Why exactly is power broken?

[Lecic]

I think following simple rules that apply to more than just power is a more exciting challenge than the current game. The current rules are along the lines of "place or remove blocks so that you get some optimal penetration on your weapons" or "place a layer of blocks that you least care about here so they can soak up damage". Doesn't sound like a shipbuilding challenge to me. Sounds like optimizing a spreadsheet. And there are players that do that.

Optimization of ships in a game that has math requires using math! Incredible discovery. Nothing you have proposed fixes this, and it SHOULDN'T fix this, because what you are suggesting needs "fixed" is SYSTEM ENGINEERING.

more chaindrives

More... chaindrives? Who is putting more than 1 chaindrive in their ships...?

That would be true if I designed the ship, but it's a replica. The engines are proportionally well sized for the vessel, yet it can't contain enough thrusters in the engines to get it to even 50% speed. How useful would the space shuttle be if it's cargo bay was filled with engine parts?

A ship with "proportional engines" probably just has proportional thrust nozzles, and you aren't thinking about the internal thruster components and fuel tanks that translate to a simplified "thruster module" in the game.

First, a few times in this thread players have made claims that it doesn't matter where things are located because combat is so imprecise that attempting to target sections of ship are fruitless endeavors. So why does it matter if we changed how systems are arranged internally?

What this essentially boils down to is replacing the current system with a "critical hits" system where whoever gets lucky and smacks the enemy reactor core first wins.

I downloaded a nice scale-ish (37m long) Space Shuttle from Community Content by Anubis Evo; Space Shuttle Launch Set I replaced the advanced orange armor on the separable main fuel tank with standard orange armor (it's not a tank, oh wait) and escaped planet gravity with a functionable scanner satellite in the cargo bay instead of engine parts.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that he's built the equivalent of just the thruster nozzles on the back of the main shuttle with thruster modules for his "proportional engines."

 

[Master_Artificer]

I think that it is good how everyone has opinions and feelings and how everyone is best friends.

 

[kulbolen]

Anyway. You wanted some reasoning behind my suggestion for more space for interior. It is really simple: people who don't like to build rp interior are free to leave the space open. Their ships are still totally functional for pvp. But people who like to have some personal note on their ships and special stuff inside, can still participate in pvp battles then. That change would really help me to join pvp wihtout building two different versions of my ship. Wouldn't you benefit from pvp too, if there were more players, because you suddenly also have the players who like to build pretty interior?

you already can participate in pvp with a ship that has an interior; its like punching a brick wall trying to make people understand this. most of the pvp ships that are capable of crushing you at 1/10 mass also have interiors.

heres the reality: rp builders who dont care about pvp tend to suck at pvp, and it has nothing to do with their interiors. it has to do with their lack of experience, knowledge, and want for pvp. if you refuse to learn how to do something, you should be bad at it. i am not a skilled rp builder, but i still build interior elements because i feel weirdly claustrophobic without them. my ships do fine in pvp.

And some other dude called my stuff again bullshit. I just said I don't want to argue in this manner. So I don't answer the question of this guy.

this one time, i made a vague passive-aggressive remark in a public forum.

 

[Az14el]

First, a few times in this thread players have made claims that it doesn't matter where things are located because combat is so imprecise that attempting to target sections of ship are fruitless endeavors. So why does it matter if we changed how systems are arranged internally?

not to toot the old Horn but did you actually follow those lines of argument? it's bloody insanity, of course the blocks destroyed matter, this is the video game starmade where you place blocks that do things a lot. Yes it can be hard to explicitly target a single point on the enemy ship, but you know missing a block doesn't mean missing the ship, and any damage can potentially hit something crucial, the vast majority of actual ship to ship combat i have done have been in large part decided by locational block damage. Even against NPCs, destroying the right blocks wins you fights. It matters because goddamn they're wrong, there IS already fantastic engineering meta-game in the how-where-and-why you set up your systems and at least imo there always should be, not that it can't be changed to address some of its inherent problems, like entity creep.

 

[Raisinbat]

people who don't like to build rp interior are free to leave the space open.

People who dont like building for PVP are free to have terrible ships

 

[AtraUnam]

Honestly 90% of this thread appears to be 'I've worked out how to get optimal performance out of flawed mechanics so you better not replace them with ones that are harder to exploit.' aka people maintaning the status quo for personal benefit.

 

[JinM]

People who dont like building for PVP are free to have terrible ships

And where is your benefit, if you have less people to play with? Because I am not very interested in competing with min maxed ships that have only 5% of its space for interior. And I think many guys who like to build with interior think the same as me. Do you think this 5% maximum interior gameplay will attract many players on the long run? Or would it attract more, if players can choose to have interior or to skip it if they don't like to?

