Make research matter, not tech unlocks.

[MrFaul]

TLDR: Research character buffs and item quality, f unlocks.

Endos are robots, unlocking "parts" as roadblocks is just plain dumb for an entity that is literally technology it self.
IMO the availability and acquiring of the necessary resources to build a thing is roadblock enough, no need to add a superficial on top.

Instead of research being a unnecessary gate keeper, make it matter:
Allow those points to be spend as character buffs like:

wep damage,​

hull/armor resistance,​

fuel consumption,​

thrust power,​

production speed​

and many more​

This makes certain people more valuable as pilots, soldiers or administrator of stations / caps etc.

Next thing allow the same points to be used to buff certain specs of item BPs like:

fuel consumption​

output​

heat generation​

hit points​

mass​

needed crafting martials​

etc.​

​

All those buffs have to have diminishing returns, down to a certain degree but it should always be rewarding to spend points on something.
That said, there also should be a "specialization multiplicator" starting at 0.5 and moving up or down depending on what skill groups you invest.
Similar skills move it up, dissimilar skills move it down. This should prevent somebody from maximizing everything.
Someone can still do that, but with a multiplicator of 0.5 it's not really worth it. (Side note 0.5 is the minimum)
(Also f reskilling, the choice should be irreversible!. Think and choose wisely)

​

This allows to build ships that have an "edge" compared to the same ship with "lesser parts" but that still could keep up with a skilled pilot.
It makes salvage operations way more exciting since you may find an over engineered part.
It makes the market way more dynamic since it matters now from whom you buy.
It makes manufacturing a whole rabbit hole of optimization possibilities.
In short it makes you matter with your own set of skills.

Now thoughts anybody?

 

[Vexus]

Terrible, PvE theme-park-MMO based ideas, where you want to be "better" than someone else at something because of arbitrary UI/database stats.

There are a thousand games which give you those things - most are single-player. A few games, like Rust or Minecraft, which do not lie to players with those UI numbers, allow players to experience more meaningful gameplay.

The research/tech tree is poorly done, that's for certain. It was unexpected and not needed and cut short lots of early creativity as people had to AFK for hours on end to reach a new tech - players normally don't do this and instead just quit the game.

 

[MrFaul]

You dislike the idea, noted. Honestly, I'm not fully on board either.

But that's the best I've come up with, and I'm pondering about this quite a while now.
There has to be some sort of a long-term progression system you need te reward long-term commitment.
Roadblocking something behind an arbitrary research system is really annoying and frustrating.
Do you have any other idea?

 

[shado20]

i get it, but dislike some of it.
(wep damage, hull/armor resistance, fuel consumption, thrust power) are all parts on a ship, how dose the person sitting in the chair affect any of this?

(production speed) ok i see this as viable as you craft you get better/faster, then possibly get better at making the parts so the wep hit harder, use less energy, less heat, stronger armor and such. but this creates that 1 player in a company that ends up building everything to get hes/hers points up higher and higher. it gives the advantage to the the mega company.

although it would make salvage a very valuable profession.

 

[Vexus]

There has to be some sort of a long-term progression system you need te reward long-term commitment.

There is: your ship.

Without SSC (as covered in another thread) your progression becomes your ship and how you improve it over time. Being one-off and not easy to re-print over and over, your designs take on a life of their own. Meta changes based on new things you think up and your reasons for them.

You're thinking of a problem that stems from a problem higher up on the chain. You are deep in the "rabbit hole" of game design problems. Since the main problem is elsewhere in the design (the beginning of the rabbit hole), you're trying to solve something that never had to be solved in the first place if the root cause of the problem was dealt with sooner. Not just the SSC, but general gameplay loops in general have been glossed over in expectation that safe-zone stations and safe-zone capital ships, with safe-zone-until-disabled-after-agreed-upon-timer military capital ships being the main way people would play the game...

It's like making a division error and trying to find out why the tenth decimal place is not the correct value when the original problem was the division error. Trying to solve for these rabbit hole problems (the incorrect 10th decimal place) is a waste of time for you, and for devs. Solve the root problem. Talk about the root problems that need solving, if possible.

