Starbase Progress Notes: Week 7 (2022) - Siege insight

[ElluFB]

Hello everyone, here are the progress notes of the week 7 of 2022!

This week's progress notes give an update on how the upcoming siege features are coming along. The last time we focused on siege was in week 1. We hope that you enjoy these snippets of the Starbase development!

You can find the latest extensive overview of all items in development, including siege, in the previous progress notes: Starbase Progress Notes: Week 6.

Please note that the "Progress Notes" are different from the Starbase "Patch Notes". Progress Notes are snippets from the development team and what has been worked on during the previous week, and many of the features might not be present in the current or upcoming builds of the Starbase Early Access. Some features, especially in the design portion, can be subject to change as the development continues.

Starbase Progress Notes: Week 7 (2022) - Siege insight
February 14 - 18

• ❌ = Not started
• 🟡 = In progress
• ✔️ = Completed
• ➖️ = Not applicable (work not required in this phase)

Siege technology

Feature	Description	Design	Art	Code
Station destruction technology	The technology and servers enabling station destruction.	✔️	➖️	✔️
Weapons damage stations	Explosions and projectile based weapons can do damage to stations, Capital Ships and moon bases. Missiles and torpedoes also explode when they hit surfaces on stations.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Melee weapons damage stations	Melee attacks with the pickaxe and bare fists damage stations, Capital Ships and moon bases.	✔️	✔️	❌
Siege initiation tech	At the start of a siege, both the defending station and the attackers' Capital Ship become destructible.	✔️	➖️	✔️
Structure areas	The build zones of structures will be used to create the capturable areas for siege by forming layers.	✔️	➖️	✔️

Siege gameplay

Feature	Description	Design	Art	Code
Warzone interactions	When a military Capital Ship fast travels to the target station for a siege battle, a warzone forms and causes the Safe Zones of both the attacker and the defender to get disabled. Restrictions are also placed on any civilian Capital Ships within or close to the warzone.	✔️	➖️	🟡
Capital Ship and station size classes	Capital Ships can initiate siege only against stations that are in the same size class or smaller than it is. The size class is determined by the amount of build areas.	✔️	➖️	✔️
Area validity for all station types	All types of stations will receive a minimum material volume required for each area to be valid like Capital Ships do (however, only Capital Ships have the effect of requiring all areas to be valid to expand). Only valid areas will count towards station class and form capture zones in sieges.	🟡	🟡	🟡
Siege scheduling mechanics	Mechanics for initiating the siege by choosing a timeslot for the attack in the siege terminal. The defending station is also able to set their preferred timeslots for battles.	✔️	✔️	🟡
Defending in a siege	While fighting, both the attacking and the defending side can create obstacles by welding new parts to the station, though there will be some restrictions in place as well: the station build areas cannot be expanded and only manual welding can be used for building.	✔️	✔️	🟡
Teams for the siege	The attacking and defending companies or factions become the two teams that fight. Unaffiliated players can take their pick of the two, or remain as outsiders and for example try to scavenge the siege area for resources.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Capture gameplay	Mechanics and visuals for the capture gameplay. When a siege begins, both the target station as well as the attacker's Capital Ship become capturable for the other side. Capturing proceeds one area at a time towards the center of the structure. The HUD and other visuals will indicate if an area is capturable and who is currently in control.	✔️	🟡	✔️
Siege win condition	To win the siege, one side needs to have control of all participating structures, meaning both the attacking Capital Ship as well as the targeted station. If the minimum siege time has also passed, a victory countdown starts for the end of the battle. The countdown gets interrupted if the win condition is no longer fulfilled.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Siege aftermath	After a siege is finished, all structures will regain their Safe Zones after a short delay. The warzone will also disappear, removing limitations it imposed on the stations and Capital Ships within it.	✔️	✔️	🟡