Disengaging to build interior also neglects the possibility to let crew to move around. And even if crew doesn't get implemented, I also also would have more space to put logic in. That are another two gameplay elements that would not be possible for efficient pvp if you had to stick to min maxing.

I also don't understand, where it limits your personal gameplay, if you simply can leave the space open and the rp-builders can put some decoration in that free space if they like to. Can you please tell me where you are conflicted with that gameplay-wise?

 

[Raisinbat]

Honestly 90% of this thread appears to be 'I've worked out how to get optimal performance out of flawed mechanics so you better not replace them with ones that are harder to exploit.' aka people maintaning the status quo for personal benefit.

More like "I want to make things that look a certain way so lets get rid of any mechanical limitations no matter how badly it fucks up the game. Also i should be able to compete with people who have spent hundreds of hours optimizing designs without any effort on my part even though i dont participate in the game i just dont like the idea that someone else is better than me. Also i make up lots of ideas of things that are problems ingame like not having interior despite having zero basis for this and being proven wrong multiple times, but that won't stop me from repeating it forever and ever. Also despite never having taken part in PVP you should listen to me about how combat works even though everyone with more experience is telling me it's not true. Also ships should be full of empty space like space engineers and empyrion, even though those games have garbage combat and i should be playing those games instead of starmade, but i dont because deep down i know starmade is much better i just dont understand why so im going to screw it up by copying worse games. Also i refuse to present any arguments whatsoever for why these changes should happen and yet people should listen to what i say, because i also have no experience and dont know what im talking about."

Just * harder to exploit? You really are a great guy if you think that's what people have against this stuff, but no go ahead and keep saying it because that makes it true. The heatbox system is a disaster for exploits, because we're NOT going to have empty space; we're going to fill it with more docked guns and/or fighters that don't have massive heatboxes or don't care about them. Just the same trash over and over again: You're just mad! You don't like it because you can't exploit it! WAH WAH WAH!

We want less exploits you awesome guy, that's what the actual 90% of posts are for; but go ahead and brush off compliments again because thats all you know how to do.

And where is your benefit, if you have less people to play with? Because I am not very interested to compete in competing with min maxed ships that have only 5% of its space for interior. And I think many guys who like to build with interior think the same as me. Do you think this 5% maximum interior gameplay will attract many players on the long run, or would it attrackt more if players are free to have interior?

Once again everyone else has to explain your * position to you. No i don't want to play a game where mechanics are thrown out the * window. I don't want to play space engineers or empyrion because those games have terrible combat, why aren't you playing those games? All the interior you want and it doesn't matter. You're still failing to explain WHY you need this extra space; your ships are terrible now, they'll be terrible later.

I also don't understand, where it limits your personal gameplay, if you simply can leave the space open and the rp-builders can put some decoration in that free space if they like to. Can you please tell me where you are conflicted with that gameplay-wise?

Because my gameplay is building effective ships. You want to eliminate effective ships. Again, your entire premise for wanting this is incredibly well thought out. What it sounds you really want is gameplay awesomeness where no ships are better than others.

 

[Az14el]

gee a fresh new power system sure would be loophole & exploit free >.>

 

[Scypio]

in StarMade we are dealing with fleets of ships, not just one

Sorry Criss but nobody is building fleets in starmade except because it look cool, drones are fun, fleets are fun and exploited for something else but nothing more. AI is too dumb to be used efficiently, you have so much to work with to make your ship at least usable by the AI... Current AI is just garbage, sorry but that's it.

So except fleets of players you fly one ship and a few drones that you launch because it looks cool and add more nav markers. After that, it's just playing with something incredibly horrible.

 

[Criss]

fill it with more docked guns and/or fighters that don't have massive heatboxes or don't care about them.

So what makes you think we can't find a solution to those problems?

Sorry Criss

I have to think ahead. Better to plan this stuff out now rather than later. In the future we would like fleets to work, we are already planning a list of changes for the AI, and eventually a player and their faction should have a larger presence than a homebase and their single fleet of ships.

 

[Raisinbat]

So what makes you think we can't find a solution to those problems?

Because the only way you can solve this is to make space worthless; that's the implication of heatboxes; the space an object takes up is not important. How do you think this impacts turret and rail design? A lot of my stuff is designed to overcome space limitations, like gatling guns that can fit a lot more DPS in the same output space, why would anyone make that if it succeeds? It's also a limiting factor in some designs, because the moving parts need to be exposed to exterior for the weapon to work, removing that limit just makes these designs usable on fighters...

It's genius that all schine cares about seems to be presentation, which you'll never do better than star citizen or elite, when you have the foundation for an amazing space game that you appear to be completely unaware of. Criss, please, play the * game. I guarantee you everyone in this thread will happily duel with you if you ask.

 

[Criss]

Criss, please, play the fucking game. I guarantee you everyone in this thread will happily duel with you if you ask.

