Why exactly is power broken?

[Az14el]

they're complaining.

*raises hand*
Complainer here, but i have an excuse, i was really really really * triggered by someone, but yes arguing with children on the internet is never healthy and derailed the thread a little. weh.

A point on the "no interior" argument, there's no rule saying the main entity has to define total ship dimensions, and you can always have a bigger hull than your mass target requires. Those two points made, there is a trade off adding a few hundred mass of hull & decoration & some empty space, with some design skill it doesn't have to impact mass or turn rate noticeably, and while empty space is non-functional, it doesn't bloody weigh anything.

Have your interiors, that's not what holds back "rp" builds in function at all, you godless barbarians.

 

[AtraUnam]

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

Out of curiosity where does it say in the original power thread that space cost will no longer be a thing, wasn't that the entire point of the heat boxes?
Personally I never understood the issue with interior vs PVP; its entierly possible to have a PVP ship with a full interior, just arrange that interior around the edge or around vital systems and its spaced armor, its not like the empty volume that is 95% of a room costs extra mass and the extra volume cost would be incured by regular spaced armor anyway.

 

[kulbolen]

Personally I never understood the issue with interior vs PVP

thats because there isnt an issue, and people who claim to understand the issue are either lying or ignorant.

 

[Raisinbat]

Out of curiosity where does it say in the original power thread that space cost will no longer be a thing, wasn't that the entire point of the heat boxes?

That isn't space-cost, space cost of turrets go down, space cost of systems go down, you should leave most of your ship empty and not covered by armor so weapons can pass through and not waste mass on armor aka chandelier ships, and the suggestion also involves adding a fuckload of docked guns to your ships because small entities are more heatbox efficient than big ships so you basically get 10-50x stronger weapons thanks to this retarded fucking suggestion. Of course this has all been covered in the thread already and if you'd bother fucking reading it instead of asking to be spoonfed you wouldn't need to ask.

 

[Criss]

introduce PROBLEMS to fix

So the proposal introduces heat. And overheating a ship negatively impacts performance. You can't win if your ship is melting. You reduce heat by reducing the systems on a ship, or using whatever cooling system we might add in as well. Is that not a problem to solve?

all of this is done for the purpose of how ships LOOK

I am legitimately not even thinking about how a ship looks when I discuss this. The entire point of my last post was to prove that outside combat, a player can get away without putting thought into the design of their aesthetics and their systems.

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

It can be if you want it to be. But if a player doesn't know how efficient they are in spending / gathering their resources then it's just a matter of time they want to spend mining. If nothing in the game inherently points them in the direction of increasing efficiency then that's bad. Exactly where in the game does it start teaching you that mining systems max out at 40 block barrels? With most other systems boiling down to "more blocks = more capacity", how is it intuitive that you should stop at 40 blocks per output?

will the new reactor system be challenging to make work well?

I'd like to think it is. I think there is more of a concern with exploits than there is a concern as to whether it would be challenging. And we don't want this to hinder a new player significantly.

Think of this. Currently if a new player managed to get resources, or use creative to build a large ship on their first week into the game, where is the challenge in designing that ship? If they aren't expecting combat, then they don't need to employ those defensive techniques and it's just a matter of placing blocks until the ship is full. No design challenges. As long as they understand the controls, or the fact that they can use creative, nothing stops this new player from doing that. The learning curve in this case is how blocks work, not how to design a ship that doesn't melt.

Don't take that too literally, just an example.

 

[AtraUnam]

That isn't space-cost, space cost of turrets go down, space cost of systems go down, you should leave most of your ship empty and not covered by armor so weapons can pass through and not waste mass on armor aka chandelier ships, and the suggestion also involves adding a fuckload of docked guns to your ships because small entities are more heatbox efficient than big ships so you basically get 10-50x stronger weapons thanks to this retarded fucking suggestion. Of course this has all been covered in the thread already and if you'd bother fucking reading it instead of asking to be spoonfed you wouldn't need to ask.

Only heatboxes from entities would overlap so stacking docked guns around eachother would burn brighter than the sun.

 

[Raisinbat]

a player can get away without putting thought into the design of their aesthetics and their systems.

SO. * . WHAT. You can get to level 10 in world of warcraft by fighting level 1 mobs, literally noone is stupid enough to do that.

