Magic
- Thread starter Tennyboy
- Start date
I don't think this is the game for magic... if you can get some scifi components, sure though, go nuts. Even interesting material properties (and combinations) might fit.
Magic has its place, and I like to read fantasy (and therefor often magic) quite a lot, but in my opinion this game would not be richer for it (when you could just have the magical black boxes that are devices and machinery, where you don't know what happens inside, but you know what it affects).
Magic has its place, and I like to read fantasy (and therefor often magic) quite a lot, but in my opinion this game would not be richer for it (when you could just have the magical black boxes that are devices and machinery, where you don't know what happens inside, but you know what it affects).
what about the power that might work like lightning but they have an explanation for why it's in the game. and maybe there would be a way to unlock it for your character and you have to find different pieces of the endo to get its power that way there could be a larger story for the community to try and figure out.
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2020
- Messages
- 53
Magic in Sci-Fi, when done right, can be incredible, yeah. But I don't think it has any place in Starbase's extremely mechanical, robotic, and engineering-focused take on the genre. In a game where even the players themselves are engineered machines made up of devices, and the core focus is on well-designed ships made with clear logic and... mostly realistic functions/patterns, magic would probably look out of place and very likely mess up the dynamic. No point in using tripods or other weapons when you can shoot fire out of your fingertips. No point in creating convenient ways to transport heavy objects by hand when you can move them with your mind, or to use tools to remove parts from ships when you can rip them off telekinetically.
What magic would work in Starbase, anyway? Pyromancy would be odd, since there's not exactly much air nor much flammable, but there is supposed to be a flamethrower weapon down the road, so I guess that problem is already solved... but then, how do you introduce pyromancy without making the flamer irrelevant? Necromancy would be useless, since everything is a robot so there's nothing to raise. Ice would either be really underpowered (machinery could easily break through light ice or completely ignore the cold, given everyone already lives in the cold vacuum of space) or overpowered (completely freezing things is never fun in a PvP environment, since it basically tells the target they arent'y allowed to play anymore until the freeze debuff wears off), etc etc. Everything either makes something else irrelevant, makes something else to easy to ignore/defeat/solve, or wouldn't work at all. It certainly wouldn't fix any of the problems with keeping players around either; people need more core content and big gameplay loops, adding more things to play with without anything to use them with won't help much in the long term. Probably better to stick to some good old sufficiently advanced technology for our "magic" here.
What magic would work in Starbase, anyway? Pyromancy would be odd, since there's not exactly much air nor much flammable, but there is supposed to be a flamethrower weapon down the road, so I guess that problem is already solved... but then, how do you introduce pyromancy without making the flamer irrelevant? Necromancy would be useless, since everything is a robot so there's nothing to raise. Ice would either be really underpowered (machinery could easily break through light ice or completely ignore the cold, given everyone already lives in the cold vacuum of space) or overpowered (completely freezing things is never fun in a PvP environment, since it basically tells the target they arent'y allowed to play anymore until the freeze debuff wears off), etc etc. Everything either makes something else irrelevant, makes something else to easy to ignore/defeat/solve, or wouldn't work at all. It certainly wouldn't fix any of the problems with keeping players around either; people need more core content and big gameplay loops, adding more things to play with without anything to use them with won't help much in the long term. Probably better to stick to some good old sufficiently advanced technology for our "magic" here.
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2021
- Messages
- 61
I would like it if an update where to magically appear in the progress notes right now that said "everything done, chaps. We are ready to release Capital Ships, Moon Mining and a working designer/editor for them and stations".
Man, that would invoke some magic feelings in me for sure.
Only problem is that this is unlikely to happen unless FB turns to the dark arts of voodoo and black magic and maybe sacrifices a virgin to please the dev gods...
Man, that would invoke some magic feelings in me for sure.
Only problem is that this is unlikely to happen unless FB turns to the dark arts of voodoo and black magic and maybe sacrifices a virgin to please the dev gods...
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2020
- Messages
- 67
What would be the point? The point of magic in a fantasy setting is to allow inexplainable powers, events, and entities that defy the natural laws. Why would we want these in the Sci-Fi setting of Starbase, where technology allows the same? Large NPC factions and voxel terrain have absolutely nothing to do with the question. There's just no need for magic here.