Do you have any other idea?

Yes, something that Worlds Adrift did well and which could be done in Starbase with relative ease: make objects able to be crafted with any material (any metal for metal, any crystal for crystal, I suppose). This means you could make a thruster entirely out of Bastium. The performance of the part will need to be designed so crafting with poor materials leads to sub-optimal performance, but would lead to extensive gameplay in finding out the 'best' combination of materials for different parts - even if those 'best' combinations are the same as what exists now. This means if you needed to replace a broken thruster, you could slap on a sub-optimal part to make due for a time until you found or made an upgrade. Currently if you don't have 4 or more ore crates on your ship and a bunch of different materials on hand, you can't do anything if something goes wrong on your ship.

This allows the devs to get rid of "tier3" parts and so on - allow players to find out which materials make the "best" part and you end up with multiple tiers of thrusters without any new, redundant icons or other atrocities we see in the crafting UI. Just one part - thruster body - with the ability to put any metal into however many slots they want for the part - leading to thousands of potential combinations per fully-assembled part. So right now, where a full tier2 box thruster provides a flat 550k thrust, you'd have values ranging from 400k to 650k or so based upon the material composition of all the parts. It turns into a lot of work with some things, but the devs have kind of hinted at this kind of thing with different materials now available for beams and plates and so on. Want to make a full-Bastium autocannon barrel? Sure. But it produces 2x the heat and has a fire rate which is 20% slower than the 'best' one made. This creates a natural meta and a way to get up and running, make repairs, and simply just play the game, depending on what you have on hand.

This means, as above with "your ship" being the long term commitment of the game, you are invested in making your ship better and better over time. This of course hinges upon doing away with the SSC and the "root" problems of the game. Because right now none of this makes sense given the current state of "cheat-mode-enabled-ship-design-and-creation" and so on (again, covered in another thread).

 

[Askannon]

So right now, where a full tier2 box thruster provides a flat 550k thrust, you'd have values ranging from 400k to 650k

just use a different nozzle/body combination and you get anything between T1 and T3 thrust.

Yes, something that Worlds Adrift did well and which could be done in Starbase with relative ease: make objects able to be crafted with any material (any metal for metal, any crystal for crystal, I suppose). This means you could make a thruster entirely out of Bastium. The performance of the part will need to be designed so crafting with poor materials leads to sub-optimal performance, but would lead to extensive gameplay in finding out the 'best' combination of materials for different parts - even if those 'best' combinations are the same as what exists now. This means if you needed to replace a broken thruster, you could slap on a sub-optimal part to make due for a time until you found or made an upgrade. Currently if you don't have 4 or more ore crates on your ship and a bunch of different materials on hand, you can't do anything if something goes wrong on your ship.

Problem is common sense dictates that you can't actually make everything out of one material. You can make a look-alike, yes, but a working machine for example requires structure material and anything that is required for it to work (material to carry electricity to where it's needed, certain materials to get the desired interactions)
I know this is a game and sci-fi at that. But even science-fiction needs to follow some rules and can only break them at times (gravity) but being able to make everything out of any material would require a lot of explanation.
It would also needlessly complicate the crafting of machinery and devices, as you need to be aware of all the interactions for each part or the devs need to have their UI show not the static tooltip but a dynamic one that calculates all the values for you.

but the devs have kind of hinted at this kind of thing with different materials now available for beams and plates and so on.

Do plates and beams do anything? Are they moving parts or do work with electricity? As I was saying above: they are look-alikes. A statue does not, for the most part (gases, chemical reactions), care what it is made out of, but if you try to argue that you can change the magnetic component inside of an electric motor for wood, questions get asked.

The only setting, where you could get away with only using one material is fantasy in combination with magic for enchanting.
And as much one might suspect there to be magic in the game, I doubt there is.

 

[MrFaul]

There is: your ship.
Without SSC (as covered in another thread) your progression becomes your ship and how you improve it over time.