Exactly where in the game does it start teaching you that mining systems max out at 40 block barrels?

When you put more than 40 blocks down and it doesnt mine faster. People have fucking agency, they don't need, or want, to be lead around on a leash.

Where does ARK teach any of this crap? That's a successful game, isn't it?

Only heatboxes from entities would overlap so stacking docked guns around eachother would burn brighter than the sun.

No i'm not going to spoonfeed you the part of the thread that says fighter systems will have smaller heatboxes. Think it was 50% interior for systems on fighters to 5% or less on larger ships. Do your own research or shut up.

Regardless just make the docked guns actual fighters and launch them for combat; no more heatboxes then.

 

[Batavium]

It all boils down to choice.

I do not want to with hold anyone who wants to have a reactor to have that reactor.
But at the same time.
I also do not want other people telling me that i can not have power lines and that i have to rebuild all my stuff to make it work again.

The Cargo update failed on that.

The people that wanted Cargo got Cargo.
But the people that did not want it got stuck with it. I want to have all my stuff in my pocket everything.
Currently it is a half option in the server.cfg to allow astronauts to overload there inventory.
But it should have been both ways at the same time.
To each player there own.

The Game play element of all this lays at the server owner level. They set the rules for each server.

That means that only use Reactors or only use Power Lines or use Both as you please is a perfectly legit choice at Server Level!

 

[Az14el]

Think of this. Currently if a new player managed to get resources, or use creative to build a large ship on their first week into the game, where is the challenge in designing that ship? If they aren't expecting combat

Salvaging isn't so simple, as evidenced by the multple "how does salvage work" type threads that pop up in general. Yet a "good enough to get started with" one isn't hugely difficult, i was mining good enough to have fun within the first few hours of picking up the game, but built a new salvager a few months ago, which i am again planning to replace soon, why? because i learned how to make a better one with fewer beams, thats a couple of years for me, maybe a couple months to a year for a less slow person to be fair, not so simple. That's one example but truth is there's not a lot of non-combat options that aren't RP focused yet.

As far as adding depth & complexity to more RP focused vessels, we kinda have no features implemented for that, unless they pick some kind of engineering theme that actually exists in the game and not just "i want this super high tech reactor room with a beautiful & techy lookin reactor made out of ice crystals and pipes actually give me an advantage", and i'm not sure that's all that fair on the other kids in the sandbox anyway. Every ship is intended to at least function, unless its intentionally built to be non functional, in which case they can't complain when it doesn't.

What kinda non-combat ship being designed, if it's actually intended to function, would have no challenge to build and improve upon? I really can't think of one right now other than a 3 block core-with-thrust-stick, after all it doesn't only start getting hard when you start adding weapons blocks, I've seen functionally focused salvagers as complicated and "deep" in design as any pvp ship, and to be honest it's a credit to the game that a beginner doesn't have to throw themselves straight into full gyroscopic turrets, docked hulls & effective hotswapping set-ups just to build a simple freighter and get out of 2,2,2 for the first time.

well i planned like one sentence there, and got a bit more wordy, but tl;dr is that i don't think non-combat designs are so simple, they can be as complicated as combat ships just without guns in them, it really depends on the actual focus, and if thats "looking awesome", while not a super practical focus (unless you add an awesome-to-power convertery thing) it can't be said to be not-a-challenge can it?

 

[kulbolen]

Think of this. Currently if a new player managed to get resources, or use creative to build a large ship on their first week into the game, where is the challenge in designing that ship? If they aren't expecting combat, then they don't need to employ those defensive techniques and it's just a matter of placing blocks until the ship is full. No design challenges. As long as they understand the controls, or the fact that they can use creative, nothing stops this new player from doing that. The learning curve in this case is how blocks work, not how to design a ship that doesn't melt.

this is addressed earlier with my comments regarding salvage ships and their lack of design challenge... these problems are inherent to the way the signature systems for the ship work, not a flaw in the current power system. i totally agree that non combat design choice could be impactful if designed well... but that can happen regardless. i think salvagers cost way too little to fire and suck up way too many resources per shot and their slaved weapons are absolute shit, i think cargo provides too much per block and should require open spaces (wishful thinking), i think jamming costs too little energy and stacking shouldnt work the way it does, i think LOGIC should have more trigger options for utility over fluff, i think jumpdrives... well lets not even go there.

