play with little joy in it.
     
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    We can all ready make stronger npc factions with better ships stronger stations. My server just added a new npc faction to challenger the older members. They don't need to make an update for stronger npcs just admins of servers don't need to be lazy.