Hell no... If you want "ship progression" play SE... (Yes this is sarcasm, thx for pointing it out)
The SSC is one of SBs major selling points, it is going nowhere. (ESB probably will and should, hopefully)

You like to remove something that is a fundamental part of SBs economy and soul.
I agree on the point that current printing is total bs but this is a stop gap.
Ship spawning is also a stop gap, you won't be able to store dozens of ships for "free" like its currently possible.
It isn't intended gameplay and will be superseded by the industrial supply chain that isn't even a fully fledged idea yet.
This is beta stuff, the "game" isn't in any stage to talk about that yet.

Also how many people do you know that build their own car?
(Besides some oddballs and enthusiasts.)
Virtually nobody does that, you go to a dealer and buy a car.
You go to shop and pay for repairs / upgrades / tuning.
These are vital business models for SBs economy.
You trust people who know... or rather supposed to know,
what they are doing and pay them for their service.

Material science is one route to go for parts optimization but this has to be done,
like the skill balancing, very carefully to avoid META as much as possible.
META players can seriously derail a game for any newcomer and even crash the economy.
Every optimization needs to have harmful effects in some way or another so that the scale doesn't tip.
Oh and what Askannon said...

i get it, but dislike some of it.
(wep damage, hull/armor resistance, fuel consumption, thrust power)
are all parts on a ship, how dose the person sitting in the chair affect any of this?

Yup makes no sense, but that's a game for you ;-)

(production speed) ok i see this as viable as you craft you get better/faster, then possibly get better at making the parts so the wep hit harder, use less energy, less heat, stronger armor and such. but this creates that 1 player in a company that ends up building everything to get hes/hers points up higher and higher. it gives the advantage to the the mega company.

That's exactly whats the "specialization multiplicator" is for, it prevents such VIPs.
If you want any significant gains you have to commit to a "skill tree" for a lack of a better word.
Also the diminishing returns should to be tuned that 10% is about max you can archive.
If somebody played the game for 20 years and miraculously or rather meticulously archived 15% in something,
I'd say he damn well deserves it.!

 

[Vexus]

Problem is common sense dictates that you can't actually make everything out of one material.

First off, it's a game. Second, a generator in Starbase currently has like... 3-4 different "materials" - but none impart any special property. I'm fairly certain that, outside of needing some insulator, a single-metal generator could be made, in terms of "common sense." It's usually simple to use other materials, but could you make an all-steel generator? Sure. Thruster? Meet the ramjet. I wouldn't say this should have anything to do with anything. Many games have a single "metal" as the metal used for literally everything. It's a game.

being able to make everything out of any material would require a lot of explanation.

No. It's a game. Chill. The magic device inside your UI/inventory screen which does the circular timer waiting for a part to craft will put all the necessary pieces together in a perfect way to make any part out of a single material work flawlessly - because it's magic.

It would also needlessly complicate the crafting of machinery and devices, as you need to be aware of all the interactions for each part or the devs need to have their UI show not the static tooltip but a dynamic one that calculates all the values for you.

It would simplify low-end crafting, but make high-end crafting more complicated. This is usually a good thing. You as the player wouldn't "need" to know anything. You throw metal in, you get working part out. Done. But then you notice certain materials perform better for certain things. And then you google the spreadsheet that contains all the best materials for each thing that players - not devs - made, and you just follow what everyone else already found out for you, because that's how things work. And it doesn't complicate anything, because you have the choice. If you don't have the best material, you just go with whatever you have on hand. Currently, if you have millions of charodium, bastium, and vokarium, but no ajatite, you can't make a thruster. Too bad. You needed that rock. Because using a metal in its place... just too difficult for the magic crafting spinny wheel to do.

Do plates and beams do anything? Are they moving parts or do work with electricity?

Yes - if you want to go there - they carry stress and support the ship's durability at all times. But you're just trying to add some weird literal behavior here when it's a game. A space game. With no space physics. Nothing in the game works with electricity - it's just a concept to make sense of the game mechanics. You're in too deep bro. Go out into the belt, outside the safe zone, crash your ship, and then try and make a few replacement parts. Oh, you can't, because you don't have a 3rd ore stack available to make anything with 3 materials. Oh, so make some ore crates first! Great. Except you get to the resource bridge, and you're stumped yet again. In other words, you cannot recover from nothing, because crafting is currently too restrictive. My suggestion is to make crafting at the low-end so easy that any new player can get something that works. But also provides a high end where players who invest time and effort to getting the right materials and crafting parts a certain way will want to make the 'best' parts. Right now, a brand new player who hits an asteroid and loses a thruster from their ship, has no way to limp back home, if they don't have a ton of prep and resources on hand. Make the game more playable and simple on the low end, and increase the complexity at the high end.