I'm willing to listen. But hear me out on this okay? Because I think I've got a valid point that nobody here has managed to completely disprove.

I play the game. It's my job. I still build stuff, if only average at systems. That proposal is more about making building interesting, and challenging. Now I know what you will say. "There is already an engineering meta game that is a part of ship design that I am ignoring"

Yes. But it only applies to combat. ONLY combat.

It does not matter how your systems are placed if you want to build a: freighter, exploration ship, shuttle, transport, space botantical garden, space cruise-liner, colony ship, and to some degree, even mining ships.

Now those players care not about engaging in combat, but designing ships, exploring, mining operations, or unimplemented mission running. It is already entirely possible for a player to ignore combat in the game completely. In the future, possibly more so, with the expansion of how you interact with NPC factions.

The problem for these players is that ALL of the content, progression ,and challenge comes in the form of the non-building side of things. If we introduced missions of varying difficulty for lets say, cargo transportation contracts, the only part that's challenging is whatever we ask the player to do in that particular mission. Maybe a time limit. Maybe multiple drop off locations. Ship design is certainly not important. There are no consequences to placing down reactors, thrusters, shields, etc on your cargo ship. You aren't being fired upon. The only system that has rules are power efficiency and cargo mass. Just add more thrusters. Problem solved. Why bother designing a ship at all? Just place cubes of systems and cargo behind your core. No consequence. If they get attacked, well that sucks, but they are actively avoiding combat.

Are players going to do that? I certainly don't expect many of them to, but if they are, it's because we are allowing them to build some ugly looking ship, with no thought to solving an engineering problem because there isn't a problem to solve. That's not a game and it isn't as rewarding.

And yes combat is exciting and very rewarding. Nobody disagrees with that. Combat is essentially the only thing to do for now. It's not to say that a large portion of players avoid combat, but if a player engages in a non-combat role, their ship should matter too, because this is a game where you build spaceships for all of these different reasons. Not just combat. And ship design has to matter for things other than combat. Otherwise there is no challenge.

A counter argument; "Fix the economy and a player won't be able to build ships like that, they'd have to acquire resources"
Well sure, but once they have those resources, we end up with the same problem. Their ship design doesn't matter outside of combat. The only problem that player has solved is how many hours it took for them to get there.

Another thing. Station design. Also doesn't matter. Homebases are invulnerable and any station that isn't a homebase sure as hell is getting some serious protection in order to survive. They may use the same techniques that protect ships, but it's still a spam fest. Aesthetically pleasing or not, stations usually have more space for defenses which is, for the average player, just crammed full of shields and power.

When is the last time you put as much thought into how you designed a station as you do with ships. And I mean other than the turret designs or how the station is defended.

You may not have a reason to design ships for anything other than combat, but when you do, you're going to find that area of gameplay very disappointing, whether you were interested in it or not.

I know this because I don't build for pvp, and the thought of partaking in any sort of future activity where my ship design doesn't matter is extremely disappointing. And there is my wall of thought on why changes need to be made. Again, I can't say for certain our proposal solves these issues, but I think it's worth investigating.

 

[kulbolen]

Honestly 90% of this thread appears to be 'I've worked out how to get optimal performance out of flawed mechanics so you better not replace them with ones that are harder to exploit.' aka people maintaning the status quo for personal benefit.

lazy troll post is lazy. i find it telling that criss liked this post when nothing ive read from him covers abuse or exploiting. you dont get to remove yourself from criticism with shit attempts at devaluing the position of those you dont agree with.

i think a new proposal might have some merit here...

id be super ok with "a power overhaul will help us set up a path to better performance in the future"

tell me about stuff well see with the overhaul that we wouldnt without it. tell me about how itll make ai function better, or cause less lag and crashes.

none of this was replied to or addressed. the replies i did receive had nothing to do with removing exploits or abusive mechanics and everything to do with someones opinion of how rng combat is good, how central power is better, and how rp builds without much thought into combat performance will be better at combat.

its like theres some secret everyones dancing around with exploiting that they dont want to talk about yet is a major important part of the power overhaul. hmmmm. if thats the case, maybe talk about it instead of using bogus crap to try to defend your proposals.

fwiw, i exploit the current system. im fine with a new one. and guess what, ill probably exploit that one too. because i like making things work.

ex·ploit
verb
ikˈsploit/

1. 1.
   make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource).

dont you?

 

[Raisinbat]

Are players going to do that? I certainly don't expect many of them to, but if they are, it's because we are allowing them to build some ugly looking ship, with no thought to solving an engineering problem because there isn't a problem to solve. That's not a game and it isn't as rewarding.

This is my point; you need to introduce PROBLEMS to fix, but all i've heard from you was adding SOLUTIONS for people to follow rather than solving themselves. Designing non-combat ships has zero complexity because there is no design space, and the functions are pisseasy to fill because cargo takes up a fraction of what it should and miners cap out at ~40 blocks per output.