GUI and HUD

Feature	Description	Design	Art	Code
Siege terminal	Similar screen view as the Capital Ship Fast Travel Terminal, where a military Capital Ship can initiate a siege to a station whose location is close enough or saved on a Navigation Chip. You can also join an already scheduled siege battle.	✔️	✔️	🟡
Capturing progress	When inside a capture area, the capture UI is visible to both the attacking and the defending players. It shows the current capturing progress of the siege.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Siege timers	Timers that tell you useful information about the siege. So far, a siege end timer, a minimum timer and a victory timer have been implemented.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Affiliation popup	When a player who isn't part of either of the two teams battling enters the siege area, an affiliation popup will appear. The player must then choose which party they want to support, or if they'd rather remain unaffiliated.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Siege participants and areas	Handy menus that show all the participating Capital Ships and player stations in the top right corner. Also, players of same side will see their names colored according to the attacker or defender color set in the siege properties.	✔️	✔️	✔️

More for siege

Feature	Description	Design	Art	Code
Military Capital Ships	To participate in a siege, the type of your Capital Ship must be changed from civilian to military. Capital Ship types can be modified in the Ship Manager with a similar cooldown period as ship renaming.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Military Capital Ship shield generator	Military shield generators are required on a military type Capital Ship for it to fast travel to a siege battle.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Updated endo hitbox system	New and improved hitboxes for player characters. The new system fixes several issues, for example the hitbox lagging behind when being attacked on a moving ship.	✔️	✔️	✔️
Reconstruction Machine for stations	The new station version of the Reconstruction Machine is an integral part of siege, as it can be used for respawning during the fight. For the machine to work, it requires an Endo Kit as well as a connection to a generator for electricity through a Supply Conduit network. Unlike ship machines, you can be linked to multiple station machines at once.	✔️	✔️	🟡

Gallery



Videos

Purchase Starbase Early Access now on Steam!

 

[Senkii]

Yay, pognotes!
Also... Particle trails?!

 

[SubaruSama]

wait, why did I never really consider making an asteroid base
they use moon tech and we have moon bases...
so putting some cat ears on a big asteroid fust for fun soon^^

 

[Zarenno]

1. I do like sieges, and they did really fun; however, there currently is no way to track other ships or heat in game. So to find someone for a siege you need to meticulously comb a large portion of space or try to follow them to their base from origin.

2. Also, what if the other players never agree to a time, or are no longer playing the game? Is their base not raidable? This could be a viable tactic of cheese many will use if that's the way it is.

 

[Red Bastion]

This is looking super nice! Really happy to see stuff about siege and how incredibly well it seems to be coming along!

I did want to say though, should the attacking/defending teams not have some agency on if they allow assists/who they allow to assist? I feel there will inevitably be some way to take advantage of a team by joining their side and then screwing them over, so I think it would make sense if the official and original attackers/defenders could revoke or deny affiliations. Have them be more of a request rather than "yup I'm on your team now live with it"
Apologies if I missed something that already accounted for this! It's just something I noticed that concerned me.

 

[HardworkingSlacker]

I wonder if these particles are going to be used for tracing thruster exhaust from recently flown by ships... Would be nice since tracking of other players is a highly wanted feature (even though radiation mechanics would work too or, even better, in conjunction with the former ).
But the real question is: Will the siege calendar be compatible with MS Teams to plan sieges according to your work schedule?

 

[Atsuい]

2. Also, what if the other players never agree to a time, or are no longer playing the game? Is their base not raidable? This could be a viable tactic of cheese many will use if that's the way it is.

It could be as simple as back and forth proposals between the 2 teams. The attacking team decides on a 72hr time slot to attack and sends the proposal to the defenders. Then defenders pick a preferred 24hour time slot from the 72hr and send that proposal back to the attackers. Then attackers pick again a 12 hour slot from the 24hr and finally defenders pick the exact time when the Siege begins from the 12 hour slot.

For example: Phase 1 (the attackers): Tuesday to Thursday, okay? Phase 2 (the defenders): Thursday, okay? Phase 3 (the attackers): From 6am to 6pm, okay? Phase 4 (the defenders): 12am it is then. If there's no response or agreement within the last agreed time stretch, then the battle will start at the end of it automatically. Of course the whole process could be more granular and secondary to if everyone could just agree a time of a day that suits everyone but compromises are a necessary evil.