all of these need to be changed to make ship design choices impact performance outside combat, regardless of whether or not power is touched.

the only argument ive seen so far that i agree with is the new system may be more intuitive to learn or progress through, which i like. but all the talk about how itll perform in combat has turned me off from it in general, regardless of its potential benefit outside combat. we dont have to compromise here, and i think this may be where a lot of misunderstanding occurs. i want an overhaul that solves problems without introducing new ones.

one thing thats kinda bugging me but probably doesnt fit an argument, is that power is sorta the most basic element to all ships. none of them function wo power to run their systems, so every noob and every vet alike is still going to be building power on every ship. is this really going to be engaging or challenging when its the most basic thing every builder does 5000 times? itll still get stale, and therell still be optimal ways of doing it; i have doubts itll add much gameplay challenge after day 1. but im not sure what that means or what could be done about it, so.

my biggest concern though, is how something will impact game performance. the game performs so poorly in so many ways that basically every design decision should be working towards fixing this. no amount of fun features is getting people to keep playing when its a massive chore just to play the game.

 

[AtraUnam]

Cargo, does require open spaces? Isn't that entire purpose of requiring cargo areas in order to increase capacity, to force an open space?

 

[Az14el]

good point that salvage & cargo is gratuitously OP relative to equivalents in pretty much any other setting than starmade, of course servers could (and should :D) restrain these if they want to provide a little more even pacing to their servers gameplay. But then, salvage isn't so simple, i could build around rules/limits established in config settings related to salvage very easily if i chose too (if groups are limited, more computers, if computers are limited, more entities with firing comps linked up wirelessly)

*subtle nod to page 8 of unpopular opinions thread*

 

[kulbolen]

What kinda non-combat ship being designed, if it's actually intended to function, would have no challenge to build and improve upon?

i agree that theres still some engineering that goes into non combat ships to get more performance, my newer salvagers are way better than my older ones (they go more than 40 deep btw =p) but i will concede theres a lot less challenge in building a good noncombat ship than a good combat ship.

this just makes sense, again not arguing for realism, but its just a common sense fact of life that things work that way, because a combat ship still needs to function well when the guns are removed. its an additional design challenge to add good weaponry and armor to an already well designed ship... a warship still strives to be a stable, high performance vessel when its gun arent firing, and many are already repurposed to transport/cargo/medical/ambassador ships when they have nothing to aim at. because they were designed to handle these things.

that said, there could be more engaging aspects to building a cargo ship. id love cargo blocks that require access to load and unload. my problem with this is it has nothing to do with power; the mechanics themselves either dont exist or are rudimentary in function.
[doublepost=1489942487,1489942406][/doublepost]

Cargo, does require open spaces? Isn't that entire purpose of requiring cargo areas in order to increase capacity, to force an open space?

openly accessible spaces. i assumed we were all well aware that placing a cargo block required 1 block worth of space.

 

[Lecic]

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.

The proposed system does absolutely nothing to fix "lazy" ship design. Let's compare a lazy ship in the current game with a lazy ship with the reactor heat system.

Seriously, what?

So the proposal introduces heat. And overheating a ship negatively impacts performance. You can't win if your ship is melting. You reduce heat by reducing the systems on a ship, or using whatever cooling system we might add in as well. Is that not a problem to solve?

So the current system has power. And draining the power of a ship negatively impacts performance. You can't win if your power tanks are empty. You gain power by reducing the systems on a ship, or by adding whatever variety of power generation you prefer. Is this not a problem to solve?

I am legitimately not even thinking about how a ship looks when I discuss this.

The entire point of my last post was to prove that outside combat, a player can get away without putting thought into the design of their aesthetics

So are you thinking about players caring/not caring about their looks/aesthetics or not? You just contradicted yourself....

 

[Criss]

The proposed system does absolutely nothing to fix "lazy" ship design. Let's compare a lazy ship in the current game with a lazy ship with the reactor heat system.

Seriously, what?



So the current system has power. And draining the power of a ship negatively impacts performance. You can't win if your power tanks are empty. You gain power by reducing the systems on a ship, or by adding whatever variety of power generation you prefer. Is this not a problem to solve?