The most work that would need to be done here is... well, it's a lot, on the devs, to do this, to set up properties for each material and how they affect each dynamic part (thruster, generator, fuel chamber, etc). But it's not terribly difficult. Most things would just weigh more overall if made with poorer materials, and when they don't, the performance of the object just needs to be altered somewhat. Let players find out what's "best."

And as much one might suspect there to be magic in the game, I doubt there is.

As covered above, there is magic, in the Magic Circle of Time that we all wait for when clicking on the Magic User Interface which consumes our Very Real and Present Physical Materials that sit in our station inventory, converting those materials into the Magically Formed Object that we selected.

Now, I'd much rather prefer the more "physical" crafting shown off in some of the trailers. Like rails and production facilities. Where you have to literally place a block of ore in front of an input device, which breaks that block down voxel by voxel to feed into a production machine to create a part. But hey, we're not there yet.

It's currently magic. And "swapping the nozzles out" isn't much of a meta.

You like to remove something that is a fundamental part of SBs economy and soul.

You are very biased, being still interested in the game. I enjoy the SSC too. I can see how it devalues player time, and see that it ruins gameplay and player experience more than it helps. Because every time you go into the SSC, you're no longer playing Starbase. You're playing 3D editor. The 3D editor has no game loop. It doesn't interact with other players. It has no need to exist. If players didn't have the SSC, they'd be bolting and welding and piecing together their ships with their friends, with no idea there was a 3D editor. Dev tools are supposed to be dev tools for a reason. You can create all the ships you want in the game world without the SSC - the only difference is time and effort, which the 3D editor dev-tool lets players cheat on for the detriment of the playerbase as a whole.

Also how many people do you know that build their own car?

Heh... kind of my point. Everyone in Starbase right now builds their own car, and prints unlimited copies of that car. What makes the rest of your supply chain matter is the fact that people do the work of making the car. No one does any work when they are downloading a blueprint and printing out a ship. That's the whole point. Take out the SSC, and all those supply chain parts you mention will be forced to come into existence. Do you ever buy parts from the auction house? No. Because you don't need anyone. You build your car yourself.

 

[MrFaul]

You are very biased, being still interested in the game. I enjoy the SSC too. I can see how it devalues player time, and see that it ruins gameplay and player experience more than it helps. Because every time you go into the SSC, you're no longer playing Starbase. You're playing 3D editor. The 3D editor has no game loop. It doesn't interact with other players. It has no need to exist. If players didn't have the SSC, they'd be bolting and welding and piecing together their ships with their friends, with no idea there was a 3D editor.

What? First: the SSC is in the design document of SB,
and is especially for the engineers in the target audience.
SB isn't a kids game, it is meant for a mature audience.
It is supposed to go more into the sim direction instead of the game direction.
Second: do you even know the SSC is multi player?
There are tons of people who build ships collectively together and a have a total blast.
(To be fair, only as long the game doesn't crash to often)

Heh... kind of my point. Everyone in Starbase right now builds their own car, and prints unlimited copies of that car. What makes the rest of your supply chain matter is the fact that people do the work of making the car. No one does any work when they are downloading a blueprint and printing out a ship. That's the whole point. Take out the SSC, and all those supply chain parts you mention will be forced to come into existence. Do you ever buy parts from the auction house? No. Because you don't need anyone. You build your car yourself.

Wow, have you even read what I wrote or rather understood?
Because most of your arguments are nil since what we have now are placeholders that can't be scrutinized since they do not represent final mechanics. Nobody argues about that.
You have to look at what the game will be to bring arguments with substance.
The game has a clear cut direction that is not really up to debate.
All we can do is debate finer details along that path.