I know this because I don't build for pvp, and the thought of partaking in any sort of future activity where my ship design doesn't matter is extremely disappointing. And there is my wall of thought on why changes need to be made. Again, I can't say for certain our proposal solves these issues, but I think it's worth investigating.

And because you don't build for PVP you have no idea what the repercussions of these changes are, that's what we're pissed off about. Adding all the empty space, role play and sci fi shit to the game contributes -NOTHING- to the points you've raised; all of this is done for the purpose of how ships LOOK. We are sick and tired of having our arguments ignored by people who don't play the game, including you, in favor of purely cosmetic shit, or some retarded sci-fi concept. Starmade has created it's own technology different from everything else, like inline turrets, why not let the game develop it's own lore instead of trying to mimic trekwars?

 

[kulbolen]

The problem for these players is that ALL of the content, progression ,and challenge comes in the form of the non-building side of things. If we introduced missions of varying difficulty for lets say, cargo transportation contracts, the only part that's challenging is whatever we ask the player to do in that particular mission. Maybe a time limit. Maybe multiple drop off locations. Ship design is certainly not important.

i agree with you here. more gameplay elements could be fun. but whats going to be challenging about building a ship with the overhaul? will the new reactor system be challenging to make work well?

on a related note, racing and combat generally pioneer engineering used in other areas like transport, because transport doesnt really need anything cutting edge, while combat and racing are fierce competitions with high stakes and high funding. there is generally no engineering challenge in a cargo transportation contract, aside from the transportation engineering that went into building the roads.

 

[AtraUnam]

lazy troll post is lazy. i find it telling that criss liked this post when nothing ive read from him covers abuse or exploiting. you dont get to remove yourself from criticism with shit attempts at devaluing the position of those you dont agree with.

But thats literally what a ton of the posts here are saying, telling others that their way is how the game is meant to be played. There also seems to be the assumption that the new system will not allow the same level of depth and design skill as the current one which honestly seems to be a baseless assumption. These people aren't complaining about the loss of the mechanic they're complaining about having to learn the ins and outs of a new power system.

 

[pietrko]

I hope Schine is not some sort of idiocracy relying on players votes regarding changes that didn't yet happen.
Majority of players never made a game and never will - asking them about details of some change is mistake.

Go on with your job guys and prepare to be judged later - by results.

 

[kulbolen]

These people aren't complaining about the loss of the mechanic they're complaining about having to learn the ins and outs of a new power system.

while i wont say youre wrong here, im not seeing it as a majority. maybe im glossing over these posts in favor of ones im more interested in responding to. but i picked a few pages at random and found basically no reference to it. looks like bataviums the only one saying another power rework would be annoying, but it has more to do with the games image, and viability of content. maybe im missing the 90% of complaining idk.
[doublepost=1489938425,1489938250][/doublepost]

I hope Schine is not some sort of idiocracy relying on players votes regarding changes that didn't yet happen.
Majority of players never made a game and never will - asking them about details of some change is mistake.

thats one way of looking at it.

 

[Raisinbat]

A counter argument; "Fix the economy and a player won't be able to build ships like that, they'd have to acquire resources"
Well sure, but once they have those resources, we end up with the same problem. Their ship design doesn't matter outside of combat. The only problem that player has solved is how many hours it took for them to get there.

Why * is that not a valid problem? Also if you have an actual game where you also lose resources, if your miners are inefficient enough you'll be completely stagnant and unable to progress. And no that's not the only problem; Optimizing resource income per resources spent SHOULD be the biggest deciding factor for whether or not a miner is good! Why is that not a valid problem, because they didn't solve your puzzle???

But thats literally what a ton of the posts here are saying, telling others that their way is how the game is meant to be played. There also seems to be the assumption that the new system will not allow the same level of depth and design skill as the current one which honestly seems to be a baseless assumption. These people aren't complaining about the loss of the mechanic they're complaining about having to learn the ins and outs of a new power system.

This is my problem with the moderation on these forums; Dismissing arguments, basically posting "NO U" forever, contributing NOTHING to discussions, spreading false information like "can't interior" is rampant everywhere. It makes any discussion nearly impossible unless it's internal between the PVP side, because the RP side blatantly refuses to discus anything. It's frustrating as hell for those of us who are trying to have a discussion, but it doesnt break any forum rules, so just keep doing it forever.

Meanwhile these awesome dudes use the report button as a "If you don't shut up i'll make you shut up" tool against people they disagree with, just look at the wonderful moderation in the original power thread. It's perfectly fine to stink up the forums and drown discussion in this feces, but god forbid you ever tell one of these mouthbreathers they're the best people ever.

And yes, we ARE complaining about the loss of a mechanic * : Removing space cost from ship design is a major step back.