 

[HardworkingSlacker]

It could be as simple as back and forth proposals between the 2 teams. The attacking team decides on a 72hr time slot to attack and sends the proposal to the defenders. Then defenders pick a preferred 24hour time slot from the 72hr and send that proposal back to the attackers. Then attackers pick again a 12 hour slot from the 24hr and finally defenders pick the exact time when the Siege begins from the 12 hour slot.

For example: Phase 1 (the attackers): Tuesday to Thursday, okay? Phase 2 (the defenders): Thursday, okay? Phase 3 (the attackers): From 6am to 6pm, okay? Phase 4 (the defenders): 12am it is then. If there's no response or agreement within the last agreed time stretch, then the battle will start at the end of it automatically. Of course the whole process could be more granular and secondary to if everyone could just agree a time of a day that suits everyone but compromises are a necessary evil.

I would take a slightly different approach because I don't think that defenders should have a say anymore when an actual attack is scheduled.
Instead, let defenders pick a time window where they "have to be on duty" meaning that their station is vulnerable to sieges.
Obviously, if not regulated, the choice of all defenders would be 04:00 in the morning so here is my solution to that:
You get to choose between two "tiers" of "duty shifts".

1. Work friendly: A siege can be scheduled only at one day in the weekend from (as an example) 12:00 to 18:00, when player counts are statistically the highest. This comes with the benefit of only having to be on duty at weekend which is a very work friendly approach. However, it bears the cost of perhaps having to contend with a lot of thrillseekers who might skew the balance of the battle in favor of one side. Sieges can be scheduled as close as 24h ahead, becoming publicly announced 4 hours before the start.
2. Family friendly: You get to choose two days (no matter if work or weekend day) where you have to be on duty for two hours each. This is a more family friendly approach since the weekends might be reserved for your loved ones. Since thrillseekers might not be such a great factor as in the other tier, the defender has to chose two days instead of only one. Sieges must be scheduled 48 hours ahead and become publicly announced 8 hours (4 at weekend days) before the start.

Why this system? Mainly, because it allows both factions to plan better meaning that "agreeing" to a siege time becomes much less laborous for both parties and also more player friendly for both sides. Defenders can choose a time that suits them best while attackers can, within these constraints, attack freely and without prior negotations. The public siege announcements are there to give players in the vicinity a chance to participate so that these events are more accessible to otherwise uninvolved players and especially salvagers.
OBVIOUSLY, if both parties agree to a specific time at which the siege shall take place, they should be able to have it their way no matter what the duty shift says.
The numbers I used are evidently for visualisation only and might need rebalancing according to the experiences made if this system is actually implemented.

 

[Recatek]

2. Also, what if the other players never agree to a time, or are no longer playing the game? Is their base not raidable? This could be a viable tactic of cheese many will use if that's the way it is.

It isn't an agreed upon time per-siege. The owner of a station sets its siege window times as part of configuring/creating that station, and those are the times that a siege can be started on the station. The attacker just picks a window from that configuration.

 

[Recatek]

To win the siege, one side needs to have control of all participating structures, meaning both the attacking Capital Ship as well as the targeted station. If the minimum siege time has also passed, a victory countdown starts for the end of the battle. The countdown gets interrupted if the win condition is no longer fulfilled.

The siege might benefit from an overall countdown timer (a generous one, like 3+ hours) where it ends automatically in the defender's favor. This would keep everything moving along and avoid troll sieges where the attackers initiate with no intention to capture but just sit outside in their ship farming kills.

 

[AlexiyOne]

Very interesting, though I hope there is like a sort of damage bar to see the amount of damage each side did.

 

[XenoCow]

Getting closer and closer!

 

[mikan]

What was the first video? Is it the orbit of the ship? Or is it the orbit of a capital ship?

 

[pavvvel]

mouse control ((((

 

[Starranger]

As I understand it, all stations outside of safe zone are subject to being sieged by a bigger capital ship. But what if you build your base as a civilian capital ship instead of a regular station? Would you then have a siege-proof base in any location you like? Or are there limits on where civilian capital ships can go?

 

[Askannon]

Or are there limits on where civilian capital ships can go?

not inside the belt unless it goes to a dock, if my info's still correct.

 

[Starranger]

not inside the belt unless it goes to a dock, if my info's still correct.

Thanks, that makes sense.