So are you thinking about players caring/not caring about their looks/aesthetics or not? You just contradicted yourself....

So with your second image, I understand this is with a peeled away hull, but let's imagine you want the ship to look like something resembling a ship and not just a pile of systems. You have internal space to manage or course. Easily arguable with the current system.

You fire your weapons and that heat box grows. Heat boundary overextends it's stay on top of other systems and negatively impacts performance. I don't think that particular detail was in the original proposal, that may have been something discussed internally, and at the moment is just a suggestion. So with that in mind you have two options. Expand the size of your hull, or reduce the systems you have so that overlap happens later rather than earlier, or settle with firing off systems less often during combat.

As for the last quote you grabbed from me, thanks for completely chopping off the last few words, totally doesn't take on a new context.
/s

The entire point of my last post was to prove that outside combat, a player can get away without putting thought into the design of their aesthetics and their systems.

 

[Raisinbat]

Heat boundary overextends it's stay on top of other systems and negatively impacts performance.

What the fuck is the point of that? Effective heatboundary is just the maximum they'll use then; surpassing that cripples the ship, and spacing systems out more is free. When are you going to kill this retarded idea?
[doublepost=1489945249,1489944758][/doublepost]

As for the last quote you grabbed from me, thanks for completely chopping off the last few words, totally doesn't take on a new context.

You said it's not a concern, but it clearly is. Regardless, the entire point of having empty space everywhere was always to allow more aesthetics/RP. Again why aren't you answering the question: How does changing the power system fix the issues you've brought up?

 

[Lecic]

You fire your weapons and that heat box grows. Heat boundary overextends it's stay on top of other systems and negatively impacts performance. I don't think that particular detail was in the original proposal, that may have been something discussed internally, and at the moment is just a suggestion. So with that in mind you have two options. Expand the size of your hull, or reduce the systems you have so that overlap happens later rather than earlier, or settle with firing off systems less often during combat.

Heatboxes are a stupid mechanic. Stop.

As for the last quote you grabbed from me, thanks for completely chopping off the last few words, totally doesn't take on a new context.

Either it doesn't take on a new context with the "and..." cut off, or I am completely misunderstanding what you are saying here. "Outside of combat, aesthetics mean nothing. Outside of combat, systems mean nothing." Yes?

 

[Crashmaster]

"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...
..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..

In what way does reducing power and systems block counts/ volume required for efficiency positively affect any of these problems?

Also still waiting on an example pic of the 'ideal' proportions ship that is such a requirement to have effective in game you have to change the StarMade game mechanics.



edit; As it's been presented and defended, "The power proposal takes a large step backwards in development while not solving lots of problems that don't exist."

 

[Amadeus]

Heatboxes are a stupid mechanic. Stop.



Either it doesn't take on a new context with the "and..." cut off, or I am completely misunderstanding what you are saying here. "Outside of combat, aesthetics mean nothing. Outside of combat, systems mean nothing." Yes?

^This, exactly.

So with your second image, I understand this is with a peeled away hull, but let's imagine you want the ship to look like something resembling a ship and not just a pile of systems. You have internal space to manage or course. Easily arguable with the current system.

You fire your weapons and that heat box grows. Heat boundary overextends it's stay on top of other systems and negatively impacts performance. I don't think that particular detail was in the original proposal, that may have been something discussed internally, and at the moment is just a suggestion. So with that in mind you have two options. Expand the size of your hull, or reduce the systems you have so that overlap happens later rather than earlier, or settle with firing off systems less often during combat.

As for the last quote you grabbed from me, thanks for completely chopping off the last few words, totally doesn't take on a new context.
/s

It seems like this proposed system favors empty space, or filler, to an insane degree. With the added idea that they are fluid instead of static, having space that is only usable at certain points in time doesn't seem very fun or engaging to me. Why not have systems that act as units, where one particular system could overheat if it is too compact, while not effecting other systems. With this you could eliminate the -emptiness- and create a new system that is engaging.

 

[Captain_Boroski]

Lecic what are you talking about? Heatboxes are goddamn brilliant.
Finally I can go completely nuts with internal roleplay aesthetics and it can even benefit the ship now that heatboxes are a thing.